DEL.ICIO.USNichols friend wonders if he could have averted killings
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Sunday, December 14, 2008
Zachery Dingle is tormented by the thought that he could have prevented the shooting spree by his lifelong friend Brian Nichols that claimed the lives of a judge, a court reporter and two law enforcement officers.
After a jury deadlocked 9-3 over the issue of whether Nichols, 37, should be sent to Death Row, he was sentenced Saturday to 485 years in prison, plus another four sentences of life without parole, and another seven life sentences with parole possible after 30 years.
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“I think about it every day,” Dingle said Sunday of the courthouse shootings by his friend during a horrific escape attempt. “I feel very guilty about it.”
Dingle spoke with Nichols in July 2004, several weeks before Nichols’ arrest for taking a former girlfriend hostage and raping her repeatedly.
On March 11, 2005, while awaiting trial for the alleged rape, Nichols got a gun and shot and killed the presiding judge in his criminal case, Fulton Superior Court Judge Rowland Barnes; court reporter Julie Ann Brandau; Sheriff’s Deputy Sgt. Hoyt Teasley; and U.S. Customs Agent David Wilhelm.
“I feel if we had been able to talk prior to that [rape incident], this wouldn’t have happened,” Dingle said.
Dingle said he had conflicting emotions about the fact Nichols escaped death but will now spend the rest of his life behind bars.
“Obviously I am elated that he will live. Our prayer has been answered,” Dingle said.” I also have a lot of prayers for the victims and their families. I’m hoping that a healing will take place with the families and that Brian can make peace with himself and, ultimately, with his maker.”
“There’s nobody on the planet that knows Brian better than me,” Dingle said. “I know he’s remorseful.”
Dingle and Nichols grew up together in rougher parts of east Baltimore.
“He has scars that run deep,” Dingle said. “His actions are deplorable. But he is not a monster.”
Nichols’ mother Claritha Nichols, contacted at her Jonesboro home Sunday, declined to comment on her son’s sentence, saying only, “We need some quiet time. The time is over. The sentence has been given. It’s time for everyone to move on.”
Many metro Atlantans, asked this weekend their opinions about the outcome of the Nichols trial, aren’t willing to move on.
Jennifer Harris, 50, of Decatur, said if Nichols escaped once, he can do it again.
“To know someone like that could walk around and be free,” said Harris. “He’s going to think ‘How can I escape?’ We’re challenging him now.”
Separately, one of the jurors who decided Nichols’ fate disputed a report not all jurors participated in the death penalty deliberations. But she affirmed statements that three who refused to agree to Nichols’ execution apparently had already made up their minds.
Interviewed at her home, the juror, who did not want her name used, acknowledged she was one of the nine who favored the death penalty. She also declined to identify the three jurors who refused to vote for capital punishment. But she said they held to that position all through the deliberations, which lasted 40 hours over four days.
She took issue with a report that one juror worked on crossword puzzles as deliberations went on, saying all jurors actively participated.
She declined to say if anyone was angry with the three holdouts or if she was disappointed in the way the case ended, saying only, “I was for death, but I’m happy to know he’s going to be put away for a long, long, long time.”
— Staff reporters Marcus K. Garner and Jamie Gumbrecht contributed to this story.
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