On the morning of October 19, 1979, James Briley met a Richmond judge to go over the conditions of his parole. He had been released after serving time for a 1973 conviction for armed robbery and attempted murder. That evening, according to the testimony that sent him to death row, he and his two brothers and a 16-year-old neighbor broke into a house in Richmond to rob a man they knew. Three people died there: Harvey W. Wilkerson; Judy Diane Barton, who was 23 and pregnant; and her five-year-old son, Harvey Wayne Barton.
A Richmond jury convicted James Briley in January 1980 of the capital murders of Judy Barton and her son, and of the first-degree murder of Wilkerson, along with robbery, rape and firearm charges. He was sentenced to death twice. Four years later he and his older brother Linwood led six condemned men out of Virginia's death row at the Mecklenburg Correctional Center, an escape that wire services and newspapers of the time called the largest from any American death row. The brothers were caught in Philadelphia 19 days later. Linwood was executed in October 1984, and James on April 18, 1985.
Police and prosecutors linked the Briley brothers and their accomplice to about 11 or 12 killings in and around Richmond in 1979.
James Dyral Briley grew up in Richmond's North Side, the middle of three brothers who would all be sent to prison for the 1979 crimes. Linwood was the oldest and Anthony the youngest. A WTVR CBS 6 report in 2014 described their father and mother as respected members of the North Richmond community. The Washington Post reported in 1985 that their father had been afraid of his sons and had slept with padlocks on his door.
The brothers kept a boa constrictor and piranhas at home, and UPI reported that they also kept dogs. A Richmond prosecutor, Warren Von Schuch, told UPI in 1984 that the pets reflected the brothers' violent way of life and that they "were opposed to having weaknesses of any sort."
Trouble with the law began early in the family. In 1971, when Linwood was 16, he shot and killed an elderly neighbor from inside the family home, according to WTVR. James's own record before 1979 is set out in the court opinions. The Supreme Court of Virginia recorded a 1973 conviction for armed robbery and attempted murder, and the Fourth Circuit described his prior convictions as armed robbery and the attempted shooting of a police officer. He was on parole when the October 1979 killings took place, and had met the judge about his parole conditions that same morning.
During 1979 a series of robberies, assaults and killings in Richmond and nearby Henrico County went unsolved for months. Many of the cases at first seemed unrelated and were handed to different detectives, Virginia Lawyers Weekly reported in 2009. They were tied together only after the arrests in October, largely through what the accomplice Duncan Eric Meekins told investigators.
In June 1984 UPI listed the victims police had linked to the Briley brothers. They included John Gallaher, a Richmond disc jockey known on the air as "Johnny G," for whose murder Linwood was sentenced to death; Mary Wilfong, a private nurse; Charles Garner, 59, and Blanche Page, 75, both of Richmond; Mary Gowen, 76, who was killed after coming home from baby-sitting; Christopher Phillips, 17; Michael McDuffie, who was shot in Henrico County; and Thomas Saunders, who was shot in Richmond. A Washington Post chronology published after Linwood's execution placed Gallaher's abduction on September 14, 1979, the nurse's death on October 1, and the killings of an elderly woman and her elderly boarder on October 5.
The same UPI report said the brothers had been tied to 11 killings in all, that Linwood had been convicted in six of them and James in seven, and that some killings were named in both brothers' cases. The reports do not identify which of the killings, beyond the three of October 19, made up James's other convictions.
Prosecutors said the brothers wanted no witnesses left alive. Their motive was never made clear. UPI reported in 1984 that one informer had told police the brothers wanted reputations as killers so they could become professional hit men.
Harvey Wilkerson lived in Richmond with Judy Diane Barton, his common-law wife, and her son, Harvey Wayne Barton. The Fourth Circuit identified Wilkerson as the boy's father. Judy Barton was 23 and pregnant; a Washington Post chronology said she was eight months pregnant. Wilkerson's age was given as 26 by UPI. Little else is on record about the three, beyond their names, their ages and the family they made together.
The account of what happened inside the house comes from Meekins, who was the state's main witness at James Briley's trial, as the Supreme Court of Virginia summarized it in 1980. Meekins testified that he and the three brothers spent the evening of October 19 drinking and smoking marijuana at the Briley home, and that they planned to rob Wilkerson. James carried a shotgun and Linwood a .22 pistol. The four waited in a shed across the street until other people had left the house. James and Linwood went in first, with Anthony and Meekins behind them.
Meekins testified that he himself raped Judy Barton and did not see James do so. The jury convicted James of rape; the Supreme Court of Virginia later held that the capital charge required proof that he was the one who killed her and that he was an accomplice in the rape, and found both proved.
According to Meekins, James told him, in the words the court quoted from his testimony, "You got to get one," and Meekins shot Wilkerson. In its summary the court stated that James shot Judy Barton, that Meekins killed Wilkerson, and that James killed the child. All three died of gunshot wounds.
The group took money from the house. Meekins said Linwood and James divided it later at the Briley home, and that he received about $100.
Richmond police officers had been keeping the brothers and Meekins under surveillance that night, without knowing that any crime was taking place. The officers' accounts, as the court summarized them, matched Meekins on the men's clothing, their sizes and their movements. Officers saw Linwood leave first, carrying a paper bag, to start the car. They saw Anthony carry a large shopping bag out of the house, James put a pistol into his pants, and Meekins leave with a .22 rifle.
The car had a police scanner, and the men realized they were being followed. They stopped on another street, where Meekins tried to hide the rifle and Linwood threw the shotgun over a fence. Residents later turned both weapons over to police, along with a holster that Meekins recognized. The men abandoned the car after they noticed officers watching them through a scope.
The bodies of Wilkerson, Judy Barton and her son were found on October 21, two days after the killings. On October 22 police arrested the brothers. The court recorded that Linwood and Meekins were taken into custody at about 7:30 that evening, and the Washington Post chronology lists all three brothers as arrested that day. Police said Linwood was wearing Gallaher's ring when he was arrested, and that other belongings of the disc jockey were found in his home and car, according to the Post. Meekins gave a detailed confession on October 25.
The physical evidence was limited. The bullet that killed Wilkerson was a .38, and the bullets and casings recovered from Judy Barton and at the scene were .22 caliber. A firearms expert testified that the .22 rifle Meekins had carried could not have fired them. The .22 pistol and the derringer were never found.
In April 1985, at a news conference in the week of his execution, James Briley admitted that he had gone back to the Barton house days after the killings to steal a television, and that he had seen the bodies there. He said he did not tell the police because, as a Black former convict, doing so would have been "killing myself," The Washington Post reported.
Duncan Eric Meekins was 16 and a neighbor of the Brileys. He made a plea agreement with prosecutors under which he received a life sentence for the murder of Wilkerson, and he testified for the state. Virginia Lawyers Weekly reported in 2009 that the deal had been structured so that he would probably be released after about 15 years, that he had been given a new name and moved into another state's prison system, and that the two prosecutors who had handled the Briley cases had agreed to speak for him at a parole hearing. It reported that he had been denied parole the year before.
His testimony was the core of the case against James Briley. At trial the defense tried to show that Meekins could not be believed. Meekins admitted on the stand that his first statements to police had been false and that he would lie to save his own life.
James Briley was tried separately from Linwood, in January 1980, before a jury in the Circuit Court of the City of Richmond, with Judge James B. Wilkinson presiding. His lawyers were Halford I. Hayes and Richard A. Turner of Richmond. Before trial they asked for a change of venue or venire because of the news coverage, and the court refused. The prosecutor who tried the Brileys was Aubrey Davis, according to UPI.
The trial was held in two stages, one on guilt and one on punishment. James did not testify. His defense concentrated on discrediting Meekins. During the trial the defense sought taped and written statements that Meekins had given to Detectives Norman A. Harding and D. C. Gery and that had not been handed over. The defense said it had asked the prosecutor for any such material several times and had been told, "I have no Brady material in my file." After the Commonwealth rested its case, the defense moved for a mistrial. The judge refused, but ordered the tapes and transcripts produced, and the defense recalled Meekins and Harding for more cross-examination.
The jury convicted him on six charges: the capital murder of Harvey Wayne Barton in the commission of armed robbery; the capital murder of Judy Diane Barton in the commission of, or after, rape; the first-degree murder of Harvey W. Wilkerson; the robbery of Wilkerson; the rape of Judy Barton; and the use of a firearm in the commission of each of those crimes.
The difference between the counts followed Virginia law. Capital murder required proof that the defendant was the one who did the killing. Because Meekins fired the shot that killed Wilkerson, James was a principal in the second degree to that killing and, as the Fourth Circuit later put it, was not eligible for death on that count. He was convicted of first-degree murder for it.
At the penalty stage the Commonwealth presented his earlier convictions and his prison records. The Fourth Circuit recorded that the jury deliberated about 45 minutes before recommending death on both capital counts. After a probation officer prepared a report, the trial court held a sentencing hearing and confirmed both death sentences. A UPI profile in 1984 listed his other sentences as life for the first-degree murder, 40 years for robbery and 20 years for rape. He entered the Virginia prison system in March 1980, according to UPI, and was one of the few people in the United States to receive two death sentences from a single murder trial.
The Supreme Court of Virginia affirmed the convictions and death sentences on November 26, 1980, in an opinion by Justice Harrison for a unanimous court. It rejected four main arguments.
On venue, the court found the news coverage factual rather than inflammatory. On the capital charges, it held that the Commonwealth did not have to prove James was the main actor in the robbery or the rape: it was enough that he was the killer and an accomplice in the underlying crime, and he was both. On the withheld statements, it found that the Meekins material was not favorable to the defense and that the trial judge's remedy had been adequate, partly because the defense had sat through part of Linwood's trial and knew what Meekins would say. On the death sentences, it held that Virginia's sentencing statute was not unconstitutionally vague and that the evidence supported both findings the jury had made, that he would be a continuing serious threat to society and that his conduct was outrageously or wantonly vile.
The opinion described him as "a cool, calculating, and depraved murderer, rapist, and robber," and added, "We cannot conceive of a better candidate to commit a future robbery, rape, or murder than the defendant." It found the killings deliberate and premeditated. The court decided Linwood's appeal the same day.
His lawyers did not ask the United States Supreme Court to review that decision. They filed a federal habeas corpus petition in the Eastern District of Virginia on March 5, 1981. The district court dismissed it, but the Fourth Circuit stayed his execution and sent the case back to be held while he went through state habeas proceedings, which began on March 16, 1981. The state circuit court rejected his claims, including one that his trial lawyers had been ineffective, and the Supreme Court of Virginia refused his appeal. The U.S. Supreme Court denied review in 1983.
He then filed an amended federal petition on June 3, 1983. A federal magistrate, David Lowe, found in a 50-page ruling that he had "received a fair trial," UPI reported, and the district court dismissed the petition on June 22, 1984. By then James Briley was a fugitive.
On December 28, 1984, a Fourth Circuit panel of Judges Widener, Phillips and Wilkinson affirmed the dismissal in an opinion by Judge Wilkinson. It held that the penalty-stage instructions, read as a whole, left the jury free to choose life and to weigh mitigating evidence, and "satisfied the essential requirements of due process." It rejected his challenges to the "vileness" finding, to the verdict form, to the exclusion of two jurors who were unwilling to impose death, and to his lawyers' performance. His appeal lawyers by then were James X. Dempsey of Arnold and Porter, Gerald T. Zerkin of Richmond and Richard J. Wertheimer.
The Washington Post reported on March 26, 1985, that the U.S. Supreme Court had rejected his third attempt to stop the execution. That petition did not challenge the convictions; it argued that his trial lawyers had been inadequate and that the jurors had not been told clearly that they could choose life imprisonment over death. His execution was set for April 18.
On death row at the Mecklenburg Correctional Center in Boydton, Virginia, James and Linwood Briley planned a way out. In April 1985 James said for the first time that the two of them had plotted for two years before the escape, The Washington Post reported.
On the evening of May 31, 1984, at about 9 p.m., prisoners on the death row cellblock created a disturbance to draw guards into the unit, then overpowered them with homemade knives, UPI reported the next day. In his 1990 dissent in Evans v. Muncy, Justice Thurgood Marshall described six death row inmates armed with makeshift knives taking 12 guards and 2 nurses hostage. The prisoners took the guards' uniforms and locked most of the hostages in a closet.
They then staged a bomb scare. A caller told a prison transportation officer that there was a bomb in the building and that a van was needed to remove it. The prisoners had disguised a fire extinguisher as a bomb, set it on a stretcher and carried it out to the van while warning the guards to keep back. Six men drove off the grounds in the prison van, dressed as guards: Linwood Briley, James Briley, Earl Clanton, Willie Leroy Jones, Derick Peterson and Lem Tuggle. No injuries were reported in the escape itself.
Accounts gathered after the escape put James Briley at the center of the danger to the hostages. A guard, James Fitts, told state police, "I heard James Briley make a statement that he was going to kill all of the guards, but Evans and Turner talked him out of it," according to an article in The American Lawyer on the case of Wilbert Lee Evans. Evans and Willie Lloyd Turner were condemned prisoners who stayed behind. The same article reported that a nurse was sexually assaulted by two prisoners until Evans ordered them to stop, and that Turner told the men leaving that there would be no killing and no raping. Justice Marshall's dissent relied on uncontested affidavits from prison officers that Evans calmed the riot, saved the lives of several hostages and prevented the rape of one of the nurses. The U.S. Supreme Court refused on October 17, 1990, to stop Evans's execution, with Marshall dissenting.
Robert Landon, the head of the Virginia Department of Corrections, blamed the escape on "a breakdown in human engineering," saying that guards had not followed procedures, and 16 prison employees were placed on administrative leave, according to a UPI chronology. Aubrey Davis, the prosecutor who had tried the Brileys, blamed a failure of duty and warned that dangerous inmates might kill again to carry out an escape.
The van was found the next day near an elementary school in Warrenton, North Carolina, about 20 miles from the prison. Clanton and Peterson were captured in a Warrenton laundromat on June 1. About 200 officers from the FBI and the police of Virginia and North Carolina searched the area with bloodhounds and helicopters. Gov. Charles Robb offered a $10,000 reward on June 4 for information leading to the capture of the Briley brothers.
On June 8, Tuggle was captured at a roadblock in Jay, Vermont, after robbing a store, and Jones surrendered. Reported sightings of the Brileys came from North Carolina, from Richmond and, from June 10, from the Vermont and Quebec border, where Canadian police joined the search.
The brothers had gone to Philadelphia instead. FBI agents believed they arrived there around June 1. Investigators learned from prison records that the brothers had relatives in the area, and that they had telephoned an uncle, several times in the two months before the escape. Information from the arrests in New England also suggested the brothers had passed through Philadelphia.
On the night of Tuesday, June 19, about 20 FBI agents, with Philadelphia and Virginia police, arrested James and Linwood Briley outside a garage in North Philadelphia, without a struggle. An FBI agent, John L. Hogan, said they were "completely surprised." The brothers had been doing work on a building that was being renovated, under false names, and the man renovating the building told UPI he had no idea who they were. Their uncle was arrested the same night and charged with harboring fugitives. James told reporters after his arrest, "I'm innocent of everything that was done down in Virginia."
A federal magistrate set bail for each brother at $10 million. The brothers waived extradition and were returned to Virginia within days. They were the last of the six escapees to be recaptured.
Linwood Briley was electrocuted at the Virginia State Penitentiary in Richmond on October 12, 1984, for the murder of John Gallaher. James was left to pursue his last appeals alone. By March 1985 he had been moved from Mecklenburg to the state penitentiary in Richmond, where the electric chair was kept.
In his April 1985 news conference, James said his brother's execution had given him more courage and determination to fight and to live. He also said it had shown racism in Virginia, pointing to people in the crowd outside the prison that night who had shouted a racial slur and waved Confederate flags.
On March 28, 1985, three weeks before his execution date, James Briley was married in the basement of the state penitentiary, near the electric chair. The bride was a former North Carolina television personality and freelance writer, 44, who was writing a book about him and his brothers. The penitentiary chaplain, Marjorie Bailey, performed the ceremony. His father attended, along with the warden, E. L. Booker, and about 10 administrative and security staff. His mother was too ill to come, and reporters were kept out. The bride was searched before the ceremony.
She told UPI afterward that the wedding had strengthened her belief in his innocence: "We're going to free this man because he's innocent." She said she planned to write a book arguing that the brothers had been the victims of a conspiracy by Richmond prosecutors. James later defended the marriage to reporters, saying it was based on love.
His father, who had avoided reporters since his sons were linked to the killings, spoke at a news conference with other family members and members of Virginians Against the Death Penalty in April 1985. He said his son was "innocent of the charges and should be granted a reprieve," UPI reported. The family argued that the brothers had not received fair trials because they were poor and Black, and asked Gov. Robb for clemency.
The governor's office received 216 letters asking that James's life be spared, compared with more than 1,000 for Linwood, and only a handful urging that the execution go ahead, The Washington Post reported. Robb's press secretary, George Stoddart, said the governor was unlikely to intervene and called clemency "an extraordinary power of the governor." By then, UPI reported, 42 judges had heard James Briley's case.
On the Tuesday before his execution, James Briley spoke to about a dozen reporters for some 40 minutes in a basement room of the penitentiary, using a telephone through bulletproof plexiglass, with his lawyer beside him. The Washington Post described him as calm and confident.
He said he was innocent and had been framed, and that Meekins had testified against him to avoid the electric chair. "I was not the animal the press has made me out to be," he said. He said he was sorry for what had happened but would not say he was sorry for committing the crimes. He suggested that the real killers might yet confess to save his life. He said Virginia was more likely to sentence Black defendants to death than white defendants for similar crimes, and called that racist. He said he had written a will, and that any royalties from a book or film should go to his family. He wanted to be remembered, he said, as "a person who fought for his freedom."
His lawyer, Gerald Zerkin, made a final attempt in federal court based on a statement from a woman prisoner who said Meekins had told her he committed the murders. Judge D. Dortch Warriner of the U.S. District Court dismissed the claim without prejudice, so that it would have to go through the state courts first, and said it had no merit. He called the woman "simply not credible," UPI reported. The Supreme Court of Virginia also refused to halt the execution, and Gov. Robb declined to intervene.
At about 7:45 on the morning of the execution, at least four inmates in the penitentiary's B building, armed with homemade weapons and with pillowcases over their heads, attacked a guard and tried to drag him into a cell. Officials said the inmates had meant to take hostages and disrupt the execution. Nine guards and one inmate were injured and taken to the Medical College of Virginia. "All hell broke loose," the assistant warden, Rufus Fleming, told The Washington Post. Officials put the time needed to end the disturbance at 15 minutes (UPI) and nearly 30 minutes (the Post). Seventeen inmates were placed in segregation and the prison was locked down. Officials said they did not know whether James Briley had any role in it.
He was placed under death watch at 10 a.m. His wife visited him for about two hours that afternoon, and he spent time on the telephone with his family and listening to recorded music. His wife praised the inmates who had taken part in the uprising, the Post reported, and said that violence breeds violence.
Outside, about 600 people gathered behind barricades half a block from death row, by the Post's count: about 350 who supported the execution, some of whom shouted racial taunts, and about 250 opponents who held a candlelight vigil and sang hymns. Police reported fewer than a dozen arrests. Gov. Robb stayed in his office with an open telephone line to the prison and did not intervene.
James Briley was electrocuted that night and pronounced dead at 11:07 p.m. He made no formal last statement. According to UPI, he looked at the nine official witnesses, smiled and asked, "Are you happy?" Prison officials told the Post he "just smiled." Before he died he thanked the chaplain who had married him. No news reporters were among the witnesses. The Richmond mayor, Roy A. West, who had witnessed Linwood's execution, was a witness again.
Accounts of his last meal differ slightly: fried shrimp with cocktail sauce and a lemon-lime soft drink, according to the Post, and fried shrimp, a soft drink and ice cream, according to UPI.
His was Virginia's third execution since the restoration of capital punishment, and the 42nd in the United States since the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976. The Post reported that three more executions were scheduled in Virginia within two months and that 27 other men were on the state's death row.
Anthony Briley, the youngest brother, was not part of the escape; he was serving his sentence in another Virginia prison. The Washington Post reported in March 1985 that he had been 16 when arrested in 1979 and was serving 109 years. Virginia Lawyers Weekly reported in 2009 that he was 51 and serving life plus 139 years. The Lawyers Weekly article described him as present at many of the killings but said he did not kill anyone himself.
Meekins remained in prison under another name. In 2009 he was 46, had earned a high school equivalency diploma and certificates in plumbing and heating and air conditioning repair, and was preparing for a second parole hearing, with the lead detective in the case, Norman Harding, expected to speak about his importance to the prosecutions, Virginia Lawyers Weekly reported. The result of that hearing was not reported.
Soon after the 1984 recapture, two Virginia musicians recorded a satirical song about the brothers as a party joke, and a Lynchburg radio station played it, UPI reported. In 2014 the family home in Richmond, which the brothers' father had sold to a developer about a year earlier, was back on the market; the buyer told WTVR he had lost heart after the house's history was reported. On the 35th anniversary of the escape in 2019, WTVR recalled it as the nation's first successful death row escape.
His innocence claim. From his arrest in Philadelphia to his last news conference, James Briley said he was innocent and that Meekins had framed him. The jury, the Supreme Court of Virginia, the federal district court and the Fourth Circuit all rejected his challenges, and the last-minute claim that Meekins had confessed to another prisoner was found not credible. His conviction rested largely on the testimony of an accomplice who admitted lying to police at first, but police surveillance corroborated parts of that testimony.
How many killings. Reported totals for the brothers' group vary. UPI in June 1984 said 11 murders, with James convicted in seven and Linwood in six; UPI later the same month said the brothers had been convicted of 10 murders; an Associated Press report said nine between them; UPI and the Post in 1985 linked the gang to 12 killings; the Post in March 1985 wrote of a 1979 crime spree that left 11 dead; WTVR in 2014 said as many as 10. Only the October 19 case is documented in detail in the court record.
Who led. UPI described Linwood as the gang's leader and the mastermind of the escape. Other UPI and Washington Post reports said James and Linwood masterminded the escape together, and James himself said the two had planned it for two years.
The hit man story. The report that the brothers wanted to become professional killers for hire came from a single informer, as relayed by UPI in 1984. No court is reported to have tested it.
1973: Convicted of armed robbery and attempted murder (the Fourth Circuit describes the prior convictions as armed robbery and the attempted shooting of a police officer).
1979: A series of killings in Richmond and Henrico County later attributed by police to the Briley brothers and Duncan Meekins.
October 19, 1979: In the morning, meets a Richmond judge about his parole conditions. In the evening, Harvey W. Wilkerson, Judy Diane Barton and Harvey Wayne Barton are killed in their Richmond home.
October 21, 1979: The three bodies are found.
October 22, 1979: The Briley brothers and Meekins are arrested.
October 25, 1979: Meekins gives a detailed confession.
January 1980: Tried in the Circuit Court of the City of Richmond; convicted of two capital murders, first-degree murder, robbery, rape and firearm counts; jury recommends death on both capital counts.
March 1980: Enters the Virginia prison system.
November 26, 1980: Supreme Court of Virginia affirms.
March 5, 1981: Federal habeas petition filed; the Fourth Circuit later stays the execution pending state habeas, begun March 16, 1981.
1983: U.S. Supreme Court denies review of the state habeas ruling; amended federal petition filed June 3.
May 31, 1984: Escapes from death row at Mecklenburg Correctional Center with Linwood and four others.
June 19, 1984: Recaptured with Linwood in Philadelphia.
June 22, 1984: Federal district court dismisses his habeas petition.
October 12, 1984: Linwood Briley executed.
December 28, 1984: Fourth Circuit affirms the dismissal.
March 1985: U.S. Supreme Court rejects his bid to stop the execution.
March 28, 1985: Married in the state penitentiary.
April 18, 1985: Executed in the electric chair at the Virginia State Penitentiary, Richmond; pronounced dead at 11:07 p.m.