Briley Brothers - First Murder

First Murder

In 1971, the first killing was committed by (then) 16-year-old Linwood. While alone at home one day, he took aim with a rifle from his bedroom window and fatally shot Orline Christian, an elderly next door neighbor, as she passed by his window sill. The crime almost went undetected; however, her curious relatives noticed a small bloody mark on her back at the viewing and asked the funeral director to re-examine the body.

Upon a second examination, the director found a small caliber bullet wound in her back. Police investigators were contacted and they sought to find the source of the gunshot. Standing at the open window in her home where Mrs. Christian had been killed, a detective used a sheet of plywood to represent her body, with a hole cut out to represent the bullet wound.

He soon determined that the bullet could only have come from the Briley home next door. There, the murder weapon was found and Linwood admitted to the crime with indifference: "I heard she had heart problems, she would have died soon anyway."

Linwood was sent to reform school to serve a one-year sentence for the killing. His young brother, James or "J.B." followed in his path at the same age, having been sentenced to time in juvenile hall for having pulled a gun and fired upon a police officer during a pursuit.