The Serial Killers Who Escaped Death Row | Crime Up Close | Born To Kill?
in the late ’70s the Bry Brothers rocked the US city of Richmond with a string of vicious murders the level of violence was horrifying men women and children would lose their lives seemingly at random this was just not murder this was Overkill the siblings were a brutal gang the family that slayed together stayed together they were targeting weak and vulnerable people like a snake would Target a mouse so cunning that even death row couldn’t hold them it was supposed to be escape proof the strongest maximum security that we had in
Virginia it was murder in their DNA were these Blood Brothers born to kill you know they had seen Carnage like this in Prior the Civil War [Applause] [Music] St on I95 wxgi Richmond Virginia broadcasting at 701 German School Road in richm wxg in 1979 Richmond would be rocked by The Disappearance of popular local country music DJ Johnny gallager well when I was born Johnny G was there he was my dad’s probably best
friend he they just grew up playing music together they hung together kind of like Batman and Robin used to you know he was like our uncle and he was a radio disc jockey he was originally from Tennessee it’s where he grew up and that’s why he was known as Johnny G from Tennessee he used to help me with my homework and it was a quite interesting at he was there for every Christmas help us help us put the Christmas trees up and every Sunday there’re eating dinner watching football games yeah many of Super Bowls we watched together he was
just a very good person on the 14th of September the bass playing DJ mysteriously [Music] vanished he had been playing uh at a at a night spot down on a main uh thare going out of the city to the South called Jeffers Davis Highway Johnny didn’t smoke cigarettes and a smoke fi Ballroom you know he wanted to go get some fresh air so he went outside to get some fresh air and never come back in some of the people playing music with him and the owners and stuff they knew my dad was a policeman and so they called Dad and dad knew something was
automatically wrong detective Jim gorde was assigned the case Johnny G worked for wxgi radio station was a country station and he played in the country bands and over on the weekends and so forth and one of them was a Log Cabin Restaurant Nightclub down on Jefferson Davis Highway and uh he was playing down there that night Johnny G’s disappearance was out of character and they started looking around trying to figure out what happened did he just up and leave or or what happened they really didn’t know at time you
know fearing he’d been abducted a search began his car was found that Saturday evening [Music] the car was discovered less than a mile from Richmond’s Janes River but would it hold the key to Gaga’s whereabouts we responded to where the car was found and we thought maybe he was in the trunk we popped the trunk and he wasn’t in there so then we done we processed a car and uh we found a fingerprint behind the door panel I guess they were looking for speakers or whatever and uh they did take a CB radio and an antenna apparently they thought they
could get something out of the car although Johnny G was nowhere to be found it was clear he’d been the victim of some sort of crime that year he wouldn’t be alone Richmond was in the middle of an unprecedented brutal crime free oh very out of the ordinary very out of the ordinary you know they hadn’t seen Carnage like this in probably the Civil War robbery rape murder no one seem safe the type of ferocity violence uh atrocity was just something that Richmond had not experienced never before and never since the only common factor was that
the victims were vulnerable they were highly predatory they weren’t targeting a group of guys who may have had a weapon no you know they were targeting weak and vulnerable people like a snake would Target a mouse young old good neighborhood or bad there was no hiding place and that’s what scared people that you know they didn’t know what was going on and they were scared and the brutality of it this just erupted uh the city in you know into [Music] fear the range of crimes meant that no one was sure if they were connected but
on the 22nd of October police would be called to a shocking scene that would tie all the attacks together in Barton Avenue on the city’s North Side detectives were alerted to something strange at the home of the Wilkerson family we get a call that the couple had not been seen that was something suspicious about the the house that neighbors were concerned about 2301 Barton Avenue it’s right [Music] here right there’s the apartment the front door was open and went in and that was uh the young son laying on the sofa
the female victim who was about eight months pregnant man in Florida and her living boyfriend that was that was bad soon as you got in the house blood everywhere uh tracked they had two D pencer puppies and they were just running through the blood and everything it was just a mess Harvey Wilkerson and Judith Barton was tied up with duct tape behind them and and uh both shot the thing that strikes me about that crime scene it looks like the little boy just laying on the sofa with his head laying on the sofa looking
towards the TV like he was just laying there watching television but 5-year-old Harvey Wilkerson was not watching TV he’d been shot through the head at Point Blank Range his pregnant mother had been assaulted in front of him very Brut very uh s IC a feared local gang had been spotted running from the scene 3 days earlier lywood James and Anthony Bry would become Prime suspects in the triple murder but as police moved in to arrest the gang they could never have imagined the bloody Rampage they were about to uncover in 197 9 Richmond police
discovered a bloody triple murder the Wilkerson family had been violated and executed in their home and suspicion fell on a group of brothers with a fearsome reputation as police moved in to make an arrest Lynwood Bry and gang member Duncan meins were in a car and on the Move we were following them Lenwood was driving uh me and Lynwood’s dad was in the car what happened next Illustrated just how Street Smart the gang were every time we would make a conversation that they’re turning right they would turn left we didn’t know what was going
on and we’d say they’re turning left because they were giving a signal they would turn right yeah we were just kind of fluctuating all over because we didn’t know where they were going or what they were going to do with the briy leading their trackers a merry dance police decided to force the situation finally we just had enough and I said just just put him into a pole so they ran him into a a telephone pole that’s when we found a scanner and realized that’s how they were listening to what we were doing the Bry brother SS and Duncan
means were taken into custody and detectives got their first look at the gang suspected of the brutal murder of man woman and child they were very offensive they they didn’t think we had anything on them and they weren’t going to tell you anything Lynwood he was calculated and cold and he was just looking all over the place and sort of ignoring me you know Lynwood Bry was apparently Fearless I said you know this is serious you could get the Elric chair he threw up his arms and said take it like a man so just who were this family
seemingly capable of violent rape and cold-blooded murder the bres all lived over on the east side of the city to the north called Holland Park the area that uh the bres grew up in uh was you know row houses you know middle inome class houses uh certainly not anything to be uh ashamed of the only bad part was the bres that’s where the bres lived with their mother and father the mother and father were good people their mother was a lovely lady you would never have attributed her to bringing up three boys that um that turned out as bad as these
three people I knew some people that went to school with them and said they were bullies in school you know they said they like to bully around and have their way the young briy also had a telling hobby they liked pets but they liked really dangerous pets they had a bowl Constructor and they had some tarantulas they liked you know they had poisonous things piranhas and snakes and things like that they were clearly predators and they enjoyed feeding live mice to the snakes and watching so there is significance um in the Delight they
would take of of watching One a predator go after its prey it seemed to a certain point that there family life was unconventional normal and then when they reached their teenage years something changed and there seemed to be I don’t know there certainly seemed to be a lack of empathy that lack of empathy would be illustrated by the mysterious death of the bry’s elderly neighbor only Christian she lived in this house here 19 orene Christian had been hanging out washing in her yard when she’d suddenly dropped dead at first it was more or less a
natural death because she had heart problems until some of the family noticed a spot on her and further we found out she’d been shot a Richmond detective began investigating the motiveless murder being the sharp investigator that he was took a 8 2×4 and he cut the 2×4 off to the height of the victim and then using the autopsy report drilled a hole through this 2×4 showing the direction that the projectile came from and then he stood in the backyard where the victim was and he turned this 2×4 around until he eventually it it showed that it would
possibly have come from lennwood br’s rooftop when the murder weapon was found in 16 year-old Lynwood’s house his lack of remorse for the death of the elderly neighbor was shocking his response according to the documents was well she was going to die anyway stunning absolutely stunning you can clearly see this attitude starting as a teenager that he he has no regard for human life and that she was just for target practice sentenced to a year in a juvenile facility Lynnwood would become a role model for his younger brothers
James and Anthony I think everybody saw just how deviant he was how um how extreme he was what he’s capable of and the other two brothers just seemed to chime in and and go along with that he would have probably bragged to them he would have probably uh strutted about because that was his his personality and so for them um they probably would have thought you know wow this is really a bold thing to do so he’s certainly modeling for them you know what it takes to be a man I don’t think there’s any question that Lynnwood was the leader uh and
James was a follower and Anthony to a lesser degree was a follower too lywood was very cold very calculating very uh methodical uh and James was a little bit more emotional uh but he wasn’t as cerebral certainly didn’t have the intelligence that his brother did lywood did uh but he certainly had the arrogance at 16 James would follow in his brother’s footsteps James broy was arrested for robbery and attempted murder of a police officer James Ry had uh had robbed a store and uh had escaped from the robbery and trying to make a getaway and
a police officer um who was on duty close by responded and picked up James broy and was chasing him detective Cecil glunt ran after him and uh he shot at glunt and then glunt returned fire and hit him so he was wounded as the brothers Grew Older they grew tougher you just start to see these glimmers like James and Lynwood’s father would sleep with a lock on his door at night he padlocked his own bedroom at night because he feared that they might do something for them that’s very very rare most parents feel that they have
control over their kids um even if their kids are acting out in very aggressive and violent ways they usually don’t feel personally threatened by them Briley’s father did I think that speaks volumes just to how deviant uh the three brothers were now years later with the bres in custody for the sickening murder of the Wilkerson family police were about to discover the shocking truth about just how depraved the brothers had become with Lynwood before him in the interview room detective Jim gorde realized that bres might be responsible
for more than just the triple murder at Barton Avenue I had Johnny G or Johnny Gallagher the U dis jockey case and uh items were taken from him one of them was a Turquoise Ring I noticed lywood was wearing a ring Turquoise Ring like was described so I took it off and I called uh Leroy Morgan a detective he had this ring on his finger and my dad seen it and said that’s Johnny R Johnny ring that’s Johnny’s watch Johnny’s watch and that’s how they linked and that’s the bres to Johnny’s murder despite Lynwood being caught
wearing Johnny G’s jewelry the police had little evidence to tie the three Bry Brothers to either the DJ’s abduction or the bloodbath at Barton Avenue however a fourth member of the gang might provide the key Duncan meins was just 16 years old and was a neighbor not family he came from a very well- grounded background as far as I could tell he was a good student uh or a decent student uh active in the church uh and had been an altar boy means lived uh next door to the bres and they were Idols to him basically you
know he thought they were you know big tough people and he wanted to get involved so they kind of took him under their wing prosecutors decided to attempt to deal with Duncan meins his evidence in return for his life means was offered a deal and sometimes when their juveniles involved they figured that they won’t get the chair so he started talking What meing would would leave the people of Richmond stunned when this broke uh I just thought holy moly well that’s not what I thought you know what I thought the Bry gang had been on a
seven-month violent spree that had caused Devastation all over the city the level of violence was horrifying when when you when all the details became known just hor they were just bad [Music] one of the first to die was elderly babysitter Mary Gowan resident of a well-to-do Richmond neighborhood we’re going to Mar 76y old woman she lives at uh upscale Apartments uh no crime ever occurs there she had been babysitting over in North part of Richmond at her daugh ‘s house the br’s had seen this elderly lady leave from her babysitting job
followed her all the way through the city of Richmond outter her apartment I don’t think she even had a chance to yell because probably somebody would have heard her she probably would have parked here a 51 is over there in that [Music] corner that’s it right there they abducted a druger into the stawell took turns raping her and then shot her in the head and left her for dead well just a vicious horrific type crime no Rhyme or Reason didn’t know the victim just picked her at random Mary was just a wonderful lady loved her
grandkids loved life so that was the uh beginning of it next to die would be a 17-year-old that Lynwood Briley suspected was casing his car Christopher Phillips that was another sad case it was my case and I didn’t have anything on it they thought that he was looking in her car 17-year- old boy so they take in drag him into the backyard hold him down he’s yelling take a center block and smash his head it seems that the Bry brothers were getting a taste for murder if they hadn’t enjoyed it they wouldn’t have kept doing it and I think
that’s what we see with with some of these is some people think about committing murder and when they find out you know not only is it tough but getting rid of a body is difficult in their case they didn’t really care they didn’t have any of that stuff and there was some fun involved in it it felt powerful to them felt like they were they were in charge and they they could make people do what they wanted and there were really no consequences for them and the bry’s violent Rampage wasn’t over yet their brutality was
about to escalate to new Unthinkable levels in 1979 the Bry Brothers Lynwood James and Anthony along with their accomplice 16-year-old Duncan meins had terrorized the city of Richmond with a series of vicious robberies rapes and murders in custody means would reveal the horrific details of their violent Rampage including the answer to the riddle of DJ Johnny G’s disappearance they rode around looking for people to Rob and whatever and if they seen somebody that’s when they done it I mean it wasn’t pre-planned they
just if they saw somebody walk in here they’ abduct them or whatever you know this time Johnny G would be in the wrong place at the wrong time meins related how the gang had gone looking for someone to mug and had hidden in the bushes by the bar where the DJ was performing and laying in wait for a victim at that point he’d stepped out for air they broke into his Lincoln markv and they caught him when they were going across the parking lot and they abducted him took his car keys and put him in the trunk of his own
car [Music] with Johnny G in the boot the bries took his car to an abandoned paper mill on an island in the river drove to the back by the river they knocked him in the head they did and carried him down to the river and shot him and threw him in a [Music] river 3 days in a row we were down there trying to find him but we couldn’t find find [Music] him he had got hung up under the water and some logs and it took it took almost a week for him to surface [Music] up near [Music]
right yeah it was bed and it still hurts me to this day 30 years later I just don’t how anybody could do something like that if the briy brothers were killing or stealing to gain something as their primary motive that’s at least understandable but it seems to me as I look at this that their main motivation was just to kill and destroy where Robert was actually secondary they functioned like a street gang a street gang that had gone a muck just 2 weeks after the murder of Johnny G the Bry gang were on the prowl
again 62-year-old nurse Mary Wilfong had been returning to her home in a safe Suburban neighborhood we’re going to go by uh Mary will fall I haven’t been up here in a long time they apparently saw her walking into the apartment or something and took out a baseball bat and smashed her head right in front of her house then they went in the house and uh RAM sacked it and she was left on the sidewalk to die and she [Music] did and the bride’s reign of terror wasn’t over yet as they continued to escape Justice the brothers became
Bolder and more cruel I don’t think the Bry were out of control so much as uh feeling as if they were invincible and immune to arrest they could have easily stopped doing it but didn’t want to because there were no consequences in October the Bry gang would commit a crime the brutality of which no one would ever forget we had a call to um fth Avenue an elderly couple and that hadn’t been seen or heard from in several days Mrs Paige she was a partially uh paralyzed so she she didn’t get around much Mr Gardner stayed there and paid
rent to room there arriving at the property investigators were met by a gruesome scene the thing that was that struck me as soon as I walked in the door is that you looked up the stairwell and the whole wall going up the stairwell and and the steps were just covered in blood all the way up 59-year-old Charles Garner was discovered in the kitchen you never forget smell of death and when I walked into that kitchen it was just rampant I mean you could just smell it you knew it and I’ve never forgotten it the level of violence
inflicted on Ghana was shocking he’d been brutally attacked with a bat now the poor guy was was no harm to anybody but you know they beat him and it was just the idea you know let me do this let me do that and the horror continued upstairs in the bedroom every wall in that room was covered with blood I mean it would just it would look like a Slaughter housee basically 79-year-old blanch pige was discovered in bed here’s this white female laying in bed like she sleep but she’s been beat to death with a baseball bat they didn’t just hit her they kept
beating her I don’t care how long you’ve been a policeman um that’s hard to see and take because what somebody can do to a human body is just unbelievable this was just not murder this was Overkill these individuals um like this to some degree it gave them some sense of superiority some sense of recognition to themselves that they could do anything they weren’t afraid of anybody or anything there’s nothing uh that would inhibit them the police Society rules none of that applied to the Bry Brothers nothing illustrated The
Brothers departure from morality more than the bloodbath at Barton Avenue as Duncan mein’s sickening account revealed on the morning of October the 19th James Bry had promised a parole judge he could be trusted to stay out of trouble by the evening he had other plans they had smoked some marijuana they had drank some liquor um and they left their home and headed over to Barton Avenue which was just a few blocks away from where they lived unlike most of their previous victims Harvey Wilkerson was an acquaintance of the gang apparently the
bres and meons came down here in with intent to Rob them and Wilkerson saw him coming and he got scared and locked the door but then when they came up to the door he was afraid that they would uh break in and cause them harm so he let them in what happened next would shock even the most hardened of investigators when they got in there they overpowered him and uh tied their hands up with duct tape behind them and then after that was done they killed him so they didn’t they didn’t kill the man first and then rape and sodomizing woman
they did it all in his presence and then killed him which was a very I mean just tell you how sick and and mean and low life these people really were and that’s the only way to describe them they were just uh they weren’t fit to be called humans as far as I’m concerned the Bry gang’s seven-month spree had cost the lives of at least 10 victims in return for his testimony 16-year-old Duncan meins escaped the death penalty and received a life sentence as did youngest brother Anthony Bry but Lynwood and James would both be
sentenced to Virginia’s electric chair James had no reaction when the sunet was brought down I never got the sense that he was remorseful at all for anything that had happened lywood had his head down no emotion I remember he’s saying you know U something to the effect uh mama don’t worry about this this doesn’t happen right away you I just thought holy smokes I mean it was just a matter of fact voice as if as if you’d gone and got a pack of cigarettes you know from the grocery store I mean amazing it seemed the threat of
execution meant little to the Bry Brothers Deborah Wyatt would represent Lynwood in his appeals against the death sentence and encountered a bright and Charming individual I found him to be an not an unenjoyable person to be around I mean I have had clients that I don’t think I could have had a very long conversation with he was not one of those he was a nicelooking man he was a Well Spoken Man friendly calm with a sense of humor you know it was hard to believe that he was the kind of person who would have done
these crimes but despite appearances Lynnwood and James had taken all their cunning and ruthlessness with them to death row Lynwood had a kind of magnetism to him they wanted to please him even the guards and then people were scared of James the Bry managed to exert their their strength and their sense of power even in prison the two of them basically seemed to operate the same way that they did when they were out they wanted to be uh known and feared while they were in the penitentiary they became kind of gang
leaders there and even the guards were cowed by them James and Lynwood had a had a drug business prison guards would bring the drugs in to death row and um representatives in the prison would sell it and James and Lynwood would make a certain amount of money but bossing the prison wouldn’t be enough for Lynwood and James bryley in 1984 their Brash scheming would reach unbelievable Heights as they set out to prove that not even death row could hold them if you wrote that in a some Pulp Fiction detective story nobody’ ever
believe it what happened in 1979 Richmond Virginia had been terrorized by the Bry Brothers by 1984 with Lynwood and James locked up on death row the public had begun to relax little did they know that the brothers were about to do the unthinkable and spread panic through the city all over again they managed to plan and make one of the biggest prison breaks in United States history the Bry brothers would take on meinburg Correctional Center held up as a model of modern prison design that was the strongest maximum security
that we had in Virginia all these different Gates going in and out I guess in a zoo you have to do that with ferocious animals you have all these different Gates and nothing’s open at the same time it was supposed to be escape proof because everything was computerized lywood and James however had other ideas they put together with the help of some other inmates a very sophisticated plan and on May the 31st 1984 they would put that plan into [Music] action the inmates had haircuts and shaved their beards then James Bry tricked an officer
into opening the guard room and convict L plon rushed to the control panel and opened all cell doors they uh overpowered some guards and took through uniforms disguised as officers and armed with homemade knives they overpowered any guards that entered the block at one point they did want to kill one of the prison guards and someone else stepped in and wouldn’t let them do it so these were very cruel young men um who really had no regard for human life at all and would kill regardless it didn’t matter if if there was a purpose to it or not
they they just would then Lynwood James and four other inmates began an audacious ruse first they forced a guard to call for emergency transport to be brought to the gate they said that they had discovered a homemade bomb and they asked for a van the group disguised themselves further still they actually had uh Riot Gear helmets and stuff so you couldn’t actually see who they were and then made their move on on foot across the compound they covered one of the TVs that the men watched in the in the day room with a blanket and then as some of
the men were carrying it out to the van they would spray it with a fire extinguisher so that it looked like you know you know this this was a serious matter here shouting that they had a live bomb that needed to be removed quickly the gang demanded the guards break convention and open both gates at once the guards complied They carried it into the van and they drove through the gates and um and just kept driving by 11:00 p.m.
the Bry brothers and four conspirators were gone I remember very clearly as if it were this morning and when they said to Bradley Brothers I just saw whoa you know just whoo the news that the Bry brothers were free terrified their Hometown hey everybody in Richmond become concerned again about them being on the loose while a massive Manhunt was launched people began to protect themselves against a Revenge attack when people uh have committed these kinds of Acts you you know that they’re going to probably want to blame their incar ation and the fact that
they’re facing the death sentence on someone who has been involved in the case the level of fear escalated as sightings were reported Nationwide we had to put protective officers around the judge’s home around some of the the witnesses homes all four of the bride’s co-conspirators were recaptured but Lynwood and James remained on the loose we went down to police station and they issued uh Us weapons somebody said what are you doing carrying a weapon and I said well it’s it’s not to do anything to anybody it’s
to keep them from doing something to me because there’s no way in the world I was going to let them get their hands on me finally 19 days after their escape a wir tap on the bry’s uncle LED searches to a garage in Philadelphia where Lynwood and James were discovered barbecuing chicken in the alley known as lucky and slim they’d been doing odd jobs and befriending neighbors James was slim Lynwood was lucky Lynnwood and James were the last ones to be caught and they were just kind of hiding in plain sight which once
again shows you know a kind of interesting intelligence there but neither Lynwood nor James would be lucky again the Escape would be their last Taste of freedom and both of their executions would be planned for within a year I of course chose to escape because I’m innocent and if you’re innocent I believe that you’re supposed to be free together the three Bry Brothers had terrorized a city and taken the lives of at least 11 men women and children but what had turned them into coldblooded murderers were Lynwood James and Anthony
bryley born to kill I think the fact that one of them killed as an adolescent with such a callous disregard for the victim indicates the possibility of what we call a fledgling psychopath so he might be the one if if any of them was born to kill it would have been him the others we really can’t say the question arises as to whether each of these three brothers individually would have acted alone without without the support let’s say of the other brothers I’m not sure Lynnwood would have the one who killed the
elderly neighbor he probably would have behaved in very very deviant ways on his own I’m not so sure about the other brothers possibly they would have but they certainly gained a degree of support and uh a sense of belonging uh to the gang uh itself a lot of people within families I mean you know they start a business or something like that they become rich I mean these guys became powerful and dangerous and that was important there was like a drug better than saxs you know better than real drugs I mean it was just almost
essential for them I don’t think people are born bad the Lord wouldn’t want people to be born bad I think you just hit the wrong road 5 years after their brutal Killing Spree Lyn and James Bry would pay the ultimate price for their crimes I went to uh Lynwood bry’s execution lywood Bry as brutal um killer as he was uh was a coward and they had to sedate him and actually pick him up by his belt and walk him to the electric chair he didn’t go voluntarily he was uh like a whip dog um and they put him in the electric chair and gave him exactly
what he deserved and uh I believe in a God and a heaven and a hell and there’s no question in my mind that he Mr Ry and James both are right where they deserve to be I mean you don’t make a light of anybody getting the death death penalty you know but I mean they deserved it they got it I’m happy I’m sorry for their family what their family had to go through and I’m sorry for our family what we had to go through the Bry brothers would leave a dark indelible mark on the history and people of Richmond the family that slayed together
stayed together yeah may they all rot in hell oh [Music]
