WARRENTON, N.C. -- Police rushed a downtown laundromat Friday and captured two of the six killers who escaped Virginia's death row and Portsmouth, Va., police believe they have cornered two other fugitives - the feared Briley brothers.
Portsmouth police dispatcher N.T. Thomas said officers spotted two men -- one definitely identified as fugitive Lenwood Briley -- and had surrounded a house where the men were believed hiding. Thomas said several shots were fired at police.
Lenwood Briley and his brother, James, were believed to have masterminded a bomb hoax that led to Thursday night's daring escape of six death row killers from the Mecklenburg Correctional Center.
Two of the men, believed by police to be James and Linwood Briley, were spotted in Portsmouth, Va. Friday night. Spokeswoman Sylvia Kaiser said Lenwood Briley's girlfriend lives in Portsmouth.
She said police spotted the suspects about 9 p.m. and 'had every reason to believe' they were the Briley brothers -- men with at least 11 murders to their collective credit.
The suspects took off running when approached, but one turned and fired several shots. No one was hit.
Police cordoned off 12 blocks in Portsmouth's Prentice Park area, located near the Norfolk Naval Shipyard. State and local police, along with the FBI, were on the scene and were using two spotlight-equipped helicopters.
Kaiser said police do not believe they are holed up in a house.
'We believe they are on the run,' she said.
Police blocked all roads in the area -- including heavily travelled Interstate 64 -- and advised residents to use extreme caution.
Thomas said Briley was spotted near his girlfriend's home in Portsmouth.
Fugitives Earl Clanton, 30, and Derick Peterson, 32, were caught in Warrenton Friday afternoon sitting in Willoughby's Laundromat and Convenience Store eating snacks and drinking wine. They were not armed and did not resist, authorities said.
But as darkness fell on the rural community near the Virginia border, the four otherfugitives were still at large.
Authorities continued the search with helicopters equipped with infrared sensing devices, but Virginia Corrections Department spokesman Wes Terry said lawmen were relying mainly on 'hope and luck.'
Moments after Clanton and Peterson were captured, authorities surrounded a warehouse near the laundromat in downtown Warrenton, believing one and possibly more of the fugitives were hiding inside.
A man was seen running from the laundromat while Clanton and Peterson were being captured and police thought he may have been another of the six death row inmates who escaped from Virginia's so-called 'escape-proof' prison at Boydton by overpowering guards with knives and staging a cunning bomb hoax.
A search of the warehouse proved futile, but authorities said bloodhounds barked wildly, indicating at least one of the fugitives had been in the area recently and possibly hidden in some tall grass near the building.
The Briley brothers, who kept a boa constrictor and piranha as pets and led a gang that killed 11 people in a 1970s rape-robbery spree in Richmond, Va., were two of the most feared convicts on Virginia's death row.
Terry said authorities traced Peterson and Clanton to the laundromat through electronic telephone surveillance. He said several private lines in Virginia were electronically tapped and the calls were traced to the Warrenton laundromat, which was placed under surveillance.
Terry declined, however, to saw whose phones had been tapped by FBI agents who joined 200lawmen searching for the fugitives, who represent a quarter of Virginia's death row population.
The search was concentrated in the Warrenton area after police found a prison van used in the escape abandoned at the Warrenton Elementary School.
A laundromat employee said Clanton and Peterson had been inside the red brick store about 1 hours and had bought some snack food and a bottle of wine from the adjoining convenience store.
'They were just sitting in the corner eating and drinking,' said a woman who asked not to be identified.
'I think it is a good possibility they are still in the Warren County area,' Terry said.
By mid-afternoon, the search was expanded 12 miles into Vance County when there was an unconfirmed sighting of the fugitives near Henderson.
Steve Ellington, who runs a convenience store two miles east of Henderson, said two FBI agents visited him Friday afternoon and showed him pictures of the fugitives.
'They said the dogs had tracked some of them to Henderson, but they wouldn't be very specific. They think they have lost the trail, the bloodhounds,' he said.
The search terrorized residents of Warrenton, a farming community 20 miles from the $20 million red brick prison that Virginia officials said was a national model of an escape-proof prison.
'We just don't know what's going on here,' said Charles Lovelace, a Warrenton father of five children. 'You're scared for your family. I won't be picking up no stranger.'
Authorities said two of the six fugitives -- possibly the Briley brothers -- tried to steal a car in Warrenton two hours after the escape, but fled when the owner fought his way out of the vehicle.
The Briley brothers, Peterson, Clanton, and inmates Willie Jones, 34, of York County, Va., and Lem Tuggle of Smyth County, Va., created a disturbance that drew guards to the death row cellblock around 9 p.m. EDT Thursday, Gilbert Miller, a Virginia Corrections Department spokesman said.
The six overpowered the unarmed guards with homemade knives, took their uniforms and telephoned a prison transportation officer to say there was a bomb in the facility and a van was needed to remove it.
A van was sent to the cellblock and the inmates -- who disguised a fire extinguisher as a bomb -- raced it on a stretcher to the van, waving the guards off with a warning, and fled at 10:47 p.m.
None of the guards was injured and Terry said he did not believe they aided in the escape.
'I don't think it was complicity, I think it was stupidity,' he said.
Briley, 30, who was convicted of killing a Richmond disc jockey, and brother James, 28, was convicted of murdering a 23-year-old pregnant woman and her 5-year-old son, were described as 'tough people who were opposed to having weakness of any sort.'
Authorities said fugitives Derreck Peterson and Earl Clanton were found hinding inside a laundromat in downtown Warrenton. The two were not armed and did not resist, said Dorsey Kapps, a Virginia prison spokesman.
'We didn't ask them any questions,' Kapps said. 'They were just sitting inside the laudromat.'
A laundromat employee said the fugitives had been there about 1 hours and had bought a bottle of wine from a next door convenience store.
'They were just sitting in the corner eating and drinking,' said a woman inside the laundromat who asked not to be identified.
About 200 lawmen, meanwhile, scored two North Carolina counties for the other four fugitives, including the feared Briley brothers, who overpowered guards with homemade knives and made the daring break Thursday night. The six represented a quarter of Virginia's death row population.
Authorities believe the escape from the Mecklenburg Correctional Center at Boydton was masterminded by brothers Linwood and James Briley, who kept a boa constrictor and piranha as pets and led a gang that killed 11 people in a 1970s rape-robbery spree in Richmond, Va.
FBI agents and state police from Virginia and North Carolina concentrated the search in the Warrenton area after police found a prison van used in the daring escape abandoned at the Warrenton Elementary School.
'I think it is a good possibility they are still in the Warren County area,' said Wes Terry of the Virginia Department of Corrections.
By mid-afternoon, the search was expanded 12 miles into Vance County when there was an unconfirmed sighting of the fugitives near Henderson.
Several helicopters combed the area and dozens of lawmen prowled rural roads, stopping at stores, gas stations and farms to show pictures of the convicts and ask for a qucik call if they were sighted.
Steve Ellington, who runs a convenience store two miles east of Henderson, said two FBI agents visited him Friday afternoon.
'They said the dogs had tracked some of them to Henderson, but they wouldn't be very specific. They think they have lost the trail, the bloodhounds,' he said.
The search terrorized residents of Warrenton, a farming community 20 miles from the $20 million red brick prison that Virginia officials said was a national model of an escape-proof prison.
'Everybody's scared to death,' said 39-year-old Shirley Hargrave of Warrenton.
'We just don't know what's going on here,' said Charles Lovelace, an employee of the Warren Nursing Center and father of five children. 'You're scared for your family. I won't be picking up no stranger.'
Authorities said two of the six fugitives -- possibly the Briley brothers -- tried to steal a car in Warrenton two hours after the escape, but fled when the owner fought his way out of the vehicle.
The Briley brothers, Peterson 32, Clanton, 30, and inmates Willie Jones, 34, of York County, Va., and Lem Tuggle of Smyth County, Va., created a disturbance that drew guards to the death row cellblock around 9 p.m. EDT Thursday, Gilbert Miller, a Virginia Corrections Department spokesman said.
The six, wielding homemade knives, overpowered the unarmed guards, took their uniforms and telephoned a prison transportation officer to say there was a bomb in the facility and a van was needed to remove it.
A van was sent to the cellblock and the inmates -- who disguised a fire extinguisher as a bomb -- raced it on a stretcher to the van, waving the guards off with a warning, and fled at 10:47 p.m.
None of the guards was injured and Terry said he did not believe the guards aided in the escape.
'I don't think it was complicity, I think it was stupidity,' he said.
Terry said the possibility the inmates were supposed to meet someone on the outside 'was strong to start with and still is.'
'The FBI is working on a strong lead out of Petersburg (Va.) with ties to Oxford (N.C.) said Terry, who added authorities don't believe the meeting ever took place.
Jim Weaver, an investigator for the Virginia Department of Corrections, called the escape a 'well-executed plan.'
Briley, 30, who was convicted of killing a Richmond disc jockey, and brother James, 28, was convicted of murdering a 23-year-old pregnant woman and her 5-year-old son, were described as 'tough people who were opposed to having weakness of any sort.'
Richmond Commonwealth's Attorney Aubrey Davis, who prosecuted the Brileys, said 'somebody hasn't done their job' when he heard about the breakout.
'Certainly in those cases where inmates are dangerous to society, there's only one thing that the individuals can do -- and that's kill again in order to carry out their escape and I'm afraid of that,' Davis said.
Around 12:30 a.m. in Warrenton, two men approached a car driven by Andrew Davis, 20, at a traffic light. As one talked to Davis through the window, the other climbed into the passenger side and forced him to drive out of town.
Davis said one of the men was still wearing a Department of Corrections uniform. He said he stopped the car just outside the city limits.
'At that time I decided it was just me or them,' he said.
Davis said one of the men tried to cut him with a homemade knife, but he held the man off and managed to kick the driver's door open and roll out of the car and start running. He said the two men got of the car and disappeared.
'They must have been scareder than me,' he said.
