Anthony Ray Briley was born in Richmond on February 17, 1958, the youngest of the three. He is carried here as an individual because he was tried and sentenced as one; his brothers Linwood and James have their own entries, were convicted of more, and were executed.
The brothers, with a younger accomplice named Duncan Eric Meekins, robbed and killed across Richmond between March 12 and October 19, 1979. Figures for the series differ widely: contemporary reporting settled on eleven, most later accounts say at least twelve, and one tally runs to twenty-one by including the 1971 killing and every death attributed to the group. What follows in the victim field is what this brother was convicted of, not the series total.
It ended on October 19, 1979 at the house of Harvey Wilkerson, a short distance from the Briley home. Wilkerson, his partner Judy Barton, who was twenty-three and pregnant, and her five-year-old son Harvey were bound and killed. The bodies were not found until October 21. Police had seen the group in the area, and arrests followed within days. Meekins, who was a minor, gave evidence against the brothers.
He was convicted of four counts of first-degree murder together with robbery and a firearms count, and was sentenced to life imprisonment. He turned himself in after the Wilkerson killings.
He was not sentenced to death and he was not part of the 1984 escape from death row, being held at a different prison. He is at the Lawrenceville Correctional Center. Duncan Meekins, the accomplice who gave evidence, also remains in custody.
The difference between his sentence and his brothers' is the reason this case is carried as three entries rather than one. The same series produced a death sentence, two death sentences, and a life term, and a single combined entry could not state any of that accurately.