Ep28 - The Briley Gang

In 1979 three brothers and one young accomplice terrorized Richmond, VA and the surrounding areas for 7 months; leaving in their wake 12 victims where only two survived.   Once captured and sentenced, two being sentenced to death and sent to death row, they orchestrated one of the biggest and most sophisticated prison escapes in US history.

Tonight we will take you through the lives and crimes of Linwood Briley, James Briley, Anthony Briley and Duncan Meekins also known as The Briley Gang.

Linwood, James, Anthony and Duncan Meekins

Linwood and James Briley

Ep04 - Sneha Philip

This case is really frustrating for me due to the lack of evidence; so much of the discussion of this case quickly turns to speculation and assumptions because there is so little to go on.

New York Magazine published an article in 2005 that details what it known about the case and Sneha’s last known whereabouts in the most complete write up I have found through my research. You can read the full article here.

Also check out her Unsolved Mysteries page and her page at the Charley Project.

Eileen and I spent most of our time discussing the theories of what could have possibly happened to Sneha. Most of our conversations just ended up in a looping through the main prominent theories, so we tried to rein it in when we recorded so we didn’t get too repetitive.

The piece of evidence I keep coming back to is the woman she was with at Century 21 on September 10th. I can’t imagine why she hasn’t come forward, unless they both died in the attacks on the 11th. But again, it requires quite a bit of speculation to reach that conclusion. It is very strange that she never came forward and was never identified.

I could honestly spend hours nitpicking individual pieces of evidence and speculation. What do you think happened to Sneha on the 10th/11th of September 2001?

~Colleen

Ep02 - The Grim Sleeper Part 2

This episode we decided to focus more on the legal process and trial. Hopefully you found it as interesting as we did! Eileen and I like to discuss the United States criminal justice system partly because it is what we are most familiar with and partly because so often it doesn’t work the way it is supposed to.

This is the list that was released by the LAPD asking for help identifying over 150 women. Around 30 remain unidentified to this day.

Here are the two interrogation videos we watched during our research.

Part 1

Part 2

This link takes you to the footage from the sentencing. It really helps you get a first hand account from friends and family who the victims were and how their loved ones remember them.

Let us know what you think about the police theory that the Grim Sleeper never actually was sleeping. We have been keeping an eye on this case waiting to see if more charges will be announced.

Also, please subscribe to us on SoundCloud and iTunes! We can also be found on Instagram and Facebook, and we love to hear from you!

~Colleen

Ep01 - The Grim Sleeper Part 1

Welcome to our first blog post! The Grim Sleeper is a topic we both found interesting, mainly because it is such a complicated case. We use our blog posts to expand on our opinions on various topics and points discussed in the episodes and encourage any questions or comments below!

I actually first heard of the Grim Sleeper when I was searching through Netflix and HBO for something to watch on a rainy day. I ended up coming across Nick Broomfield’s documentary called Tales of the Grim Sleeper and it blew me away that I hadn’t heard about this case before. Eileen and I both highly recommend that documentary for a more in depth look at the area the Grim Sleeper lived, worked, and killed in. I think Nick does a good job of letting the people who knew him tell their stories.                

We felt that going into more detail about the history of South L.A. was an important aspect of our discussion because the history ties so closely with the conditions that allowed the Grim Sleeper to hunt women largely undetected and uninvestigated by law enforcement. The issue of LAPD’s noninvolvement with the case was one of the hardest things to read about when researching this case. It’s hard not to wonder the ‘what if’s’ in a situation like this with a high number of victims over a long period of time. There were so many missed opportunities that could have allowed the Grim Sleeper to be apprehended sooner that slipped through the LAPD’s fingers. During this case Eileen and I just kept coming back to why. Why wasn’t the case investigated properly? Why wasn’t the orange Pinto lead pursued? Why wasn’t Eneitra Washington taken seriously after surviving her attack?

The Southside Slayer could be an episode unto itself. So many details of this case were shocking, but this one might have been the most startling. Five active serial killers in one location killing over a span of decades is (to me, and probably most of you) scary to say the least.

The topic we probably talked about the most was the issue of the familial DNA search. Eileen and I happen to agree on the topic overall, but there was a lot that I learned about DNA and fingerprint collection in California that we ended up spending a lot of time talking about. On one hand I’m glad the Grim Sleeper was apprehended, on the other hand (and we said it several times in the episode) I think the search itself is a slippery slope.

Lastly, I want to leave you with the article written by Christine Pelisek ran by the LA Weekly in 2008 exposing the existence of the Grim Sleeper and the 800 Task Force. It’s a long, fascinating read and really gives an insight on what was known at the time, but more importantly what questions were left terrifyingly unanswered. 

Thanks for reading!

~Colleen