Most of the time, once a criminal gets to court, they're not able to hurt anyone else for the time being.

Courthouses have pretty tight security, and even many law enforcement officers aren't allowed to have their weapons on them inside the building.

If the defendant is being tried for a violent crime, they usually have a police escort, and depending on the type of hearing their attending, they may even still be in handcuffs or even in shackles.

Still, a person can commit violence once inside the courthouse if they really want to.

That was the case with Brian Nichols, who was facing a second trial for sexual assault after his first trial ended in a hung jury.

Despite the evidence against him being strong, he claimed that he was innocent and that the system was set up against him.

He believed it was his duty to fight back.

This is monsters.

Brian Jean Nichols was born on December tenth, nineteen seventy one, in Baltimore, Maryland, to Jean and CLARITHA Nichols.

He had one older brother named Mark.

The brothers attended an all boys private Catholic school called Cardinal Gibbons School.

Despite being raised in a Baptist family, he said to have had a pretty standard childhood, and though he started out pretty shy in high school, he began lifting weights and building more self confidence.

After graduating, he attended Cuttstown University of Pennsylvania, where he played football as a walk on.

Other players said that he was a good athlete, but he had a knack for getting into trouble.

Records show that Brian was arrested at least three times while in Cuttstown.

In nineteen ninety, he was charged with terroristic threats, simple assault, disorderly conduct, and harassment after an incident in the university dining hall.

He made a deal to plead guilty to two lesser charges.

He was arrested two more times in nineteen ninety one for criminal trespass, misdemeanor, criminal mischief, and disorderly conduct, but the charges were later dropped.

After three semesters, Brian dropped out of Cuttstown University and enrolled at Newberry College in South Carolina, where he also played football.

During that time, he had a child in nineteen ninety two with a woman named Stephanie J but was not interested in being a father.

It's not clear where the mother and child lived, but Brian actively avoided them after the baby was born, he got into more trouble while at Newbury College and was caught breaking into a dorm room to steal audio equipment.

He was arrested and charged with first degree burglary.

Because of that, he was kicked off of the football team and eventually left the school.

It's not clear how the burglary charge was resolved.

In nineteen ninety five, he moved to Atlanta and soon after was arrested with a small amount of marijuana.

He received three years of probation in Atlanta, he worked as a Eunix systems engineer at Hewlett Packard for eight years before taking a job for Ups as a computer engineer.

Brian's older brother, Mark said that Brian was making a six figure income at the time.

He regularly attended church with his longtime girlfriend, who is also said to have had a decent income.

They dated for about eight years before breaking up in April of two thousand and four, but they got back together that summer.

When the girlfriend found out that Brian had gotten another woman pregnant, she broke up with him for good.

It seemed as though Brian may have accepted the breakup at first, but when he found out that she had started dating a minister from their church.

She became jealous and angry.

Two separate times in August, he confronted the minister outside of his ex's apartment.

Then, on August nineteenth, Brian forced his way into her apartment, threatened her with a gun, and sexually assaulted her.

As soon as he left, the victim called the police and reported the assault.

He was arrested and charged with rape, aggravated assault with intent to rape, aggravated sodomy, burglary, false imprisonment, and possession of a firearm during the commission of a crime.

He was held without bail due to the severity of the attack and the violence involved.

He had also threatened the victim with retaliation if she reported him to the authorities.

After Brian testified that the sex had been consensual, the trial ended in a hung jury, but the prosecutor filed to retry the case.

When Brian heard that, he stated in the courthouse quote, I'm not going to go lying down.

The courthouse nightmare started on March eleventh, two thousand and five.

Brian arrived at the courthouse at around eight thirty am on a transport bus and was placed into a basement detention area.

Soon after, Sheriff's Deputy Cynthia Hall escorted him to a holding cell on the eighth floor of the Fulton County Justice Tower.

It was reported that on the morning of the attack, Deputy Hall was urged three times to get another deputy to go with her upstairs to the holding cell, where Brian was going to change from jail issued clothing into a suit.

Hall reportedly responded, quote, no, I got him.

She had been the one assigned to him over the course of both of his trials, so it said that she seemed to trust him by then.

She didn't require that he wear the customary leg shackles, even though the day before his attack he had been previously caught with makeshift weapons.

She escorted Brian too the holding area, where she was to remove his handcuffs so that he could change for court.

Released one cuff and turned Brian around to unhook the remaining cuff, which was dangling from his wrist.

That's when the man brutally attacked the deputy, pushing her into another open cell.

The video surveillance camera recorded as he overpowered the deputy, hitting her so hard in the face her feet left the ground.

He emerged from the cell with her gun belt, which included her radio and magazines for her service weapon.

Brian retrieved Hall's keys from the floor and locked her in the cell.

The fugitive entered another cell and changed into his street clothes and was seen about four and a half minutes later.

Leaving the holding cell area.

He used the deputy's keys to open a lock box where law enforcement is required to store their gun.

Upon entering the courthouse, he armed himself with her Baretta forty caliber semi automatic pistol.

From there, he made his way to Judge Roland Barnes private chambers, where he disabled phone lines and took several people hostage.

One deputy entered the room and tried to disarm Brian, but was overpowered.

At that point, Brian ordered him to handcuff the hostages.

Before he did that, the deputy was able to activate an alarm on his radio, and Brian grabbed the radio and tried to claim it was a false alarm.

The other security officers didn't recognize his voice, so they knew something was wrong and continued to pursue the situation.

That's when Brian entered the courtroom from behind the bench.

As soon as he saw Judge Barnes sitting behind the bench presiding over another case, he shot him in the head, killing him.

He wanted to shoot the Assistant District Attorney, but didn't see him in the courtroom, so he turned the gun on court reporter Julianne Brandau and killed her with a gunshot to the head.

Brian then fled down a stair well through an emergency exit.

He encountered Deputy Hoy Teasley on Martin Luther King Junior Drive and shot him multiple times in the abdomen.

Deputy t Easley would end up dying from his wounds.

The next hour saw the fugitive steel at least five vehicles in quick succession, starting with a mosed Suv at nine oh five am.

He moved on to hijack a tow truck, a Mercury Sable, and a Zuzu Trooper, and finally a green Honda Cord.

Most of them were carjackings at gunpoint.

Atlanta Journal Constitution reporter Don O'Brien became another victim when Brian tried to force him into a trunk and pistol whipped him for refusing.

Brian managed to slip away through crowds gathered for a college basketball tournament.

Investigators later determined he boarded a Marta subway train to the Lenox area.

The city of Atlanta plunged into darkness while Brian remained free despite an intense city wide search.

He tried to kidnap a young woman who was walking home from the gym that evening, but her boyfriend stepped in and she called nine to one one, which made run away.

Then he attempted to rob a couple at their Lennox Road apartment around ten forty PM.

A brief struggle ensued before he escaped on foot.

He then came upon US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent David G.

Wilhelm at his Buckhead home, which was under construction.

Brian shot and killed the agent and took his badge gun and blue Chevy pickup truck.

The fugitive made his way to Duluth, about twenty miles or thirty two kilometers northeast of Atlanta, and forced himself into Ashley Smith's apartment in the early hours of the following morning.

He held her at gunpoint and tight her hands and feet.

They talked for hours about religion and family, which led him to relax and untie her.

Law enforcement agencies had put Atlanta under virtual lockdown during that time.

They announced a reward of sixty five thousand dollars to anyone who could help catch him.

The authorities continued their search while Brian appeared on America Most Wanted.

The manhunt lasted nearly twenty six hours.

Construction workers found Agent Wilhelm's body at six thirty am on the twelfth.

Ashley Smith called nine one one around nine fifty am, and Brian finally surrendered to the swat team at eleven twenty four am.

That same day, Ashley Smith's unexpected active courage became the turning point in the manhunt for Brian.

She had run to the store for cigarettes and was just arriving back to the parking lot of her apartment complex, the Bridgewater Apartments, at about two thirty am, when Brian grabbed her.

The twenty six year old managed to keep her composure during a terrifying seven hour ordeal after the fugitive forced his way into her Duluth apartment and held her hostage.

At first, Brian tied her up and made her sit in the bathroom with a towel over her head while he took a shower.

While sitting there, she opened up about her daughter and late husband story.

He had been stabbed to death in August of two thousand and one, and because of that, her life had spiraled out of control.

She had been using drugs, and her five year old daughter had to go live with relatives.

She explained that she was going to school and trying to straighten her life out.

At that time.

She told him that she was supposed to go visit her daughter that day and was afraid she would never see her again.

Brian eventually untied Ashley, and she continued to try to help him accept his fate.

He asked her for marijuana, but she told him she only had meth.

He asked her to smoke it with him, but she refused.

She would later say that the last time she had done drugs was a few days before this incident, and it helped push her to a place where she really took her recovery seriously.

She read passages from the book The Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren.

Their conversations deepened as Ashley made pancakes for breakfast and slowly built a connection with the fugitive.

She told him quote believe God brought you to my door.

Her peaceful presence and spiritual conversations deeply affected Brian, and he eventually let her leave the apartment to see her daughter.

She called the authorities right after she got free.

Police surrounded the apartment complex, and Brian saw that he had limited options.

He decided to surrender without resistance and walked out with his hands up while waving a white T shirt.

Ashley's remarkable bravery brought her widespread recognition.

She received the reward for Brian Nichols capture.

Her life changed completely after this incident, as she overcame her previous struggle with methamphetamine addiction.

She went on to write a book called Unlikely Angel, The Untold Story of the Atlanta hostage Hero.

Unfortunately, warnings of Brian's possible escape attempt had been ignored.

A friend of Brian's told the District Attorney's office that Brian was going to try to escape.

He told them that Brian had asked for a credit card to be hidden in the pocket of the suit he was going to wear to court.

Brian's mother had emailed the Fulton County Sheriff's office and told them she believed her son would try to take a deputy's weapon.

By then, Brian's parents had relocated to Tanzania, so it's unknown what gave his mother the idea that he would take a weapon from law enforcement, but she was ultimately correct.

After the second trial had begun, two shanks were found in Brian's shoe, and despite the judge ordering the defendant to have additional deputies guard him, that didn't happen.

On the day of the attack, he was still only guarded by a single deputy.

Additionally, though the area where the deputy was attacked was monitored by surveillance, nobody was watching the footage.

According to hospital sources, Deputy Cynthia Hall sustained significant brain injury, facial fractures, in a large laceration to her forehead after the attack, Her condition was reported as critical, but she survived.

Deputy Hall's injuries were so severe that doctor's a Grady Memorial Hospital initially believed that she had sustained a gunshot wound to the face.

After his capture, Brian was transferred to the Atlanta Police station, where he made a full confession to his crimes.

The spree killer claimed his rage focused on what he saw as an unfair system.

Brian wrote letters after his arrest that stated, quote, no black man has ever made such a stand as mine, and claimed the shootings carried a message.

He drew parallels between his pretrial detention without bond and Judge Barnes's decision to let white NHL player Danny heat Lea stay free despite vehicular homicide charges.

Of course, those two cases had quite obvious differences outside of the defendant's races.

Danny Heaty had lost control of his car and crashed something that ultimately caught the death of his passenger, but it was an accident, despite him being responsible by speeding on a curved road, he didn't intend to cause anyone harm.

That's contrasted by Brian having unlawfully entered someone's home, restrained her with duct tape, held her at gunpoint, sexually assaulted her, and threatened to cover her in lighter fluid and set her on fire to burn to death, and the assault was backed up by severe injuries to that victim.

Those two situations do not call for equal bail treatment.

I will never say that white and black people are treated equally in US courts, but this was not an example of someone being treated harshly because of their race, at least not in relation to the case they're comparing themselves to.

It's also important to point out that Brian went on to prove exactly why he was held without bail.

He was a violent man who was a danger to society if that wasn't proof.

While awaiting his new trial, it was discovered that Brian was plotting a second escape attempt.

The Attorney General was asked to appoint an outside prosecutor to investigate the defendant's security at the Fulton County Jail.

The independent investigation discovered that Brian allegedly got direct and indirect help from his girlfriend, a paralegal who worked for his lawyers, and his own brother.

He also received help from two deputies who were reportedly paid cash for favors.

It was revealed that Brian had asked his long distance girlfriend, Lisa Meneguzo, to go to a home depot home improvement store and make a purchase of construction tools, including a masonry saw, a circular saw, and a jack.

Brian is said to have plotted an escape by sawing his way out of a cement block wall.

The reported plot did not get past the planning stages, and Brian was moved into Calb County Jail in October of two thousand and six, where he was kept in lockdown until his try.

Brian was charged with fifty four counts, including murderer, kidnapping, an armed robbery.

His case ended up becoming Georgia's most expensive, with prosecution and defense costs reaching over three million dollars.

Brian pleaded not guilty to all of the charges.

The prosecution played an audio tape of the gunshots that killed Judge Barnes and court reporter Julie Brandau, whose tape recorder left running preserved her last moments of life.

The tape at first began with what the prosecutor called a moment of regular court room tranquility of a lawyer's argument to the court, until the first gunshot rang out, then the apparent confusion of stunned civil lawyers, and a second shot.

Four seconds later.

A woman's voice was heard saying, quote, don't hurt me, Please, don't hurt me, Please, don't hurt me.

The screams of Barnes's staff attorney were recorded as Julie fell across her fatally shot through the head.

Witnesses also testified that it was Brian who fired the shots, but Deputy Cynthia Hall was not able to testify because her brain injury left her with no memory of the attack.

Fortunately, there was surveillance footage of Brian attacking the deputy.

Other officers testify the deputy Hall had become too comfortable around the defendant.

The prosecution also played the recorded confession that Brian had given after he was taken into custody on March twelfth, two thousand and five.

Brian tried to claim that Agent David Wilhelm had pointed a gun at him, so he only shot him in self defense, but forensics experts proved that to be a lie.

The angle of the gun shots showed that David was kneeling when he was shot, and a bullet wound to his thumb showed that he was not holding a gun.

While Agent Wilhelm was bleeding out on the floor, Brian had gone through his pockets and stolen his wallet, his badge, and his keys.

He was in no way an act of self defense.

Defense team argued that he suffered from delusional disorder with peculiar thinking and feelings of grandiosity and persecution.

They called his ex girlfriend to the stand, yes, the one he had sexually assaulted, where she told the jury that Brian had called her after their breakup and claimed he was going to kill himself, though that was likely an act of manipulation, not mental illness.

The defense called psychiatrist Mark Cunningham to the stand, who said Brian began to show extreme beliefs in college.

He presented college essays that Brian had written in nineteen ninety two.

They showed that Brian had allegedly believed that there was an organized and deliberate attempt by whites to eradicate the black race by imprisoning black men and keeping them from having children.

One of the essays read quote, if violence can be used to murder defenseless women and children in South Africa and Vietnam, then surely it can be used to defend the human rights of dark skinned people all over the world.

The psychiatrist claimed that those were seeds that later grew into a delusional disorder.

He said that Brian related his confinement in jail to slavery, and that the judge in his case, Roland Barnes, was the slave master.

Of course, the only reason Brian was in jail was because he committed a crime, and that crime had a victim who reported it with injuries that backed up her claim.

If he hadn't committed that crime, he wouldn't be in a cage.

He had spent the previous eight years with a good job, in a relationship with a woman, and an active member of his local church, with all the freedom afforded to him as any other person had.

Nobody had treated him like a slaver persecuted him during that time.

It wasn't until he broke the law and became an obvious danger to society that his freedom was taken away.

That is not comparable to slavery in any way.

To think that you need to be a completely remorseless individual who refuses to take her responsibility for your actions.

In an effort to show that the defendant did not have any history of mental illness, the prosecution called Gaie Abramson Chahy to testify.

She was the former Fulton County prosecutor who tried Brian Nichols twice in two thousand and five for the sexual assault of his former girlfriend.

She testified that she never saw any signs of mental illness in the defendant when she met with him in his attorney At those times, she said, Brian's attorney never mentioned his client's a legend mental illness either.

When asked to describe the defendant, she said, quote confident.

I hate to use a cliche, but cool, calm, and collected.

Brian's defense attorney cross examined her until she finally lost her cool during an aggressive series of questions, she snapped, quote, I'm an attorney, and I know what your defense is, and it is BS.

It seems that the jurors also saw through the defense's arguments and rejected claims of mental illness.

They spent twelve hours over two days deliberating before finding Brian guilty on all fifty four counts on November seventh, two thousand and eight.

The jury was not able to come to a unanimous decision on the death penalty, which was a requirement for that sentence, Superior Court Judge James Bodeford had no choice but to give Brian Nichols multiple life sentences without parole, plus hundreds more years in prison.

During sentencing, the judge said, quote, if there was any more I could give you, I would Brian Nichols killed four innocent people, Judge Roland Barnes, court reporter Julie Brandau, Deputy Hoyt Teasley, and federal agent David Wilhelm.

He also left Deputy Cynthia Hall with permanent brain damage.

A security review of the court was ordered and found that the court was understaffed and that security protocols were not sufficient.

In twenty sixteen, Brian Nichols gave an exclusive of interview to WSB TV in Atlanta, where he continued to claim he was mentally ill on the day he committed his spree killings.

Why did you shoot Julie Brandall?

I can't even began to try to take quint or answer questions about why I did something that was, you know, wrong, and.

Why kill Deputy hoy Teaesley.

No, we're talking about the mental health as the food and after either irrationalize or blame why I did something irrational at a time when it was obviously something eventually not right.

That's the only thing I can do, is all right.

So I'm reading from one of our scripts.

They heard Nicol say he was fighting a noble war against slavery.

Is that true?

Or were you gaming the detectives.

Well know that that was a part of the delusion.

I've got a lot of things to justify.

Do you think that people see you as a monster.

It doesn't matter.

I'm concerned about how with my family, how my family feed, concern about how how my children do you like?

Because you know, I can't do anything about the big, terrible things I've done in the past.

The only thing I could do is try to try to be a better person going forward.

Do you see yourself on those two days as a monster?

I see my film as being delusional on that day, and that yet that that delusional person was.

Unfortunately, I'm a monster by anything.

Would you ask was justice done to Brian Nichols?

No, it doesn't matter.

Things are as they are.

If I could go back and do things differently, of course I was.

I can't play the hand, and I wish I would do.

I have to play the hand in a hand.

He claimed that he couldn't play the hand he wished he was dealt.

He could only play the hand that he had.

But what hand did he wish he was dealt?

Like I said, before he had gotten an education, he had gotten a good job, he had been in a stable relationship he had been dealt that hand.

It seems that he chose to fold with a winning hand and drew new cards that made him a monster.

If you're the victim of domestic abuse, please reach out to someone for help.

Please talk to your local shelter.

Call the National Domestic Abuse Hotline at one eight hundred seven nine nine safe.

That's one eight hundred seven nine nine seven two three three, or you can go to the hotline dot org to chat with someone online.

If you're having feelings of harming yourself or someone else, or even just need someone to talk to, please contact your local mental health facility call nine one one, or call the National Suicide Prevention Hotline by simply dialing nine to eight eight in the United States.

They're available twenty four hours a day, seven days a week, and we'll talk to you about any mental health issue you might be facing.

If you're a member of the LGBTQ plus community and suffering from discrimination, depression, or are in need of any support, please contact the LGBT National Hotline at one eight eight eight eight four three four five six four, or go to LGBT Hotline dot org.

Thanks so much for letting me tell you this story.

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