[2] With their younger brother Anthony, Linwood and J.B. were regarded by older neighbors as young people who would help them repair cars or mow lawns.
James Dyral Briley Sr., reportedly the only person the brothers respected, kept his bedroom door padlocked from the inside overnight.
While alone at home, Linwood fatally shot Orline Christian, a 57-year old neighbor, with a rifle from his bedroom window as she was hanging out some laundry on a clothesline.
The crime almost went unidentified, but her relatives noticed a small bloody mark under her armpit at the viewing and asked a funeral director to re-examine the body.
After his lawyer convinced the judge that the shooting had been an accident, Linwood was sent to reform school to serve a one-year sentence for the killing.
[4][5] In 1979, the three Briley brothers and an accomplice, Duncan Eric Meekins, began the seven-month series of random killings that terrified the city and surrounding region.
[6] Their first attack occurred on March 12, 1979, when Linwood knocked on the door of Henrico County couple William and Virginia Bucher.
William Bucher managed to free himself and his wife from their restraints, which Meekins apparently had not tied tightly enough, and escape just before the house became engulfed in flames.
On March 21, Michael W. McDuffie, a vending machine serviceman, was assaulted, shot, and robbed in his suburban home by the Brileys.
Ten days later, on March 31, Linwood shot and killed 28-year old Edric Alvin Clark over a drug dispute involving Meekins.
He was then driven out to the ruins of a paper mill on Mayo Island, located in the middle of the James River, where he was removed from the trunk of his car and shot dead at point blank range in the head.
Five days later, on October 5, just two blocks from the Briley home on 4th Avenue, 75-year-old Blanche Page and her 59-year-old boarder Charles Garner were murdered by the brothers.
On the morning of October 19, despite having promised a judge earlier that day that he would stay out of trouble while out on parole, J.B. led his brothers on another prowl that night for yet another victim.
Meekins continued the sexual assault, after which Linwood dragged Barton back into the living room, briefly rummaged in the premises for valuables, and then left the house.
He took the offer and provided a full detailing of the crime spree; as a result, he escaped the death penalty and was incarcerated under an alias at an out of state prison away from the Briley brothers.
A single life sentence with parole eligibility was handed down to Anthony Briley, youngest brother of the trio, due to his limited involvement in the killings.
Linwood and James Briley were the ringleaders in a six-inmate escape from Virginia's death row at Mecklenburg Correctional Center on May 31, 1984.
During the early moments of the escape, in which a coordinated effort resulted in inmates taking over the death row unit, both Brileys expressed strong interest in killing the captured guards by dousing them with rubbing alcohol and tossing a lit match.
Meanwhile, Wilbert Lee Evans, on death row after being convicted of the murder of Alexandria City sheriff's deputy William Truesdale, prevented Linwood from raping a female nurse.
Two inmates, Lem Davis Tuggle Jr. (convicted of raping and murdering one woman shortly after being released for another such crime; executed by lethal injection on December 12, 1996) and Willie Leroy Jones (convicted of two capital murders; executed on September 11, 1992), almost succeeded, making it as far as Vermont before being captured at gunpoint by police.
They were captured on June 19 by a heavily armed group of FBI agents and police, who had determined their location by placing wiretaps on their uncle's phone line.
Linwood's last meal consisted of grilled tenderloin steak, a baked potato, green peas, a salad with French dressing, rolls with butter, cake, peaches, punch, and milk.