What happened Friday and Saturday, step by step. This is what happens when the liberals are in charge for 30 years.
Published on: 03/13/05
Based on law enforcement and eyewitness reports, the following events occurred on Friday and Saturday :
Friday, before 9 a.m.
• Full coverage of the shooting at the courthouse and the capture of Brian Nichols
• Judge Rowland Barnes leaves his home in College Park with his wife, Claudia, an administrative assistant for another judge.
• The couple arrive at the old Fulton County Courthouse on Pryor Street downtown.
• Judge Barnes proceeds to his 8th-floor courtroom to hear a civil case.
• Brian Nichols, 34, is taken from the Fulton County Jail in northwest Atlanta to Fulton's new Justice Tower downtown. The tower backs up to the old courthouse. In a holding cell, Nichols' handcuffs are removed so he can change from his jail uniform to civilian clothes for his rape trial before Barnes. Sheriff's Deputy Cynthia Hall, 51, of Jonesboro is escorting him.
Friday, between 9 a.m.-9:15 a.m.
• In or near the holding cell, Nichols attacks Deputy Hall. They struggle for at least three minutes. Nichols slams the deputy into the wall, takes her handgun and shoots her in the head. He flees with her weapon.
• Nichols crosses the 8th-floor skybridge linking the Justice Tower to the old courthouse. He takes three people hostage and enters the judge's private chambers. He rips out the telephone and searches the three for cell phones. He pops in and out of the office, returning with another deputy at gunpoint. He has taken the deputy's gun.
• Nichols handcuffs the deputy and pulls him into a closet. He then leaves. Moments later, shots are heard by his three captives.
• Witnesses say Nichols entered the courtroom from a door behind Judge Barnes' bench and shoots the judge in the back of the head. He then shoots court reporter Julie Ann Brandau of Snellville. Neither survive.
• Nichols runs down seven flights of stairs and leaves the old courthouse via an emergency exit onto Martin Luther King Drive, setting off an alarm.
• Sheriff's Deputy Hoyt Teasley confronts Nichols on the street; Nichols shoots the deputy repeatedly in the abdomen.
• Witnesses see Nichols run into the nearby Underground Parking garage.
• Tow-truck driver Deronta Franklin, 37, waiting on a dispatch at Peachtree and Wall streets, sees a dark SUV pull into a parking garage entrance behind him and stop.
• Police cars stop at the corner. Franklin points to the garage entrance. The SUV crashes the gate and speeds into the garage.
• The police pursue the SUV. Moments later, Nichols, dressed in a green or blue jogging suit, appears at the driver's side window of Franklin's tow-truck, points a gun at him and orders him to get out.
• The suspect speeds off in the tow-truck, travels north briefly on Peachtree St., then turns left onto Walton, a one-way street, heading the wrong way. He enters a parking garage on Cone Street.
• On the fourth floor of the garage, Nichols hijacks a silver-gray Mercury Sable owned by Almeta Kilgo, an Atlanta Journal-Constitution employee. He orders her to stay in the car; she escapes, screaming.
• AJC reporter Don O'Briant is parking in Centennial Parking garage, a few blocks away near the CNN Center. A man pulls into a handicapped space in a dark Isuzu Trooper. The man, who isn't wearing a shirt, gets out of the car and asks for directions to Lenox Square. Then he pulls a gun, orders O'Briant out of his car and tells him to get into the trunk. O'Briant refuses, and Nichols hits him with the handgun. Nichols drives O'Briant's 1997 green Honda Accord down two levels in the same garage.
• Nichols is caught on a video camera in the garage stairwell.
• Nichols catches a MARTA train at the nearby Omni station. He's possibly headed to the Lenox Square Station. The Omni MARTA station is less than a block from the Centennial Parking garage, which is across Spring Street from the CNN Center. The center and adjacent Phillips Arena are crowded with basketball fans attending the men's Southeastern Conference basketball tournament.
Friday, 10:40 p.m.
Nichols assaults two out-of-town visitors, here for the SEC tournament, on Lenox Road and demands money and a vehicle. He hits one in the face with his weapon. They run. Nichols runs.
Sometime Friday night
• U. S. Immigration and Customs Agent David Wilhelm, 40, is working on a home he and his wife are building on Canter Street near Lenox Square in Buckhead. Police say they believe Nichols shot Wilhelm to death, took his semi-automatic pistol, badge, and perhaps identification and stole his 1994 blue Chevrolet pickup.
Friday, about 11 p.m.
• An AJC press room employee, Tim Doss, spots O'Briant's green Honda in Centennial Parking garage. For about 14 hours, the car has been the object of one of the most massive law enforcement searches in Georgia history.
Friday night, early Saturday
• Nichols pushes his way into the apartment of a woman who is entering her unit at the Bridgewater Apartments complex in Duluth, on Satellite Boulevard near the Gwinnett Place mall. The two are strangers. He tells her he won't kill her if she does what he says. He is there for hours.
Saturday, before 8:30 a.m.
• Carpenters arriving for work find Wilhelm, the Immigration and Customs agent, shot to death in his unfinished house on Castor Street.
Saturday, 9:50 a.m.
• The woman at Bridgewater Apartments either escapes or is allowed to leave. She calls 911 and says she knows where Nichols is and that he has weapons. A Gwinnett Police Department uniformed officer is sent to the address. The officer calls for backup.
Friday, shortly after 10 a.m.
• A Gwinnett S.W.A.T. team arrives at the complex. The blue Chevy pickup stolen from agent Wilhelm is found about two miles away.
• 11:30 a.m. Nichols waves a white T-shirt, indicating he wants to surrender. He gives up without incident to the S.W.A.T. officers.
Saturday, 11:50 a.m.
• Nichols is transported south on I-85 in a black SUV, escorted by several police cars to FBI headquarters on Clairmont Road in DeKalb County.
Saturday, 1:20 p.m.
• Nichols is driven to Atlanta City Hall East on Ponce de Leon Road, where the Atlanta Police Department has a homicide unit. He is booked on three murder charges.
Saturday, around 5 p.m.
• Nichols leaves the detention center in convoy. He is taken to the Richard B. Russell Federal Building on Spring Street. Later, he is scheduled to be held in an undisclosed location until he makes court appearances this week.
— Compiled by Staff Writer Jingle Davis
ajc.com
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