Nichols’ childhood raised as a defense

Brian Nichols suffered from sexual abuse, an emotionally and often physically distant mother, and a drunken and neglectful father, according to a psychiatrist who testified Monday.

Dr. Richard Dudley Jr. told a Fulton County jury that Nichols’ parents provided for him financially and sent him to private military and Catholic schools, but the 36-year-old multiple murderer still was traumatized as a child.

Dudley, of New York, testified in the penalty phase of Nichols’ death penalty trial. The jury convicted Nichols on Nov. 7 of four murders and other crimes committed after he escaped on March 11, 2005, during his rape trial at the Fulton County Courthouse.

Nichols killed Superior Court Judge Rowland Barnes, who was presiding over his rape trial, court reporter Julie Ann Brandau, sheriff’s Deputy Sgt. Hoyt Teasley and David Wilhelm, an off-duty U.S. Customs agent.

The jury now must decide whether Nichols should be sentenced to life in prison or put to death. The penalty phase of the trial is expected to continue into December.

The psychiatrist said the sexual abuse ended when Nichols was 10 years old and could escape his tormentors. Bullying from his brother and other neighborhood boys ended after he started studying martial arts when he was 13, the psychiatrist said.

Dudley said his reports on the neglect and abuse came from Nichols and other family members. Nichols’ mother, Claritha, acknowledged she had been absent during her son’s formative years in Baltimore while she progressed professionally in the Internal Revenue Service. She left him in the care of an alcoholic father and other family members, Dudley said.

“She acknowledges that much of his childhood is just a big blur to her,” Dudley told Henderson Hill, lead defense lawyer, who called him as a witness. Prosecutors are expected to start questioning the psychiatrist today.

Dudley followed Zachery Dingle, a Baltimore social worker and a friend of Nichols since their teen years. Dingle said he was concerned about the effect Nichols’ execution could have on his 16-year-old daughter, who is expected to testify for the defense even though Nichols had not seen her for more than a decade. “I feel mostly she is going to be traumatized,” Dingle said Monday.

That comment prompted prosecutor Clint Rucker to ask: “Would you agree she was traumatized for the first 13 years of her life, when she had hardly any contact with her father?”

“Yes,” Dingle said.

Rucker then asked whether Dingle knew that one of the victims, Teasley, had two daughters? Claudia Barnes, the judge’s widow, reached out and took the hand of Deborah Teasley, the widow of the deputy. “I did not know that,” Dingle said quietly.