Nichols, who was being tried for rape, shot three people to death as he escaped from the downtown courthouse that day and a federal agent the next day in Atlanta's Buckhead district before being captured in neighboring Gwinnett County. Nichols was spared a death sentence Friday after the jury deliberating his fate announced that it could not agree on a sentence. Bodiford gave Nichols the maximum sentence on all the non-murder charges, and ordered them to be served consecutively.
Those terms ranged from five years for escape to life for armed robbery. Other charges included aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, robbery by force, theft by taking, hijacking a motor vehicle and false imprisonment. Bodiford ordered that Nichols serve his time in the Georgia state penal system, forgoing the possibility of sending him to the federal maximum-security prison in Colorado.
Jurors told Bodiford on Friday night that they were deadlocked, with nine in favor of death and three in favor of life without parole. Under Georgia law, the jurors must reach a unanimous decision in order to impose a death sentence.
In the absence of a unanimous jury verdict, the decision fell in the hands of Bodiford. Company spokesman Norm Black says Nichols joined the unit in March and left in September , which was when he was arrested in the rape case. According to his brother, Nichols earned a six-figure income and regularly attended church. He was arrested after being charged with the brutal assault of his former girlfriend of 8 years after their break up.
After discovering that she was dating Chris Rowell, a minister from their church, Nichols forced his way into her home, bound her with duct tape at gun point and raped her. He was charged with rape, aggravated assault with intent to rape, aggravated sodomy, burglary, false imprisonment and possession of a firearm during commission of a crime.
The first case had ended in a mistrial with a hung jury. Nichols had told people in the courthouse "I'm not going to go lying down" when he learned that he would be retried. Nichols mother also emailed the Fulton County Sheriff's Office to tell them she believed her son may try to take an officer's weapon.
The retrial began the next week and the tension heightened even further 2 days before the crime spree when deputies escorting Nichols from the courthouse to his jail cell noticed something in his shoes.
They found two sharp "shanks," common jailhouse weapons fashioned out of metal which possibly came from a door hinge. Nichols also taunted Assistant District Attorney Gayle Abramson and Assistant District Attorney Ash Joshi during the retrial by saying "you're doing a much better job this time" and he was apparently aware that his case was going poorly.
The actions prompted Judge Barnes to have a meeting the day before the escape with counsel and he asked for extra security during Nichols scheduled testimony that Friday since the prosecution in the rape case had planned to call its last witness that day and jury deliberations were upon him.
Nichols would have faced life in prison if convicted. The State of Georgia detailed the following events which took place on March 11, After Nichols arrived at the courthouse on a bus, Hall escorted him from a basement detention area to a holding cell on the 8th floor of the Fulton County Justice Tower.
Deputy Dilcie Thomas said that on the morning of the attack, she urged Hall three times to get another deputy to go with her upstairs to a holding cell with Nichols, where he was going to change from jail garb before appearing in court. The hinges could have been used as weapons.
She escorted Nichols to the holding area where she was to remove his handcuffs so that he could change into civilian clothes. Hall released one cuff and turned Nichols around to unhook the remaining cuff, which was dangling from his wrist. Nichols brutally attacked the deputy, pushing her into another open cell. The video surveillance camera recorded as he overpowered the deputy hitting her so hard in the face her feet left the ground.
He emerged from the cell with her gun belt which included her radio and weapon magazines. Nichols retrieved her keys from the floor and locked Deputy Hall in the cell. He used the keys to open a lock box where he armed himself with her Beretta. According to hospital sources, the deputy sustained significant brain injury, facial fractures and a large laceration to her forehead. After the attack, her condition was reported as critical, but she survived.
Deputy Hall's injuries were so severe that doctors at Grady Memorial Hospital initially believed that she had sustained a gunshot wound to the face. Nichols then crossed over to the old courthouse via a skybridge, where he entered the private chambers of Judge Rowland W. Nichols made them all sit on the floor and held them at gunpoint while inquiring as to where Judge Barnes was.
Grantley White, the court bailiff, entered the chambers and was also met by an armed Nichols. White tried to disarm Nichols but failed. He was held at gunpoint and Nichols also disarmed him. Nichols forced Sgt. White to handcuff Christy, Thomas and Allman but not before Sgt. White was able to push an emergency button in the chambers.
When Nichols heard court security trying to contact Sgt. White he responded to dispatch on the radio trying to dispel the alarm. That alerted other Deputies because they heard someone using Sgt. White's radio number but they did not recognize the voice. Nichols handcuffed Sgt.
White and forced him into a bathroom and exited the chambers. Nichols entered courtroom 8-F from a door behind the judge's bench. He found Judge Barnes in the courtroom presiding over motions in a civil trial. He shot him at close range in the back of the head. Witnesses said the judge never knew Nichols was behind him.
Nichols scanned the prosecution table apparently in search of the Assistant District Attorneys that were prosecuting and when he saw they were not in the court room he lowered the gun and shot Julie Brandau, the court reporter, in the head. White was able to get out of the restroom and access his radio where he put in the first radio transmission letting responding officers know there had been "shots fired" and he also gave a description of the armed Nichols.
Nichols then walked down from the bench and checked a side room where witnesses were held before trial began, apparently seeking his rape victim, but she was late that day and the room was empty.
Nichols exited the courtroom and ran into an emergency stairwell where he was seen by Sgt. Hoyt Teasley. Sgt Teasley had just arrived at work and was responding to the alarm before he picked up a radio or even put on his bulletproof vest. Teasley pursued Nichols and the two ran down seven flights of stairs and out of the old courthouse via an emergency exit onto Martin Luther King Drive. When Nichols exited the building he sounded a door alarm. He fired several gun shots in the air creating a chaotic situation on the crowded street.
He started across Martin Luther King when the door alarm sounded again as Sgt. Teasley exited the building. Nichols pointed one of the guns at Teasley and fired 2 shots before the Deputy could even draw his own gun. Teasley fell to the ground and Nichols fled. Teasley was presumably unaware of Nichols's being armed or of the incident in the courtroom because he did not have a radio.
Barnes and Brandau died at the scene and Sgt. Nichols ran across the street into the Underground parking garage across from the courthouse. During his escape Nichols carjacked at least five vehicles. Nichols reportedly walked up to Cooper, pointed a gun at him, and said "Give it up, mother…. Larry McCrary who works in the Fulton County juvenile court saw Nichols fleeing and followed him as he turned on Peachtree Street and then into a parking garage near Underground Atlanta.
McCrary said he parked his vehicle to block the entrance and exit to the parking deck and was able to flag down three Atlanta Police officers. He said after the officers went inside the parking deck he saw Nichols calmly walk out at an entrance down the street and approach a tow truck which was at the corner of Peachtree and Wall streets.
Nichols pointed a gun at the driver, Deronta Franklin, and ordered him out. Nichols sped off in the tow truck and traveled north briefly on Peachtree Street, then turned left onto Walton, a one-way street, heading the wrong way and entered the Imperial parking garage on Cone Street. Pointing the gun at her, he demanded she move to the passenger seat. She was able to escape.
Nichols left in the car and headed north on Spring Street. Chung, who works at a jewelry store there said Nichols put a gun to his head and first ordered him to get in the passenger seat, and then to the floor board.
Chung said as Nichols was pulling out of the garage, he ordered him to give him his jacket so he could change his appearance. It was while Nichols was changing into the jacket that Chung saw an opportunity, unlocked the passenger door, and jumped out before the car exited the lot. Then he pulled a gun and said "Give me the keys or I'll kill you".
He ordered O'Briant out of his car and told him to get into the trunk. O'Briant sustained a broken wrist and received 15 stitches above his eye.
Later that day the Honda was located on the first level of the same parking deck from which it was reported stolen. Investigators suspected Nichols may have abandoned the car after spotting an easier target, taking the owner with him to avoid being reported.
Police tried to determine if there were any missing persons or stolen vehicle reported from the area, but their efforts were be hampered by the fact that the NCAA Southeastern Conference basketball tournament was taking place a few blocks away at the Georgia Dome, and thousands of out-of-town visitors were in the area at the time.
Police then recovered security camera images taken Friday morning inside a stairwell in the parking deck which showed a shirtless Nichols putting on a jacket taken from O'Briant's car as he went to a lower level and disappeared.
Security camera images did not yield clues as to how Nichols left the parking garage. Nichols was featured on America's Most Wanted that night and the manhunt expanded. Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard's office later announced that a call had been received from a man claiming to be Nichols as the late-afternoon news conference was being televised.
The city of Atlanta was in a virtual lock down following the shootings. Hundreds of officers in cruisers and helicopters swarmed the area in the search of the suspect setting up roadblocks at major intersections in downtown and midtown. More than state troopers and officers from several agencies, including the FBI, were assisting in the search, but there were few leads, said G. Stiles, a Fulton County deputy chief. Police officers helped out even while off-duty.
Law enforcement also cast a net outside the city, and patrol cars were being positioned on median strips along I and I Public schools in the area were secured, and people inside the courthouse were not allowed to leave until around a.
Friday after authorities locked everyone inside and performed a thorough check of the building. Police later located a witness, Michal Taylor, who said she was on the train with Nichols that morning.
Taylor said Nichols was wearing a jacket that didn't fit, no shirt and he was sweating profusely. Taylor did not recognize Nichols because she had not seen any of the news coverage that morning. Surveillance video was later recovered showing Nichols walking through the station at a. There was an incident at approximately p. Nichols tried to kidnap Iman Adan as she was walking towards her apartment after leaving the gym.
He pulled a gun on her and told her he needed to use her apartment as a hiding place. Warren pushed Adan inside and started to wrestle with Nichols in the hallway. The two continued to fight and Warren could hear a hysterical Adan talking to a operator. He is arrested with a small amount of marijuana. He takes the key to a lock box where her gun is stored. Nichols retrieves the gun, changes clothes and crosses a sky bridge into the next building and heads for the courtroom. He leaves a number of times, finally returning with another deputy taken hostage.
Nichols goes down the stairwell, leaves through an emergency exit and sets off an emergency alarm. On Martin Luther King Jr. He says Nichols orders him into the trunk and pistol-whips him when he refuses. By about 7 p. About a. Nichols forces his way into her apartment at gunpoint and binds her hands and feet. Smith says as they spoke for hours about religion and family, Nichols began to relax, and eventually unbound her hands and feet.
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