Suspect in Courthouse Triple Killings Caught After Atlanta Manhunt After eluding scores of officers for a day, the man who law enforcement officials say killed a judge, a court reporter and a sheriff’s deputy in a courthouse rampage was captured on Saturday morning in an apartment complex in north Atlanta, the New York Times reported.
The suspect, Brian Nichols, surrendered peacefully and was taken into custody by a SWAT team that descended on the Bridgewater Apartments complex in Gwinnett County after a report of a hostage situation.
Only hours before his arrest, law enforcement agencies stepped up what already had been an enormous manhunt, after an off-duty federal customs agent was found shot to death in a neighborhood in north Atlanta. Investigators said the officer’s killer took his gun, his badge and his blue pickup truck.
As investigators were trying to determine whether that killing might be linked to the courthouse killings, the SWAT team was moving in on the apartment complex, where television footage showed a parked blue pickup truck, believed to belong to the customs officer, the New York Times report said.
The arrest of Mr. Nichols ended an intense 24 hours for Atlanta residents, who expressed frustration that the killer had been able not only to defy courthouse security, but also to evade capture for so long despite the vast manhunt by local law enforcement agencies and the Federal Bureau of Investigations.
Judge, Sheriff’s Deputy, Court Reporter Killed. Another Deputy Also Wounded
Update: Brian Nichols is now custody after a possible hostage situation in a suberb north of Atlanta. He is suspected of killing a U.S. Customs Agent Friday Night (Body of U.S. Customs Agent Found; Nichols Suspected).
Law Enforcement in the Southeast are continuing the intense manhunt for Brian Nichols, who is wanted in connection with the Friday morning shooting murder of Fulton County, Ga. Superior Court Judge Rowland W. Barnes, a sheriff’s deputy and a court reporter.
Nichols is 34-years of age, 6 feet-1 inches tall, 210 lbs. He was last seen driving a green, 1997 Honda Accord with Georgia license plates.
“We’re not going to rest until we have him in custody,” said Atlanta Assistant Chief of Police Alan Dreher in a CNN report.
The shootings occurred about 9 a.m. as Nichols was being led into Fulton County Superior Court Judge Rowland W. Barnes’ eighth-floor courtroom, Dreher said, according to CNN. Nichols was being retried on rape, false imprisonment and other charges after a first trial last week ended in a hung jury. The second trial began Monday.
Fulton Sheriff’s Sgt. Mike Thompson and other officials said Nichols took a gun from Deputy Cynthia Hall, who was alone with the 6-foot, 1-inch Nichols. She had just unhandcuffed his hands to let him change out of his jail uniform into street clothes for court. After a struggle, Nichols allegedly shot her in the head, wounding her.
He took the deputy’s keys, escaped the holding cell and ran to the courtroom where his rape trial was being held. According to sources close to Fulton Superior Court Judge Rowland Barnes’ staff, Nichols burst into the judge’s chambers, and took a deputy and several staff hostage, an Atlanta Journal-Constitution news story reported.
He quickly handcuffed them, then stormed into the courtroom. Once inside Barnes’ courtroom, Nichols held people in the room at bay briefly before shooting Barnes and his court reporter -- both of whom died at the scene, police said in the CNN report. Then he fled down several flights of stairs and ran out of the courthouse.
A second deputy, identified by Thompson as Hoyt Teasley, was fatally shot on Martin Luther King Jr. Drive while pursuing Nichols.
Governor Sonny Perdue offered a $10,000 reward in the case late Friday afternoon, according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
There were conflicting reports over whether the deputy whose gun was taken was shot, CNN report said. Dreher said she was not, but Jeffrey Salamone, attending trauma surgeon at Grady Memorial Hospital, said she had a gunshot wound to the head.
Doctors at Grady Memorial Hospital said the deputy had a wound on her head consistent with a graze wound from a gunshot, but the bullet did not penetrate her head, according to CNN.
Salamone said she suffered a small bruise on her brain and some fractures around her face. She was in critical condition, but was expected to survive, CNN said.
“She has a small crack in her skull, she has some fractures around her right eye and a small bruise in her brain,” said Dr. Jeffry Salomone, trauma surgeon, in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution story. As of Friday evening, X-rays showed no significant swelling in Hall’s brain but that could change at any time and be indicative of a more serious injury, Salomone said.
Teasley was treated for cardiac arrest at the scene, and during the ambulance transport. Life-saving measures continued at Grady but failed. He was pronounced dead about the same time that the second wounded deputy was rolled in, Salomone said, The Journal-Constitution said. “He [Teasley] had at least one gunshot wound to his mid-abdomen,” Salomone said.
Earlier this week, a shank was found in Nichols’ shoe during a search, said two officials in the district attorney’s office who spoke on condition of anonymity, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported. The shank was confiscated and extra deputies were assigned as security in the courtroom, one official told the Associated Press.
The state Department of Transportation posted a description on the overhead signs along metro interstates of a vehicle the suspect was believed to be driving. It was described as a 1997 green Honda Accord with the license plate 6584YN.
Nichols was on trial today in Barnes’ courtroom on six charges including rape, aggravated sodomy, false imprisonment, aggravated assault with intent to rape, burglary and drug possession, according to the Fulton County sheriff’s office.
Nichols’ rape trial was set to resume in the afternoon, said Fulton County District Attorney’s spokesman Erik Friedly.
“Even if the defendant is in jail at the time of the trial, he’s allowed to wear street clothes in order to not prejudice the jury,” The Atlanta Journal-Constitution report said.
Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard said, “I think he probably realized ... he might be convicted this time, he might not have a chance to walk out. We believe he came here with the intent to make sure that didn’t happen,” said The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Defense attorney Renee Rockwell was walking into Judge Barnes’ courtroom just as the shooting took place.
“I saw hats on the ground and all the deputies were running with guns drawn. You don’t ever see that,” Rockwell said. She said she was pushed into an elevator by deputies. One of the deputies was crying. Rockwell said the deputy told her: “The defendant got the gun and shot the judge,” The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.