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Almeta Kilgo’s first-person account
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Almeta Kilgo, 37, is a computer programmer for the Atlanta-Journal Constitution whose car was stolen by a man believed to be Brian Nichols on Friday morning. Kilgo left her Decatur home about 8:45, listening to gospel CDs as she drove to work in her 2004 silver gray Mercury Sable. Here is her account:
I was coming down Marietta Street about 9:15 to turn onto Cone Street. I probably saw the wrecker — a white tow truck — behind me, but didn’t pay any attention. I turned into the Cone Street Garage. Nobody was checking IDs on the cars.
I went up to the fourth level. A few people had pulled in before me.
I was backing into my parking place when I noticed the tow truck up there on the fourth level. It was confusing. Was I going to get a ticket for something? Was he towing somebody? Was he getting ready to ask directions?
He pulled into a parking place across from me and jumped out of the tow truck as I was opening the car door. He came over, put a gun to my head, and told me to “move over.”
I just looked at him. I blanked out. This was crazy.
He said, “Hurry up, hurry up, get over.”
My car has a stick in the middle. I had to climb over that. I was still dazed. As I was climbing over, my mind was saying, “This is for real.”
I was trying to figure out how to get out.
I climbed over to the passenger side and he got in on the driver’s side. He said, “You better not open that door.”
He put my car in drive, and proceeded to go back down the ramp. I was in the car with him. He got down to the third level, but he didn’t turn to go on down the ramp. He went straight.
He said, “How do you get out of here? How do you get out of here?”
He had to stop. There was nowhere to go.
He said, “I tell you what — you get out and get in the trunk.”
He kept saying, “Get in the trunk.”
He popped my trunk.
I started to run, screaming at the top of my lungs.
Unfortunately, I fell. I was still screaming.
He came up, put a gun to my head, and said, “Shut up. Shut up.” He had the gun right in my face.
I was still screaming.
He kept saying, “Shut up.” I kept screaming.
At that point, I might as well. If I was going to go out, I was going out screaming.
For some reason, he turned around and went back to my car. I went over toward the elevator into the corner screaming.
It took a long time for anybody to get out of car and see what was wrong with me.
I saw him come back around the corner in my car with the trunk lid still up. If I had been thinking, maybe I could have set off the alarm. I was too upset. He came on around, and somehow got out of the garage. The trunk was wide open. Eventually a lady came to see about me, and a man came. I was totally out of it.
I said, “That guy in the tow truck just took my car. He put a gun to my head and took my car. Didn’t y’all see?”
The parking attendants were the last people to show up.
I think he took my car over to Centennial and carjacked Don (O’Briant, an AJC reporter whose green Honda Civic was the subject of police bulletins Friday). The manager of the parking garage came. They called police. We went down to the little office.
I kept looking at the clock. I had a 9:30 meeting. I was trying to get into work before the meeting.
It wasn’t too long before the police came and started asking me what happened. They went up to see the tow truck.
And it wasn’t long after that, Don came walking over. They were talking to me and he walked in. He was covered with blood. We knew then that the guy had ditched my car and took his.
I was sitting there in the office of the Cone Street Garage. The police, reporters, everybody was swarming around. I heard somebody say, “He’s killed two people down at the courthouse.”
That just tore me up.
Since this was a homicide investigation, a homicide detective came and talked to me and tried to get information about my car. They took me down to the police station on Ponce de Leon so they could get a formal written statement from me.
I guess I was down there until about 1 or 1:30.
A good friend of mine came to get me. I went over to some relatives’ house for awhile. Got home about six.
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