Kilgo ran away screaming and Nichols drove off.

A few moments later, Don O'Briant, a veteran reporter at the Journal-Constitution, was parking at a garage nearby when a man approached him asking for directions. O'Briant complied when the man pulled a gun and demanded his keys. O'Briant gave them to him. He then told O'Briant to get in the trunk of O'Briant's 1997 green Honda Accord. O'Briant refused.

O'Briant said he began to run when the man hit him over his left eye with either the butt of his gun or his fist, gashing O'Briant's head. O'Briant then kept running, hit a Dumpster and fell. The man drove off with O'Briant's car.

And then he was gone. Late Friday night, authorities said that the car had been found near where it was taken.

Nichols was charged with breaking into his ex-girlfriend's house and raping and sodomizing her repeatedly over a three-day period. Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard said that Nichols brought a cooler full of food and drinks into the woman's house and told her that he would continue to assault her until her birthday.

He did just that, Howard said, adding that Nichols also brought a loaded machine gun into the woman's house. Howard said four of Nichols' friends turned him into the police.