Courthouse rampage kills judge, 2 others

Nichols found his opportunity when he was alone with Hall, a 51-year-old grandmother who is about 5 feet tall, police said. Hall was guarding Nichols as he changed clothes in a windowless holding room on the eighth floor of the newer of Fulton County's two court buildings. Barnes' courtroom is in the older building nearby.

Nichols pounced on Hall, who was injured so badly that emergency officials later couldn't determine whether she was severely beaten or shot in the face. Her skull was cracked, her brain was bruised and the bones around her right eye were fractured, said Dr. Jeffrey Salomone, trauma surgeon at Grady Memorial Hospital.

Armed with Hall's gun, Nichols walked from the newer building to the older one, using a sky bridge that joins them.

After the shootings, he bolted from the bloodied room and made for the courthouse stairwell, running down eight flights and out an emergency door, setting off an alarm. Deputies chased after him. Crossing Martin Luther King Jr. Drive, he entered a parking garage. He ran into a county deputy, Holt Teasley, 43. Nichols shot Teasley multiple times in the stomach, and then carjacked an SUV, police said.

Teasley had pulled his gun but didn't have a chance to fire it, said Fulton County Sgt. Mike Thompson. His gun was found near his body, Thompson said. Teasley was not wearing a bulletproof vest.

Two City Hall employees, who were walking down the sidewalk near Teasley before he was shot, said Nichols looked at them coldly, then looked at the deputy before opening fire.

Nichols then stole a dark SUV and sped out of the Underground Atlanta parking deck as police swarmed the area.

Steve Robinson, 16, of Atlanta, was walking to the courthouse when he heard shots from the parking garage. He turned to see a man being tossed from the SUV. "People were running out of the parking lot, scrambling everywhere," Robinson said. "Everyone was scared to death."

A few blocks to the west, Deronta Franklin, a tow-truck driver, was waiting on a dispatch at Peachtree and Wall streets when he saw a dark SUV round the corner and hit the curb. Police cars followed.

Suddenly, the driver of the SUV was at Franklin's window, pointing a gun in his face.

"He told me to get out of the truck and I told him he could have the truck," Franklin said.

The man got in Franklin's truck and sped north on Peachtree Street, then took a left on Walton Street, going the wrong way down a one-way street.

Minutes later, Almeta Kilgo, 37, a computer programmer for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, was parking her 2004 gray Mercury Sable in the Cone Street parking garage when a man approached. "He came over, put a gun to my head, and told me to 'move over,' " she said. He started to drive the car, but could not figure how to get out of the garage.

"He kept saying, 'Get in the trunk.,' " Kilgo said.