DEL.ICIO.USUpdated: 10:10 p.m. September 26, 2008
Judge’s staff recalls horror of Nichols’ attack
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Friday, September 26, 2008
Susan Christy was starting a typical day working for Superior Court Judge Rowland Barnes when she looked up from her desk and saw a handsome face.
“I remember thinking ‘you look familiar — you look like our defendant but that’s impossible, he’s in custody,’ ” said Christy. Then she saw the gun belt on the man’s waist and realized it was Brian Nichols.
Johnny Crawford / jcrawford@ajc.com
Fulton County assistant district attorney Clint Rucker demonstrates how Brian Nichols held a gun on Susan Christy.
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“He must have recognized I realized who he was because that is when he pointed the gun at me.”
Nichols checked to see if anyone else had seen them and turned back to Christy, who worked as Barnes’ case manager in the Fulton County Courthouse, she testified Friday at Nichols’ murder trial. He said “Move.”
“He was calm,” said Christy. “To me he was a man with a plan. He knew exactly what he was doing. He knew exactly what he was doing.”
Prosecutors Kellie Hill and Clint Rucker made sure that Christy relived the moment. When Christy described how Nichols raised the gun he had obtained after overpowering his guard, Rucker raised a toy pistol.
When he pointed it at Christy, just as she said Nichols had, Christy started to cry. She recounted vivid details of what happened in Barnes’ chamber and courtroom on March 11, 2005.
Rucker, a large man like Nichols, then acted out what Christy described as Nichols’ actions. Lead defense attorney Henderson Hill (no relation to the prosecutor) objected and was overruled by Superior Court Judge James Bodiford.
Later Hill also objected to the prosecutor’s brief, dramatic tone in questioning Christy. “It’s theater, Your Honor,” he said.
On that day three years ago, Christy said Nichols put her and a lawyer who was awaiting Barnes in the judge’s office, and then left to finish searching the chambers. A moment later Gina Thomas, another staffer (whose name then was Clarke) came running in, ahead of Nichols. Thomas immediately pushed the panic button under the judge’s desk to alert court security. Thomas jerked her hand away as Nichols entered, banging a drawer. Nichols asked, What’s in the drawer?
“I said, there is nothing in the drawer,” Christy said. “Almost immediately the phones started ringing.”
It was court security calling to check on the panic call. Nichols told them to lie face down on the floor but Christy said she refused.
“I thought if I did he was going to shoot me in the back of the head,” she said. “I thought, ‘If you’re going to shoot me, you’re going to have to look at me.’ “
Nichols asked, “Where is the judge.” The women told him he was conducting a civil hearing in court before Nichols’ trial on rape charges restarted.
Nichols then went to a desk where he could monitor the hallway by a surveillance camera while keeping watch on his captives. “Gina kept saying, ‘I just want to go home. Susan push the panic button again,’ ” Christy said. And I said, ‘Gina, I can’t. He will kill us.’ “
Thomas also testified Friday. Both women have filed $3 million lawsuits against the Fulton County Sheriff’s Office because of the security breakdowns that allowed Nichols to escape his guard, capture her and Christy and, prosecutors said, kill four people.
Thomas said Nichols appeared calm, but did pace between Barnes’ private office and the secretary’s office next door so he could monitor the hearing in the courtroom that could be heard on a speaker at the secretary’s desk.
Thomas, who was training to replace Christy when she retired, suspected Nichols was waiting for Barnes to finish and return to his chambers.
“I thought he was going to kill us all,” Thomas said. “I thought if the judge comes off the bench, we’re all dead.”
Christy put her hope in Barnes’ bailiff, Sgt. Grantley White, who was away from the office when Nichols entered. She then heard White’s keys jingling from his gun belt.
“I said ‘Gina, it is going to be OK. Grantley is here; we’re going to be OK,’” Christy testified. “Then Grantley came through the doorway with his hands up and Mr. Nichols was holding the gun on him.”
When White entered, he feigned a heart attack, she said. As he fell by the desk, he also pushed the panic button. Nichols had White handcuff Christy, White and the lawyer. Nichols then heard court security trying to raise White over his radio. Shortly afterward, Nichols headed for the judge’s courtroom and Christy heard gunfire. Barnes and his court reporter, Julie Ann Brandau were killed in the courtroom.
Christy said the captives, waiting for Nichols to return, feared for their lives. Then they heard gunfire outside the courthouse.
“I remember saying, ‘They got him, It’s going to be OK,’ ” she said.
Later she learned that Deputy Sheriff Hoyt Teasley had been gunned down. Later, prosecutors say David Wilhelm, an off-duty federal agent, was killed by Nichols during a robbery.
Nichols, charged with all four killings, has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty.
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