PDA

View Full Version : Killer Caught



Rod-64
03-12-2005, 09:28 AM
Atlanta courthouse killings suspect caught
Police: Brian Nichols surrendered without incident
ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- Brian Nichols, the suspect in the shootings of three people at the Fulton County Courthouse in Atlanta, is in police custody, according to Police Chief Richard Pennington.
Nichols apparently surrendered to authorities Saturday. He was found in an apartment in Duluth, Georgia, north of Atlanta. Police said he is being taken to an FBI field office in Decatur, which borders Atlanta.
Police initially thought the person in the apartment might be a hostage, Pennington said, but authorities are looking into the possibility that the person might be an acquaintance of Nichols.
The person was allowed to come out of the unit and speak with law enforcement shortly before Nichols surrendered.
A blue pickup truck matching the description of that belonging to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer, who was found slain, was discovered at the complex.
A massive manhunt had been under way to find Nichols, who police say shot and killed Judge Rowland W. Barnes, court reporter Julie Ann Brandau and deputy sheriff Hoyt Teasley in the courthouse in downtown Atlanta on Friday.
A Department of Homeland Security official in Washington Saturday said the off-duty U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement officer who was shot and killed was David Wilhelm, an assistant special agent in charge of ICE's Atlanta field office. Authorities had been looking for his 1994 blue Chevrolet pickup.
Surveillance camera snaps suspect
Security camera images from inside a parking garage had given investigators a major lead in the hunt for Nichols. The surveillance images did not show how Nichols made his getaway.
The nationwide manhunt for Nichols shifted focus late Friday with the discovery that the 1997 Honda Accord police had earlier thought was used for the getaway, was still in the garage where he carjacked it from a newspaper reporter after the courthouse shootings.
The garage's lower level exit gate, used only by parkers with monthly passes, was broken and detectives told CNN they believe Nichols crashed through it after taking another car on that level.
But they have not ruled out the possibility that he may have walked out of the garage.
A series of photos taken by two stairwell cameras show a shirtless Nichols putting on a jacket apparently taken from the reporter as he walked to a lower level and disappeared.
No camera was in position to capture what happened when Nichols exited the stairwell.
.
Timeline of shootings
The shootings happened about 9 a.m., as Nichols was being led into an eighth-floor courtroom, Dreher said.
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.
Nichols apparently overpowered a deputy in an elevator on their way to the courtroom, police said.
Jeffrey Salamone, attending trauma surgeon at Grady Memorial Hospital, said the deputy escorting Nichols suffered a graze wound from a gunshot.
Salamone said Cynthia Hall has a small bruise on her brain and some fractures around her face. She was in critical condition, but was expected to survive.
Once inside the courtroom, police said, Nichols held people in the room at bay briefly, then shot Judge Barnes and Brandau -- both of whom died at the scene.
Nichols then fled the building, where outside he shot Sgt. Teasley in the abdomen, officials said. The sheriff's deputy was pronounced dead at the hospital, Salamone said.
Deronta Franklin told CNN that Nichols took his tow truck at gunpoint near the courthouse.
The gunman "told me to get out of the truck. I told him he can have the truck. And I walked away," Franklin said.
Courthouse security
Some said the shooting was predictable given the security lapses at the courthouse.
"The security in the Fulton County Courthouse, the way they deal with prisoners, is absolutely atrocious," attorney Dennis Scheib told CNN. "I said this was going to happen."
Scheib said deputies outside the courthouse told him that a knife-like weapon was discovered in Nichols' boot last week.
Fulton County State Court Judge Craig Schwall, however, described security at the courthouse as "phenomenal." Judges have their own private elevator, accessible only by key card, he said. Their chambers are heavily secured, he said, and they and other court officials have their own secure parking garage.
"I think that, as public servants, we all have to be mindful of these risks," Schwall said.
"The only thing I can imagine is that someone would have had to have moved very quickly and suddenly to catch one of the deputies off guard in order to remove his weapon," said attorney B. J. Bernstein.
Well-respected judge
Bernstein told CNN that Judge Barnes, who presided over civil and criminal cases, was "extremely highly thought of in the legal community."
Last month, Barnes made headlines when he ordered a 34-year-old woman, who had seven children and pleaded guilty to killing the eighth, a newborn, to undergo sterilization.
He was a vocal advocate of Fulton County's supervised rehabilitation clinics, an alternative for jail for repeat offenders with drug addictions. Barnes touted the program for its cost-effectiveness.
A juror in Nichols' trial told CNN that Barnes was kind, and said Nichols always seemed to be respectful to him.

Havasu_Dreamin
03-12-2005, 09:33 AM
Hopefully he doesn't make it back to the courthouse. Why waste the tax dollars, just put a bullett in him now.

TheLurker
03-12-2005, 09:39 AM
I was hoping they would say he was dead when they announced his finding

IN2-IN2MX
03-12-2005, 09:42 AM
Glad they finally found that maniac. I agree, find a way to say he resisted arrest or attacked an officer in custody and shot is worthless ass. :mad: He doesn't deserve any mercy.

Badger301
03-12-2005, 09:56 AM
20 bucks worth of bullets in this case is a lot cheaper then the couple of hundred thousand thats going to be spent on this A-hole now that he's caught.

4-B
03-12-2005, 10:31 AM
Glad to hear he is not on the run anymore. He should be in the express lane to the gas chamer:mad: