Spare Nichols because of his awful childhood, witnesses say

Brian Nichols’ childhood was so terrible he should be spared as an adult, two more defense witnesses testified Wednesday to a jury deciding whether Nichols should receive death or life in prison for murdering four people.

A female cousin testified Wednesday that when Nichols was about 3, she twice saw Nichols being sexually abused by one of his cousins who was about 7 or 8 at the time, but she didn’t tell anybody ntil years later.

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Kimberly Smith/ksmith@ajc.com

Brian Nichols (left) talked with defense attorney Robert McGlasson on Wednesday.

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• Interactive graphic: The 2005 shootings
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Sherrie Coleman Rollins said one day she heard Nichols and went to a room and saw the older cousin “holding him [Nichols] down … and Brian was crying.” She said she told the cousin, who she identified as Reggie, “to get off of him and leave him alone.”

She said a few months later, when the families were at the beach, she encountered Reggie and Nichols outside of a public restroom and Reggie was “rubbing on Brian’s private parts.” Again Rollins, who was about 12 at the time, said she told Reggie to stop, but didn’t tell adults about it.

Rollins testified that she herself has battled drugs and alcohol most of her life. She said she has been clean for the past 26 months and is on medication for depression as she goes through drug recovery and treatment.

Witnesses have testified that Nichols’ childhood was troubled. His mother was physically and emotionally absent, his father was an alcoholic and much of the time he was taken care of by an aunt, who herself drank, and whose husband also was an alcoholic.

Nichols’ formative years were immersed in booze, drugs, and neglect, witnesses have said. And that abuse, said the second witness to testify on Wednesday, carried into his college years.

The witness said Nichols was subjected to brutal beatings during hazings when he was a fraternity pledge in the early 1990s at Newberry College in South Carolina.

Terrence Tyson, a member of the fraternity, said Nichols complained to him about the brutality of the paddlings, which went on for weeks.

“It wasn’t normal hazing,” Tyson said. “It was abnormal. It was too rough.”

He testified that Nichols complained about bruises and, at one time, went to the school nurse go get ointment to treat his wounds. He said Nichols said to him: ” ‘Man ya’ll are beating me like slaves,’ which we were. It was real violent.”

Nichols eventually videotaped the hazings and gave the tape to school authorities. He was blackballed and not made a member of the fraternity, after he’d been led to believe he was being accepted.

“They [fraternity brothers] just beat him and threw him out to the curb,” Tyson said.

Tyson testified that when he heard about the killings, he had a hard time believing Nichols could have committed them because, despite all the beatings he took in college, Nichols “was never angry, he was always cool.”

A Fulton County Superior Court jury rejected Nichols’ insanity plea and convicted him Nov. 7 for the March 11, 2005, murders of four people. Nichols killed them after escaping from a holding cell at the Fulton County courthouse, where he was to stand trial later that morning for the rape of a former girlfriend.

Nichols shot and killed the Superior Court judge in his case, Rowland Barnes, and court reporter Julie Brandau, in Barnes’ courtroom. He shot and killed Fulton County sheriff’s deputy Hoyt Teasley on the street outside the courthouse, and U.S. Customs agent David Wilhelm later that night in Buckhead.

Nichols’ cousin said she believes Nichols should be shown mercy.

“He can still be productive to our family, to his daughter Jasmine, his son Evan, and maybe he can come back and be the real Brian,” Rollins said.

Testimony will resume Monday. This was the 10th week of the trial.