The two prosecutors who won convictions of the Briley brothers spoke on behalf of the killers’ accomplice yesterday in a closed meeting with a member of the Virginia Parole Board. Robert J. Rice, now a criminal defense attorney, and Warren Von Schuch, still a Richmond-area prosecutor, talked with Rudolph C. McCollum Jr., a former Richmond mayor who sits on the parole board, for about 30 minutes at the board’s offices in Richmond.

A relative of three people killed by the Briley brothers gang has asked the Virginia Parole Board not to release the brothers’ accomplice when board members begin voting next week. “I have not healed, nor will I heal, nor will I forgive,“ said Robert Jones of Southlake, Texas, adding that he will travel to Richmond if that’s what it takes to make himself heard.

A Chesterfield County jury recommended a five-year prison term yesterday for Joseph Wayne Garrard for fatally shooting his daughter’s 19-year-old former boyfriend in a chaotic confrontation last year. The seven-woman, five-man jury deliberated just more than 2½ hours before delivering its decision in Chesterfield Circuit Court. Judge T.J. Hauler set formal sentencing for May 4.