Linwood Earl Briley

Serial Killer

Linwood Earl Briley: Leader of the Briley Brothers Murder Spree

Background

Linwood Earl Briley was born on March 26, 1954, in Richmond, Virginia. He became the dominant figure in a group that included his younger brothers James Dyral “J.B.” Briley Jr. and Anthony Ray Briley, as well as teenage associate Duncan Eric Meekins. During 1979, the group carried out a succession of robberies, assaults, rapes, home invasions and murders in Richmond and neighboring Henrico County. Contemporary prosecutors publicly linked the Briley group to eleven murders during the 1979 period, while later accounts have attributed additional killings to Linwood, including a 1971 homicide he committed as a teenager and the March 1979 shooting of Edric Alvin Clark. The precise victim count varies because not every homicide associated with the Brileys resulted in a separate murder conviction and because later chronologies have included killings that were not part of the eleven-victim list publicly identified by prosecutors in 1984. What is clear is that Linwood personally committed several of the killings and participated in numerous others. His crimes were characterized less by a single victim type than by opportunism: young and old, men and women, acquaintances and complete strangers were attacked.

The 1971 Killing of Orline Christian

Linwood Briley’s first known killing occurred while he was only sixteen years old. On January 28, 1971, his 57-year-old neighbor, Orline Christian, was outside near her Richmond home when she was struck by a small-caliber rifle bullet fired from the Briley residence. Her death was initially believed to have resulted from natural causes. During preparations for her funeral, however, a small wound was noticed and a closer examination revealed that she had actually been shot. Investigators reconstructed the bullet’s trajectory and traced the shot to the Briley home. A rifle was recovered, and Linwood admitted firing the weapon. The case did not result in a murder conviction. The shooting was treated as accidental in court, and Briley was convicted of involuntary manslaughter and sent to a juvenile reformatory for approximately a year. The episode was an early indication of the violence that would emerge much more dramatically eight years later. ...

Confirmed Victims: (12)

Michael McDuffie Age: (20), Date of Death: 1979-03-21

Suspected Victims:

William Bucher , Date of Death: 1979-03-12

Virginia Bucher , Date of Death: 1979-03-12

Briley Brothers - Wikipedia