An 83-year-old Texas man known to neighbors as “Can Man Bill” was charged with the murder of a neighbor.
Police soon discovered this alleged shooting was not his first.
Wilmer Clifford “Bill” Brillhart, known as “Can Man Bill” due to his habit of picking up cans for recycling, was arrested May 16 in the murder of Glen Davis, 66, earlier this month, Click 2 Houston reported.
Davis was found unresponsive with a gunshot wound on May 9 and was later pronounced dead at a local hospital, authorities said. A day later, investigators learned that Brillhart had allegedly made threats to kill Davis just days before.
The two men knew each other because they went to the same church, Lighthouse Christian Ministries in Bacliff, Texas, each week for meals and assistance.
While at the church, Brillhart allegedly told a woman he would “put some lead in Glen Davis’s head.”
That woman later told investigators that Brillhart allegedly would brag about having killed people before and getting away with it by claiming self-defense.
Detectives later learned from other interviews that Brillhart told people that if he killed a third person, he would officially be a “serial killer.”
A Texas judge ordered Brillhart’s arrest on May 16 after determining there was sufficient probable cause to formally charge him with murder.
The incident is not Brillhart’s first run-in with the law. He was previously arrested in a 2014 shooting that killed 31-year-old James Warren.
Warren’s brother, Joseph, told KPRC2 that the men got into an altercation just before the shooting, but Brillhart had called 911 and claimed self-defense.
“I think they said that my brother was the aggressor. But the witness that was there ... said that my brother didn’t approach the truck. But this man got out of his truck. He was sitting there waiting on my brother,” Joseph Warren said.
After two years, Brillhart was found not guilty in a Galveston court.
Now, Joseph Warren says he plans to show up to support Davis’s family.
“Whenever I got the word, I went down there and I supported the next family. Matter of fact, I carried the casket. Whenever we have justice for Glenn, my family can finally rest as well.”
Brillhart is currently being held in the Galveston County Sheriff’s Department Jail on a $500,000 bond.
It was not immediately clear when he would next appear in court.
