NICHOLS TRIAL: ‘It was red with blood’

Cynthia Hall has no memory of the last day she trusted Brian Nichols.

The beating she took on March 11, 2005, left her an invalid.

The former Fulton County sheriff’s deputy, once known for her work ethic, now is blind in her right eye. Her eyelid droops. Her brain damage prevents her from caring for herself, makes it difficult for her to dress herself and impossible for her to be gainfully employed.

That was the Thursday testimony of Dr. Gerald Bilsky, a rehabilitation specialist who treated Hall at the Shepherd Center.

His testimony Thursday came as the prosecution added detail after detail of the mayhem and death the day of Nichols’ alleged courthouse shooting rampage that left four people dead. Nichols has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity.

Deputy Sgt. Harold Moore testified that when he found the severely beaten Hall in the cell area, she was holding her cellphone and handcuffs, struggling to get to her feet.

“She had some long hair and her hair wasn’t black any more. It was red with blood,” said Moore.

He tried to reassure her: “Help is here and help is on its way.”

Moore, a bear of a man, said Hall didn’t recognize him as he tried to comfort her.

“As I was rubbing on her, she was still trying to fight,” he said. “She was trying to handcuff me.”

Hall was Nichols’ first alleged victim. It was her fatefully disastrous decision to go alone with Nichols to a holding cell, witnesses testified, that almost cost her own life —- and ultimately did cost the lives of four others.

After overpowering Hall in the cell, Nichols escaped and, with Hall’s gun a few minutes later, killed Superior Court Judge Rowland Barnes and his court reporter, Julie Ann Brandau, in Barnes’ courtroom. Later that morning, Nichols was to have stood trial for rape.

Nichols also is charged with killing two others: Fulton County Deputy Hoyt Teasley, outside the courthouse, and U.S. Customs agent David Wilhelm, while on the run.

Hall, brain-damaged because of the attack, is not expected to testify. Bilsky said Thursday that she has no memory of what happened that morning.

Witnesses testified that, during Nichols’ trial, she was his guard and become friendly with him. She seemed to trust him and did not require he wear customary leg shackles, even though, the day before his attack, he had been caught with hinges hidden in his shoes. The hinges could have been used as weapons.

Fulton County Deputy Dilcie Thomas said that on the morning of the attack, she urged Hall three times to get another deputy to go with her upstairs to a holding cell with Nichols, where he was going to change from jail garb before appearing in court.

Hall told Thomas, “No, I got him.”

On cross-examination, defense attorney Henderson Hill asked Thomas if she had been told by courthouse security that Nichols’ mother had called and warned that her son was a security risk.

“The specific concern I’m talking about was this defendant was going to attempt to escape and attempt to overpower a guard?” asked Hill, whose client is pleading not guilty by reason of insanity.

“No,” said Thomas.

For the second day jurors saw photographic evidence of Nichols’ attack on Hall. Against defense objections, they saw photographs of Hall’s battered face taken at Grady Memorial Hospital shortly after the severe beating that almost killed her.

Thomas said she stays in touch with Hall and talked with her Thursday morning. She said Hall is a different woman than the woman she was before the brutal attack.

“She curses a lot now —- she uses profanity a lot now,” said Thomas.

Paramedic Charles Kinney recalled arriving at the courthouse that morning and being told there were two “patients” in Barnes’ courtroom.

He said he found Barnes and Brandau dead from head wounds, the judge lying on his back, Brandau lying face down, both in pools of blood. He described their condition in technical terms, calling them “unviable.”

When he went to treat Hall, he said he was told she had been shot in the head. He didn’t doubt that when he found her in the holding cell, barely conscious, a gash on her forehead, and he right eye badly beaten.

“There was a tremendous amount of blood,” he said. “It was on the floor. It was on the walls. It was on her clothes. It was on us —- it was all over everything.”

As Kinney testified, Barnes’ wife, Claudia, sat with her eyes downcast in the courtroom, a deep sadness on her face. While she didn’t appear to cry, she seemed to struggle to keep her composure.

She covered her mouth with a clinched left hand as Kinney described seeing brain matter and blood at the scene of her husband’s death.