For 213 Days, 'The Briley Brothers' Raped, Tortured, And Terroized Virginia
![For 213 Days, 'The Briley Brothers' Raped, Tortured, And Terroized Virginia](/content/images/size/w1200/2022/11/the-briley-brothers_result-1.webp)
No Virginian was safe in 1979 as Linwood, James, and Anthony Briley rampaged through the Richmond areas. Known as 'The Briley Brothers', these 3 sadistic maniacs tortured, raped, and killed together. This is possibly one of the most brutal gangs ever to walk the Earth.
Peeled him off the floor
![The spot where 59-year-old Charles Garner was found. Detectives "peeled" his body off the floor.](https://talkmurder.com/content/images/2022/11/Briley-Brothers-crime-scene-1_result.webp)
On the evening of October 5th, 1979, 59-year-old Charles Garner gets a knock at his front door of the house he shared with his landlord, a 79-year-old Blanche Page.
When police arrive two days later, they discover the horribly mutilated bodies, both Blanche and Charles, in the state of decomposition.
Garner was still downstairs near the door that he answered 2 nights prior. His body was face-down, his blood had already coagulated and had provided detectives a horrible idea of the old man's fate.
"The thing that struck me as soon as I walked in the door," recalled Stuart Cook, former Head of Homicide, "I was seeing up the stairwell...the whole wall and steps were just covered in blood... all the way up."
They had bludgeoned Garner to near death in the skull with a baseball bat. The Briley Brothers (and their accomplice, Duncan Eric Meekins) had then stuck 5 knives and a large pair of scissors through his back.
The sharp objects pierced Garner so deeply, penetrating the wooden planks, that police had to "peel" his corpse off the floor.
Blind hate
![The eerie photo of the Briley Brothers dragging the tip of their baseball bat up a wall to kill the 79-year-old Blanche Page.](https://talkmurder.com/content/images/2022/11/Briley-Brothers-crime-scene-2_result.webp)
We believe that the Briley Brothers didn't hear the elderly Blanche Page upstairs when they tortured Garner. Since the gang ransacked the house, they most likely would have found her, eventually.
Still, her fate was already sealed. These sadistic animals could not care less that she was elderly and blind. James Briley struck Blanche's cranium "like a hammer striking a nail." Each swing he took with the slugger was only after he pulled back to get the maximum strike force.
Only 2 hours before, Blanche's primary worry was what she was going to cook this year for her annual Thanksgiving family dinner. Now her blood and brain covered her bedroom walls.
Former Homicide Detective Jim Gaudet recalled, "They kept beating on her. They didn't just hit her. They kept beating on her. I don't care how long you've been a policeman...that's hard to see and take. This was not just murder. This was overkill."
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![The blood-soaked sheets belonging to 79-year-old Blanche Page.](https://talkmurder.com/content/images/2022/11/Briley-Brothers-crime-scene-3_result-1.webp)
Sources
The Briley Brothers: The true story of the slaying brothers (Jack Rosewood Amazon)
The Briley Brothers Tale (Eric Blanding Amazon)
Linwood Earl Briley v. Commonwealth (Casemine)
James Briley v. Commonwealth (Justia)
Rampage: The Briley brothers terrorized Richmond area (Richmond Times-Dispatch 30, May 2009)
11 victims of gang were varied group (The Washington Post)
Mrs. Mary Wilfong (The Daily News Leader 02, Oct. 1979)
Shopkeeper kills possible burglar (Daily Press 02, Oct. 1979)