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CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown

More Details Emerge on Murder Suspect's Actions

Aired March 14, 2005 - 22:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


AARON BROWN, CNN ANCHOR, NEWSNIGHT: You probably heard the headlines of this story, but we live in the details tonight, the moments and the turning points, the missed opportunities, the mistakes. Together they make up a day, a long day.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This happened about 9:05 a.m. this morning.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Judge Rowland Barnes was fatally wounded.

BROWN (voice-over): The news from Atlanta came first in fragments.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I can confirm that two individuals, including the judge, are dead as a result of the shootings.

BROWN: Two would become three. Three would become four.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I went and looked on the wall of the parking garage and I saw the sheriff laying on the ground.

BROWN:

DON O'BRIANT, REPORTER, "ATLANTA JOURNAL CONSTITUTION": I was getting ready to give him my wallet, and that's when he told me to get in the trunk. And I knew this was serious.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The latest vehicle that he has been spotted in is a '97 green Honda Accord.

BROWN: Mistakes would be made. Another would die. The fugitive now a hostage taker. The hostage now a heroine.

ASHLEY SMITH, FORMER HOSTAGE: He asked me what I thought he should do and I said I think you should turn yourself in.

BROWN: Friday would give way to Saturday and the fugitive would surrender. A long day over, a new day about to begin and along with tears, plenty of questions.

DENNIS SCHEIB, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: They could have shackled him. They could have done any number of things where this couldn't have happened, but there was a breakdown somewhere.

(END VIDEOTAPE) BROWN: What would become clear after Friday is how much the police and the media got wrong as the story at the Atlanta courthouse shooting unfolded. Breaking news is by definition fluid. In the initial chaos, some facts can be overlooked, others mistaken. Breaking stories are often short on detail. In the first hours after the shooting, the wheres and the whats and the whos of the story were just outlines. Time would fill them in. Time continues to fill them in.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN (voice-over): Just after 9:00 Friday morning in a holding cell next to the Fulton County courthouse, Brian Nichols is handcuffed to sheriff's deputy Cynthia Hall, a five-foot-tall grandmother. She removes Nichols' handcuffs so he can change into street clothes for his rape trial before Judge Rowland Barnes.

ALAN DREHER, DEPUTY POLICE CHIEF ATLANTA: The suspect was on his way to the courtroom. It appears that he overwhelmed a deputy sheriff on his way to court. It appears that he took possession of her handgun.

BROWN: For the next 26 hours, all of Atlanta will be on an intensive manhunt. But 45 minutes earlier, the courthouse that sits in downtown Atlanta was unaware that chaos was about to break loose. From the moment it opened the Fulton County courthouse has enjoyed pride of place in downtown Atlanta in price tag and size eclipsing the statehouse nearby. It has grown with the city and with crime into a maze of buildings and corridors and checkpoints.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: As you enter the Fulton County courthouse or any courthouse for that matter now, you enter with airport-like security. You have to go through metal detectors. You have to put your bag through the screening device. So the idea that an outside gun could get in was difficult to believe.

BROWN: A gun, though, from the inside, that would be different and so it would be in the moments to come. But at 8:45 in the morning, the courthouse is settling in for a routine Friday. 64-year- old Judge Barnes in a courtroom on the eighth floor of the old building, hearing a civil case, expected to run until 9:30.

DORRIS DOWNS, CHIEF JUSTICE, FULTON CO. SUPERIOR COURT: Judge Barnes was one of the most generous judges ever. He was willing to help out every judge on the bench. He took cases from judges that felt overwhelmed.

T. JACKSON BEDFORD, FULTON COUNTY SUPERIOR COURT JUDGE: We used to kind of get to carrying on so much that our secretaries would come and say, you guys cool it. We're going to close the door. You're making too much commotion. I mean, we just enjoyed each other's company. And he was -- he was a very humorous person. I mean, he had a tremendous sense of humor and was able to do all kinds of things with his humor. I mean, he was incredible.

BROWN: In the courtroom with Judge Barnes, Julianne Brandau, his long-time court reporter, a 46-year-old single mother known for make jurors feel welcome in the courtroom.

NANCY GRACE: Julie, when I first became a prosecutor in '87, was a floater. She would go from one court to the next. She wasn't assigned to a particular judge. At that time Barnes was still on state court. He was a magistrate, actually. And we all came up through the ranks together. She was a single mom, daughter in college. And she would make peach bread or oatmeal cookies, just anything from scratch to bring in to the jurors that were on trial.

BROWN: Sergeant Hoyt Teasley has begun his day as well. A 43- year-old father of two, known as a protector, even as a young boy. Forty-year-old David Wilhelm would not become part of the story until many hours later. A Federal agent for 18 years, he was known as hardworking, yet easygoing with a knack and a passion for remodeling homes. Ashley Smith would play a key role in the story, a 26-year-old former waitress and single mother. Her husband was stabbed four years ago, died in her arms. After his death Ashley Smith fought depression. She has struggled to turn her life around.

BONNIE COLBER, FORMER TEACHER OF ASHLEY SMITH: Probably because of the hard life that she's had, she understood this man. She understood his hurts, his feel of disorientation, his confusion. And one thing about Ashley, she always wanted to be understood. And I think that desire of her own, she shared it with him. And she took the time to understand him.

BROWN: The man who would collide with all these lives with disastrous results, Brian Nichols, on trial for rape and false imprisonment, accused of breaking into his ex-girlfriend's house with a loaded shotgun, binding her with duct tape, and sexually assaulting her repeatedly. If convicted, he faced a possible sentence of life in prison. His first trial had ended in a mistrial, a hung jury, just a week earlier. His lawyer says Nichols' second time in court would have been tougher.

BARRY HAZEN, DEFENSE ATTY. FOR BRIAN NICHOLS: There was a lot more evidence in the second case, mostly of a corroborative nature. There were claims that were made that were just uncorroborated during the first trial, and the question was who's telling the truth. In the second trial, there was a lot more evidence that corroborated certain claims that were made.

BROWN: Before his arrest last summer, Brian Nichols was a computer technician for UPS, a former athlete who played football in college, a big man, 6'1", 210.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Brian Nichols by the numbers, which only go so far. In other ways, though, for the moment at least, Mr. Nichols is a wild card, a respectful young man friends say, yet one who also showed hints of darkness and cruelty, a man who escaped conviction in his first rape trial, he had armed himself with homemade knives and acted as though he no longer had anything left to lose. This, police say, is the Brian Nichols who deputy Cynthia hall is alone with, a grandmother guarding a linebacker who is also a black belt. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN (voice-over): Sheriff's deputy Cynthia Hall is removing Brian Nichols' handcuffs in a holding cell. It is a little after 9:00 Friday morning.

DON CLARK, FMR FBI SPECIAL AGENT IN CHARGE: This thing is going to be reviewed, I can assure you, It's going to be reviewed. Policies and procedures will be looked at. How you take prisoners about, the number of people that you have escorting prisoners, where you handcuff prisoners and when you take handcuffs off of prisoners.

BROWN: What took place was a titanic struggle, lasting three minutes or more, virtually an eternity, between the large young man and the older, smaller woman. Some of it caught on surveillance tape that authorities have yet to release. He slams her against the cell wall, pushing her out of the camera's eye. He takes the key to the lock box where deputy Hall had left her gun. He takes the gun. Then he changes into street clothes and calmly walks away. It is here that Brian Nichols allegedly made a fateful and puzzling decision.

GRACE: You would think a defendant would try to flee and avoid arrest. Instead, this guy made it his business -- and he had just been found with two shanks, which are homemade knives, from the jail a couple of days before. I'm just stunned that he would risk his own escape to go back and seek vengeance on this judge.

BROWN: He runs, say police, not down to the street but across the skyway into the old courthouse.

BJ BERNSTEIN, FMR. PROSECUTOR, CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTY: When you enter the courtroom, there's usually two deputies assigned to that courtroom who are armed, who are there in the courtroom paying attention to what's going on. The judge is up on the bench. The court reporter would be sitting up front and the parties would be on two tables. But in close proximity to all the people that are going on there.

BROWN: Nichols begins making his way toward a courtroom. But first he goes into Judge Barnes' private chambers, tearing out phone lines, taking three hostages, including attorney David Allman. He handcuffed me, Allman tells the "Atlanta Journal" and he handcuffed the secretary. He didn't have a third pair. He asked the women, where's the judge? meaning Judge Barnes.

RENEE ROCKWELL, DEFENSE ATTY EYEWITNESS: I was about to walk into the courtroom. I was actually on the other side of the -- on the Central Avenue side. And deputies were running everywhere. There was a deputy's hat that was on the -- on the floor, on the ground. And they said get in the courtroom or come with us. Anyway, I ran into the -- into the elevator, and when I was in the elevator, one of the deputies told me that the defendant, and I assume that it was the defendant that was on trial for rape, grabbed the deputy's gun and held the courtroom hostage and shot the judge and shot somebody else in the courtroom. BROWN: The shooter, say witnesses, entering by way of the door in the back of the bench. Brian Nichols, they say, firing once into Judge Barnes' head, then turning and shooting court reporter Julie Ann Brandau (ph), then stalking over to what would have been the prosecution table. I realized, said civil attorney Richard Robbins, that he probably intended to kill the prosecutor next. Had the prosecutor been in the room at that time, he went on to say, she likely would have been next. Nichols gave him a look, said Robbins, a look he will never soon forget, utterly cool, he said, as if he were just a messenger delivering a court paper. And there would be more. It was still only 9:15 Friday morning.

SHERIFF MYRON FREEMAN, FULTON CO. SHERIFF'S DEPT: As you know, Fulton County sheriff's office and the entire law enforcement and legal community was devastated today by the tragic and senseless killing of three hardworking and dedicated county employees and the critical wounding of another. Our hearts and prayers go out to the families of each of these victims as we move forward to aggressively capture and incarcerate and prosecute the person responsible for this horrific crime.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: It wasn't the end, not even the beginning of the end. For Atlanta and the rest of the country, it was merely the end of the beginning. When we come back, the escape, the chase, the hostage taking, the killings. Our special report continues.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: This NEWSNIGHT special continues in just a moment with the escape of Brian Nichols from the Fulton County courthouse, but first a look at some of the other stories that made news today. Erica Hill joins us from Atlanta. Erica.

(NEWSBREAK)

BROWN: We continue now, continuing just after 9:00 Friday morning. Having killed two and wounded one, Brian Nichols is now in the heart of the judicial system. He's surrounded by police and news cameras and watchful eyes. It is into this swarm of humanity that he goes, not quietly, not gently, but more to the point, not as expected.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN (voice-over): Between 9:00 and 9:15 Friday morning, the bodies of Judge Rowland Barnes and his court reporter, Julie Ann Brandau, lay on the courtroom floor in slowly widening pools of blood. Brian Nichols starts his escape, bypassing the elevators for the stairwell, running down the stairs, leaving through an emergency exit onto the street, setting off an alarm. He starts down Martin Luther King Drive. Within seconds Nichols is confronted by Fulton County sheriff's deputy Sergeant Hoyt Teasley, 43 years old. The deputy tries to stop Nichols. Nichols, say authorities, shoots the deputy in the abdomen repeatedly. Wanda Tamplin, driving into a parking lot nearby, hears lout pops. WANDA TAMPLIN, WITNESS: I thought I heard shots but didn't really pay that much attention, went on to make my turn to go up the ramp and I saw a gentleman run by, didn't pay him a lot of attention, went on to start going up the ram and started hearing just a ton of sirens. As I got up to the top and got parked, I went and looked over the wall of the park garage and I saw the sheriff laying on the ground and that's kind of when I started connecting everything. You know, I heard shots, I see this guy run by, and at that point you kind of panic. You don't know whether to leave out of the garage or get in your car and leave. There were several of us standing there not knowing really what to do. So two ladies and I made a decision just to get in the garage elevator and get out of here. And when we got down, the sheriff was there with the gun trained on the elevator when the doors opened, scared us to death, rushed us out and we got out saw the sheriff being worked on.

BROWN: Sergeant Teasley could not be saved. He is Nichols' third victim. Nichols now runs into a number of parking garages in the area. Those garages will prove to be a maze in which police will eventually lose their suspect. Nichols begins a carjacking spree, hijacks one, then two, then three vehicles at gunpoint. A tow truck, a Mercury Sable, an SUV, driving each vehicle a short distance, then ditching it, sometimes within the same parking garage. Don O'Briant, a reporter for the "Atlanta Journal-Constitution," is parking his green Honda Accord in one of the parking garages. He meets Nichols face to face.

DON O'BRIANT, "ATLANTA JOURNAL CONSTITUTION: And an SUV pulled in right beside me, and a tall black guy gets out with no shirt on and asks for directions to Lennox Square. I figured he's in town for the basketball tournament. So I start giving him directions. All of a sudden he pulls the gun and says give me your keys. And I don't give them to him. He says give me the keys or I'll kill you.

BROWN: O'Briant told the story in more detail to CNN's Larry King.

O'BRIANT: Didn't seem to be nervous at all. He was totally in control, and the orders he gave me sounded like they were coming from a drill sergeant, not someone who was on the run. I thought it was a routine carjacking if you can call a carjacking routine. But I gave him the keys, I was getting ready to give him my wallet, and that's when he told me to get in the trunk. I gave him the keys. I said no, and I took a step back, and he walked toward me and the next thing I know he'd hit me and I was on the concrete and I scrambled to my feet and started for the street and kept waiting for the shots to ring out, but he didn't follow me and didn't shoot for some reason.

BROWN: Instead Nichols drives off in O'Briant's car. O'Briant makes his way to the ground floor, telling police what happened. Police put out an APB for the green Honda Accord, and within minutes the car's description is on local TV and radio stations, signs are flashed on local freeways. The search for that car will become one of the most massive law enforcement searches in the history of the state of Georgia. RICHARD PENNINGTON, ATLANTA POLICE CHIEF: When a police officer is killed, and in this case a judge, we're going to do everything we can and of course that court reporter too. We're going to do everything we can to locate and apprehend that person. So it's important to first find the car.

BROWN: But police have made a critical mistake. In the early chaos of setting up the manhunt for Nichols, everyone assumes he is on the road, in that stolen green Honda.

DON CLARK, FMR FBI SPECIAL AGENT IN CHARGE: The beginning of those types of investigations are truly chaotic. Bits and pieces of information are coming from all aspects of the investigative arena there. And so I'm not making an excuse for the police officers, but I can see why someone would make that mistake and think that, yes that car's the one.

BROWN: But what no one knows yet is the investigation is based on a mistaken assumption. The green Honda Nichols is believed to be driving never leaves the parking structure. Nichols only steers it to another level of the same garage. A security videotape shows Nichols in the garage stairwell heading for the street. His apparent calm as he straightens and buttons a dark jacket is in eerie contrast to his murderous rampage.

Apparently, unnoticed, Nichols walks a few blocks to a commuter train station. No police alerts have been posted at area train stations. No alerts have been issued to ticket takers or conductors. Nichols just boards a train and takes it north to the Buckhead area of Atlanta. Police, meanwhile, are still looking for that green Honda. They widen their dragnet, pulling in state and Federal agencies.

PENNINGTON: Our officers are out patrolling every square mile of the city of Atlanta and also Fulton County. We have notified the surrounding jurisdictions, and they're doing the same thing.

BROWN: It would be much later before they realized their mistake. The green Honda found still in the parking garage, where it was stolen.

VERNON KEENAN, DIR. GEORGIA BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION: About 90 minutes ago, the green Honda that we've had the nationwide lookout for was found here. A citizen who had seen the television newscast remembered the tag number, and he was in the parking garage at the -- next to the bottom level. He saw the vehicle, remembered the tag number from the television broadcast, and contacted law enforcement. At this time we do not know what vehicle the suspect is driving, and that's what we're attempting to find out.

BROWN: Police have lost their best lead. They have no idea now where Brian Nichols is. They know only that he is out there somewhere armed and dangerous. They do not then know that he has surfaced again, gun in hand. It's 10:40 Friday night. According to police reports, a man matching Nichols' description assaults a woman as she is about to enter her boyfriend's apartment in Buckhead. Nichols, she said, put a gun to her back, then struck her boyfriend with the weapon before running off into the darkness.

Sometime later that night about 10 miles from the courthouse where this all began Nichols kills again. David Wilhelm is a 40-year- old special agent in the U.S. immigration and customs enforcement service. Wilhelm has only just recently moved to Atlanta. He and his wife are building a home in Buckhead. That Friday night, Wilhelm is getting a jump on the weekend's work, laying bathroom tile. He is about to come face to face with Brian Nichols.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: And he won't be the last person to cross paths with the fugitive. Coming up in this NEWSNIGHT special report, the final terrifying hours of the manhunt and the hostage whose life hung in the balance.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: The story that's been pieced together in the last few days was still unfolding late Friday night. Brian Nichols was a fugitive with a price on his head, the target of an enormous manhunt. Police had no idea where he was. Saturday morning would bring new clues.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN (voice-over): Saturday morning, 6:30. Police get the call shortly after dawn. Two carpenters hired by David Wilhelm to help him build his house have arrived to find the door open, his dead body visible on the floor inside. Police arriving on the scene take quick inventory. Wilhelm's gun and badge are gone. So is his blue Chevy pickup truck. Nichols is the immediate suspect.

RICHARD PENNINGTON, ATLANTA POLICE CHIEF: Brian Nichols took his truck and he took his weapon, his Glock, and he took his identification and ID. We know that for a fact. The construction worker found the body of the custom agent inside his resident at approximately 6:30 to 7:00 a.m. A lookout was given for the truck and a massive search as we put the broadcast out throughout the metropolitan area and the state.

BROWN: For more than 24 hours, Brian Nichols' picture has been a fixture on local and national television. He is on the front page of morning newspapers. Radio stations are still broadcasting armed and dangerous alerts. There is a bounty on Brian Nichols' head, $60,000 for information leading to his capture.

PENNINGTON: I think probably that he's very desperate. He's probably scared because he knows that we have his picture plastered all over the news throughout the United States. He knows that he's killed a law enforcement officer. He's killed a judge. So, he's a wanted man. And he knows that law enforcement will continue to hunt him down.

BROWN: In Atlanta, it is all anyone seems to be talking about. Where is Brian Nichols? Ashley Smith knows. The 26-year-old former waitress and widow had gone to buy cigarettes at a convenience store about 2:30 Saturday morning. Nichols is outside the store in a blue pickup truck, Wilhelm's pickup truck. And he follows Smith from the convenience store back to her apartment complex, follows her to her front door.

ASHLEY SMITH, FORMER HOSTAGE: I started walking to my door, and I felt really, really scared. So I put my key in the door, and I unlocked it, and I turned around, and he was right there.

And I started to scream. And he put a gun to my side and he said, Don't scream. If you don't scream, I won't hurt you.

So I said, All right, OK, I won't scream. We went in the house, and he shut and locked the door.

And he said, Do you know who I am? I said, No, because he had a hat on. And then he took his hat off, and he said, Now do you know who I am? And I said, Yeah, I know who you are. Please don't hurt me. Just please don't hurt me. I have a 5-year-old little girl. Please don't hurt me. He said, I'm not going to hurt you, if you just do what I say.

BROWN: Smith's young daughter was staying with her aunt. Ashley is alone in the middle of the night with an armed man wanted for three murders. No one yet knew there had been a fourth.

SMITH: He looked around my house for a few minutes, I heard him opening up drawers and just going through my stuff. And he came back in and said, I want to relax, and I don't feel comfortable with you right now. So I'm going to have to tie you up.

He brought some masking tape and an extension cord and a curtain in there, and I kind of thought he was going to strangle me. I was really kind of scared. But he told me to turn around and put my hands behind my back, and he wrapped my hands in a prayer -- in a praying position, so I did that. And he wrapped masking tape around my hands.

He had the guns laying on the counter. But I guess he really wasn't worried about me grabbing them because I was tied up.

BROWN: After his shower, Smith says, Nichols seems to relax. He unties her. Smith starts to talk, tells Nichols about her life, tries to persuade him to let her go.

SMITH: My husband died four years ago, and I told him that if he hurt me, my little girl wouldn't have a mommy or a daddy. And she was expecting to see me the next morning. And if he didn't let me go, she would be really upset.

He still told me no. But I could -- I could kind of feel that he started to know who I was, and he said, Maybe, maybe I'll let you go. Just maybe. We'll see how things go.

I asked him why he chose me and why he chose Bridgewater Apartments, and he said he didn't know, just randomly.

BROWN: Nichols has one request. He asks Smith to help him ditch his getaway vehicle.

She follows him in her own car, wondering if she should call 911 from her cell phone. She decides against it, fearing Nichols might escape or that she might die in a shoot-out. Abandoning the pickup truck Nichols had used, they return to her apartment and the longest night of Ashley Smith's life, as she is held hostage by a man who can determine if she lives or dies goes on. In the hours before dawn, she talks with Brian Nichols about her church, about her faith and God.

SMITH: But after we began to talk, and -- he said he thought that I was an angel sent from God, and that I was his sister, and he was my brother in Christ. And that he was lost and God led him right to me to tell him that he had hurt a lot of people, and the families, the people.

BROWN: She also shares with him passages from the inspirational best-seller "The Purpose Driven Life" by Rick Warren.

As the hours tick off toward dawn, Ashley Smith keeps the conversation going, hoping talking will be enough to save her life.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: As far as Ashley Smith knows, the man who holds her life in his hands has already murdered three people. Does she stand a chance? Is there a possibility another side of him that she might reach? When we come back, how it all played out.

This is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: When the first bulletins about Brian Nichols were broadcast on Friday morning, police described him as armed and extremely dangerous. He should not, they said, under any circumstances be approached. It was hard to imagine then that the search for Mr. Nichols could end peacefully.

In the early hours of Saturday, Ashley Smith had no idea how her part of the story would end. She was a hostage. She was terrified. And she was doing everything she could to persuade Nichols to trust her, to give himself up, to put down his guns. Ms. Smith drew on her faith and searched for ways to connect with a killer.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN (voice-over): Ashley Smith talks to Nichols about more than just God. Hoping that it might help save her life, Smith shows Nichols photos of her small daughter, reminding him that she has to pick up the little girl in the morning.

SMITH: I didn't want him to hurt anybody else. And I really didn't want him to hurt himself or anyone else to hurt him. He's done enough -- he had done enough. And he really, honestly when I looked at him, he looked like he didn't want to do it any more.

BROWN: Smith makes Nichols breakfast. He says he's overwhelmed to be eating real butter.

SMITH: Well, 9:00 came. He said, What time do you have to leave? I said, I need to be there at 10:00, so I need to leave about 9:30. So I sat down and talked to him a little bit more.

BROWN: Smith doesn't know exactly why Nichols decides to let her go.

SMITH: He put the guns under the bed. Like you know, I'm done, I'm not going to mess around with you anymore. But I think he knew that I was going to do what I had to do. And I had to turn him in. And I gave him -- I asked him several times, you know, Come on, just go with me.

He said, I'll go with you in a few days.

BROWN: As she's about to leave, Nichols asks if he can do anything while she's gone, like hang her curtains. Her desperate gamble seems to be paying off.

BART HULSEY, GWINNETT COUNTY SWAT TEAM: She thought her way through this. She managed to make a rapport with him and made herself a person, not just an object.

BROWN: Finally, after seven hours as a hostage, Ashley Smith leaves her apartment. Nichols lets her take her cell phone. She calls 911 from her car and is told to go to the leasing office of her apartment building. Emergency dispatchers record her 911 call. It's 9:50 Saturday morning. A county police officer is dispatched to the scene, calls for backup.

CHARLES WALTERS, GWINNETT COUNTY POLICE CHIEF: We activated our SWAT team and uniformed people and the SWAT folks were able to contain the area. We had approximately 30 officers on the scene, 30 SWAT officers on the scene.

BROWN: Inside Ashley Smith's apartment, Brian Nichols is watching TV. This is what he sees.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The hostage situation that you're seeing live pictures of right now...

VERNON KEENAN, DIRECTOR, GEORGIA BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION: He looks out the -- he looks out the window and he sees the Gwinnett County SWAT team has got him surrounded. And his choice then is either surrender or confront -- have a confrontation with the police.

BROWN: The tactical teams crouch outside the building, training their guns on the windows. After several tense minutes, they see Nichols waving a white T-shirt.

WALTERS: Mr. Nichols surrendered, waving -- literally waving a white flag. So, it ended as well as a situation like this can possibly end.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The suspect is coming out with his hands up. He's got a white towel. The suspect is laying down in front of the doorway of the apartment. He's about six feet out. His hands are clear, no visible weapon.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Confirmed his name was Brian Nichols.

BROWN: Nichols is in handcuffs within minutes.

WALTERS: There was no aggressiveness. He complied with the officers' instructions. There was no resistance. It was the best possible way for this to end. It was very peaceful. And he was very submissive to the officers' requests.

BROWN: The SWAT formations, the police cars, the flock of helicopters have all drawn a crowd. Residents of the apartment complex press against the police barriers. Motorists pull off nearby roads, stand by their cars, relay the scenes into their cell phones.

When Brian Nichols is led out of the apartment, there are cheers. Just over 26 hours after Brian Nichols was led from his jail cell to court, he is on his way back to jail, back to court. The city of Atlanta exhales again. It is over, over except for those who knew and loved Judge Rowland Barnes, Julie Ann Brandau, Deputy Hoyt Teasley, David Wilhelm.

For them, it is just a beginning, the awful effort to go on through sorrow and loss that time can ease, but never erase.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: And, so the saga that began so violently ends almost quietly, after 26 hours of terror.

When we come back, the toll of Brian Nichols' killing spree and where this all goes next.

A break first.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Tonight, the scope of what Brian Nichols did is painfully clear. He was placed in the custody of the Fulton County Sheriff's Office today and tonight is at the maximum security Atlanta Federal Penitentiary. He has a court appearance tomorrow morning.

CNN's Gary Tuchman joins us tonight from Atlanta -- Gary.

GARY TUCHMAN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, no formal charges have been filed yet. So, this will not be an arraignment tomorrow. What it will be is a status hearing beginning at 10:00, the purpose of which is for the district attorney to tell the magistrate judge why Nichols should stay in jail.

And what the district attorney will say is because of his previous rape indictment. He was undergoing a rape trial, Nichols, last week, when he escaped Friday. A mistrial was declared. But it will be enough to keep him in jail while the district attorney and the feds decide on charges. The district attorney says it will be at least seven days, no more than 30, before he comes up with a multitude of charges, which will definitely include four charges of murder -- Aaron.

BROWN: Gary, thank you, Gary Tuchman, who's in Atlanta tonight.

Erica Hill is in Atlanta as well. And she gives us a look at some of the other news of the day -- Erica.

HILL: That's right, Aaron, just about 45 minutes past the hour now.

Here's what is happening right now.

First up, an anthrax scare at the Pentagon today. Officials say sensors at two mail delivery buildings detected signs of the bacteria, but later tests came back negative. The buildings will remain closed until at least tomorrow.

In California, a judge says denying same-sex couples marriage licenses is unconstitutional. The ruling could clear the way for California to become only the second state to allow same-sex couples to marry. But the issue would be out of the court's control if a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage makes it onto California's November ballot and is approved by voters.

Former President Clinton is resting at home tonight. He was released from the hospital late this afternoon, where he underwent surgery last week to remove scar tissue and fluid that developed after his heart bypass surgery last year.

Major League Baseball is showing more signs it will cooperate with a government probe into steroid abuse. The league handed over hundreds of pages of drug testing results to a congressional committee after initially balk at the request.

And NEWSNIGHT continues in just a moment, but, first, a story of survival from the 9/11 attacks in CNN's anniversary series "Then and Now."

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Lauren Manning is considered a September 11 miracle. The Cantor Fitzgerald vice president was going into the World Trade Center when a fireball exploded down the elevator shaft, blowing her out the door and setting her on fire.

LAUREN MANNING, VICE PRESIDENT, CANTOR FITZGERALD: As I was running, I was, you know, praying, probably screaming to God, please, you know, help me, help me. You know, I can't leave now. It's not my time to leave.

ZAHN: Manning was burned over 80 percent of her body and spent six weeks in a drug-induced coma. Her husband, Greg, was by her side the whole time. GREG MANNING, HUSBAND OF LAUREN: I was going to stand by her. I was going to be with her every step of the way. I was going to do everything I could to get her through it.

ZAHN: Lauren says she decided to live for her family.

L. MANNING: I have the most incredible love for my husband and my son. They have served as the ultimate energizers.

ZAHN: Her husband Greg's powerful daily e-mails about Lauren's battle for life are contained in the best-selling book "Love, Greg and Lauren." Lauren has never read it.

L. MANNING: I'm living Greg's book. So, when I'm ready to go back for a good review, then I'm sure I will pick it up.

ZAHN: After dozens of surgeries, Lauren still has many more to go and undergoes daily physical and occupational therapy.

L. MANNING: I feel privileged to have life. And I have sought to make the most of every moment I have.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(ROOSTER CROWING)

BROWN: Okeydoke, time to check morning papers from around the country, around the world. We haven't started with "The Christian Science Monitor" in a while, so we shall tonight.

"Iraqi Parties Gridlocked Over Terms. Iraq's Major Kurdish and Shiite Parties Have Failed to Form a Coalition Ahead of Tomorrow's National Assembly Opening." Didn't I report on this program that they did make a deal? Once we say you've made a deal, please don't back out. "Iger's Challenge: How to Reanimate Disney." That's Bob Iger, who was named to succeed Michael Eisner, upon whose shoe I once spilled cream cheese. And it didn't go well for him at any point after that. I don't know that they're related.

"The San Francisco Examiner." "Gay Marriage Ban" -- that's a true story about the cream cheese. I'll tell you more about it some other night. "Gay Marriage Ban Ruled Illegal in the State, Setting Stage for Appeal. San Francisco Superior Court Judge Says No Rational Purpose in Denying Rights to Same-Sex Couples." That'll go to the state Supreme Court there.

Anything else I like? "Invest Regular Amounts at Regular Intervals." That's stock market advise, if you wondered.

"The Examiner in Washington." It looks a lot like the one in San Francisco, but this is a great story. "Nationwide Sting Targets MS-13 gang. These are the new Crips and Bloods. And it's big; "100 Suspects, Including 25 in the D.C. area, 10 in Baltimore." We're trying to get something together for tomorrow on that. Join us for that.

"Philadelphia Inquirer," couple of good stories on the front page. "Clergy Abuse Suits Thrown Out. Cases of 18 Adults Against the Archdiocese Filed Too Late, State Court Rules, Setback For victims, Affects Other Suits as Well." "Secret to Atkins: Less Eating." See, fewer calories, you don't gain as much weight. How are we doing on time? Thank you.

"Pro-Choice View an Obstacle for GOP Hopefuls," says "The Washington Times." Down here, if you're wondering where that story is. "Pro-Life Nominees Likely," Condoleezza Rice or Rudolph Giuliani. It strikes me as a little early to be handicapping this thing. A lot of crazy things can happen between now and '08.

"Cincinnati Enquirer." A local story leads it. "Libraries OK Cuts in Staff, Hours. Board of Trustees Votes to Close Downtown Branch on Sundays." That's a nice time for a library to be open.

"The Chicago Sun-Times" will end it with the weather in Chicago. By the way, Henry Hyde is retiring. The weather tomorrow in Chicago, "promising."

I promise we'll wrap it up in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Our thanks to the NEWSNIGHT staff, who worked all weekend to get this program on the air tonight.

We'll see you tomorrow, 10:00 Eastern time. Good night for all of us.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com


Aired March 14, 2005 - 22:00   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
AARON BROWN, CNN ANCHOR, NEWSNIGHT: You probably heard the headlines of this story, but we live in the details tonight, the moments and the turning points, the missed opportunities, the mistakes. Together they make up a day, a long day.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This happened about 9:05 a.m. this morning.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Judge Rowland Barnes was fatally wounded.

BROWN (voice-over): The news from Atlanta came first in fragments.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I can confirm that two individuals, including the judge, are dead as a result of the shootings.

BROWN: Two would become three. Three would become four.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I went and looked on the wall of the parking garage and I saw the sheriff laying on the ground.

BROWN:

DON O'BRIANT, REPORTER, "ATLANTA JOURNAL CONSTITUTION": I was getting ready to give him my wallet, and that's when he told me to get in the trunk. And I knew this was serious.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The latest vehicle that he has been spotted in is a '97 green Honda Accord.

BROWN: Mistakes would be made. Another would die. The fugitive now a hostage taker. The hostage now a heroine.

ASHLEY SMITH, FORMER HOSTAGE: He asked me what I thought he should do and I said I think you should turn yourself in.

BROWN: Friday would give way to Saturday and the fugitive would surrender. A long day over, a new day about to begin and along with tears, plenty of questions.

DENNIS SCHEIB, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: They could have shackled him. They could have done any number of things where this couldn't have happened, but there was a breakdown somewhere.

(END VIDEOTAPE) BROWN: What would become clear after Friday is how much the police and the media got wrong as the story at the Atlanta courthouse shooting unfolded. Breaking news is by definition fluid. In the initial chaos, some facts can be overlooked, others mistaken. Breaking stories are often short on detail. In the first hours after the shooting, the wheres and the whats and the whos of the story were just outlines. Time would fill them in. Time continues to fill them in.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN (voice-over): Just after 9:00 Friday morning in a holding cell next to the Fulton County courthouse, Brian Nichols is handcuffed to sheriff's deputy Cynthia Hall, a five-foot-tall grandmother. She removes Nichols' handcuffs so he can change into street clothes for his rape trial before Judge Rowland Barnes.

ALAN DREHER, DEPUTY POLICE CHIEF ATLANTA: The suspect was on his way to the courtroom. It appears that he overwhelmed a deputy sheriff on his way to court. It appears that he took possession of her handgun.

BROWN: For the next 26 hours, all of Atlanta will be on an intensive manhunt. But 45 minutes earlier, the courthouse that sits in downtown Atlanta was unaware that chaos was about to break loose. From the moment it opened the Fulton County courthouse has enjoyed pride of place in downtown Atlanta in price tag and size eclipsing the statehouse nearby. It has grown with the city and with crime into a maze of buildings and corridors and checkpoints.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: As you enter the Fulton County courthouse or any courthouse for that matter now, you enter with airport-like security. You have to go through metal detectors. You have to put your bag through the screening device. So the idea that an outside gun could get in was difficult to believe.

BROWN: A gun, though, from the inside, that would be different and so it would be in the moments to come. But at 8:45 in the morning, the courthouse is settling in for a routine Friday. 64-year- old Judge Barnes in a courtroom on the eighth floor of the old building, hearing a civil case, expected to run until 9:30.

DORRIS DOWNS, CHIEF JUSTICE, FULTON CO. SUPERIOR COURT: Judge Barnes was one of the most generous judges ever. He was willing to help out every judge on the bench. He took cases from judges that felt overwhelmed.

T. JACKSON BEDFORD, FULTON COUNTY SUPERIOR COURT JUDGE: We used to kind of get to carrying on so much that our secretaries would come and say, you guys cool it. We're going to close the door. You're making too much commotion. I mean, we just enjoyed each other's company. And he was -- he was a very humorous person. I mean, he had a tremendous sense of humor and was able to do all kinds of things with his humor. I mean, he was incredible.

BROWN: In the courtroom with Judge Barnes, Julianne Brandau, his long-time court reporter, a 46-year-old single mother known for make jurors feel welcome in the courtroom.

NANCY GRACE: Julie, when I first became a prosecutor in '87, was a floater. She would go from one court to the next. She wasn't assigned to a particular judge. At that time Barnes was still on state court. He was a magistrate, actually. And we all came up through the ranks together. She was a single mom, daughter in college. And she would make peach bread or oatmeal cookies, just anything from scratch to bring in to the jurors that were on trial.

BROWN: Sergeant Hoyt Teasley has begun his day as well. A 43- year-old father of two, known as a protector, even as a young boy. Forty-year-old David Wilhelm would not become part of the story until many hours later. A Federal agent for 18 years, he was known as hardworking, yet easygoing with a knack and a passion for remodeling homes. Ashley Smith would play a key role in the story, a 26-year-old former waitress and single mother. Her husband was stabbed four years ago, died in her arms. After his death Ashley Smith fought depression. She has struggled to turn her life around.

BONNIE COLBER, FORMER TEACHER OF ASHLEY SMITH: Probably because of the hard life that she's had, she understood this man. She understood his hurts, his feel of disorientation, his confusion. And one thing about Ashley, she always wanted to be understood. And I think that desire of her own, she shared it with him. And she took the time to understand him.

BROWN: The man who would collide with all these lives with disastrous results, Brian Nichols, on trial for rape and false imprisonment, accused of breaking into his ex-girlfriend's house with a loaded shotgun, binding her with duct tape, and sexually assaulting her repeatedly. If convicted, he faced a possible sentence of life in prison. His first trial had ended in a mistrial, a hung jury, just a week earlier. His lawyer says Nichols' second time in court would have been tougher.

BARRY HAZEN, DEFENSE ATTY. FOR BRIAN NICHOLS: There was a lot more evidence in the second case, mostly of a corroborative nature. There were claims that were made that were just uncorroborated during the first trial, and the question was who's telling the truth. In the second trial, there was a lot more evidence that corroborated certain claims that were made.

BROWN: Before his arrest last summer, Brian Nichols was a computer technician for UPS, a former athlete who played football in college, a big man, 6'1", 210.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Brian Nichols by the numbers, which only go so far. In other ways, though, for the moment at least, Mr. Nichols is a wild card, a respectful young man friends say, yet one who also showed hints of darkness and cruelty, a man who escaped conviction in his first rape trial, he had armed himself with homemade knives and acted as though he no longer had anything left to lose. This, police say, is the Brian Nichols who deputy Cynthia hall is alone with, a grandmother guarding a linebacker who is also a black belt. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN (voice-over): Sheriff's deputy Cynthia Hall is removing Brian Nichols' handcuffs in a holding cell. It is a little after 9:00 Friday morning.

DON CLARK, FMR FBI SPECIAL AGENT IN CHARGE: This thing is going to be reviewed, I can assure you, It's going to be reviewed. Policies and procedures will be looked at. How you take prisoners about, the number of people that you have escorting prisoners, where you handcuff prisoners and when you take handcuffs off of prisoners.

BROWN: What took place was a titanic struggle, lasting three minutes or more, virtually an eternity, between the large young man and the older, smaller woman. Some of it caught on surveillance tape that authorities have yet to release. He slams her against the cell wall, pushing her out of the camera's eye. He takes the key to the lock box where deputy Hall had left her gun. He takes the gun. Then he changes into street clothes and calmly walks away. It is here that Brian Nichols allegedly made a fateful and puzzling decision.

GRACE: You would think a defendant would try to flee and avoid arrest. Instead, this guy made it his business -- and he had just been found with two shanks, which are homemade knives, from the jail a couple of days before. I'm just stunned that he would risk his own escape to go back and seek vengeance on this judge.

BROWN: He runs, say police, not down to the street but across the skyway into the old courthouse.

BJ BERNSTEIN, FMR. PROSECUTOR, CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTY: When you enter the courtroom, there's usually two deputies assigned to that courtroom who are armed, who are there in the courtroom paying attention to what's going on. The judge is up on the bench. The court reporter would be sitting up front and the parties would be on two tables. But in close proximity to all the people that are going on there.

BROWN: Nichols begins making his way toward a courtroom. But first he goes into Judge Barnes' private chambers, tearing out phone lines, taking three hostages, including attorney David Allman. He handcuffed me, Allman tells the "Atlanta Journal" and he handcuffed the secretary. He didn't have a third pair. He asked the women, where's the judge? meaning Judge Barnes.

RENEE ROCKWELL, DEFENSE ATTY EYEWITNESS: I was about to walk into the courtroom. I was actually on the other side of the -- on the Central Avenue side. And deputies were running everywhere. There was a deputy's hat that was on the -- on the floor, on the ground. And they said get in the courtroom or come with us. Anyway, I ran into the -- into the elevator, and when I was in the elevator, one of the deputies told me that the defendant, and I assume that it was the defendant that was on trial for rape, grabbed the deputy's gun and held the courtroom hostage and shot the judge and shot somebody else in the courtroom. BROWN: The shooter, say witnesses, entering by way of the door in the back of the bench. Brian Nichols, they say, firing once into Judge Barnes' head, then turning and shooting court reporter Julie Ann Brandau (ph), then stalking over to what would have been the prosecution table. I realized, said civil attorney Richard Robbins, that he probably intended to kill the prosecutor next. Had the prosecutor been in the room at that time, he went on to say, she likely would have been next. Nichols gave him a look, said Robbins, a look he will never soon forget, utterly cool, he said, as if he were just a messenger delivering a court paper. And there would be more. It was still only 9:15 Friday morning.

SHERIFF MYRON FREEMAN, FULTON CO. SHERIFF'S DEPT: As you know, Fulton County sheriff's office and the entire law enforcement and legal community was devastated today by the tragic and senseless killing of three hardworking and dedicated county employees and the critical wounding of another. Our hearts and prayers go out to the families of each of these victims as we move forward to aggressively capture and incarcerate and prosecute the person responsible for this horrific crime.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: It wasn't the end, not even the beginning of the end. For Atlanta and the rest of the country, it was merely the end of the beginning. When we come back, the escape, the chase, the hostage taking, the killings. Our special report continues.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: This NEWSNIGHT special continues in just a moment with the escape of Brian Nichols from the Fulton County courthouse, but first a look at some of the other stories that made news today. Erica Hill joins us from Atlanta. Erica.

(NEWSBREAK)

BROWN: We continue now, continuing just after 9:00 Friday morning. Having killed two and wounded one, Brian Nichols is now in the heart of the judicial system. He's surrounded by police and news cameras and watchful eyes. It is into this swarm of humanity that he goes, not quietly, not gently, but more to the point, not as expected.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN (voice-over): Between 9:00 and 9:15 Friday morning, the bodies of Judge Rowland Barnes and his court reporter, Julie Ann Brandau, lay on the courtroom floor in slowly widening pools of blood. Brian Nichols starts his escape, bypassing the elevators for the stairwell, running down the stairs, leaving through an emergency exit onto the street, setting off an alarm. He starts down Martin Luther King Drive. Within seconds Nichols is confronted by Fulton County sheriff's deputy Sergeant Hoyt Teasley, 43 years old. The deputy tries to stop Nichols. Nichols, say authorities, shoots the deputy in the abdomen repeatedly. Wanda Tamplin, driving into a parking lot nearby, hears lout pops. WANDA TAMPLIN, WITNESS: I thought I heard shots but didn't really pay that much attention, went on to make my turn to go up the ramp and I saw a gentleman run by, didn't pay him a lot of attention, went on to start going up the ram and started hearing just a ton of sirens. As I got up to the top and got parked, I went and looked over the wall of the park garage and I saw the sheriff laying on the ground and that's kind of when I started connecting everything. You know, I heard shots, I see this guy run by, and at that point you kind of panic. You don't know whether to leave out of the garage or get in your car and leave. There were several of us standing there not knowing really what to do. So two ladies and I made a decision just to get in the garage elevator and get out of here. And when we got down, the sheriff was there with the gun trained on the elevator when the doors opened, scared us to death, rushed us out and we got out saw the sheriff being worked on.

BROWN: Sergeant Teasley could not be saved. He is Nichols' third victim. Nichols now runs into a number of parking garages in the area. Those garages will prove to be a maze in which police will eventually lose their suspect. Nichols begins a carjacking spree, hijacks one, then two, then three vehicles at gunpoint. A tow truck, a Mercury Sable, an SUV, driving each vehicle a short distance, then ditching it, sometimes within the same parking garage. Don O'Briant, a reporter for the "Atlanta Journal-Constitution," is parking his green Honda Accord in one of the parking garages. He meets Nichols face to face.

DON O'BRIANT, "ATLANTA JOURNAL CONSTITUTION: And an SUV pulled in right beside me, and a tall black guy gets out with no shirt on and asks for directions to Lennox Square. I figured he's in town for the basketball tournament. So I start giving him directions. All of a sudden he pulls the gun and says give me your keys. And I don't give them to him. He says give me the keys or I'll kill you.

BROWN: O'Briant told the story in more detail to CNN's Larry King.

O'BRIANT: Didn't seem to be nervous at all. He was totally in control, and the orders he gave me sounded like they were coming from a drill sergeant, not someone who was on the run. I thought it was a routine carjacking if you can call a carjacking routine. But I gave him the keys, I was getting ready to give him my wallet, and that's when he told me to get in the trunk. I gave him the keys. I said no, and I took a step back, and he walked toward me and the next thing I know he'd hit me and I was on the concrete and I scrambled to my feet and started for the street and kept waiting for the shots to ring out, but he didn't follow me and didn't shoot for some reason.

BROWN: Instead Nichols drives off in O'Briant's car. O'Briant makes his way to the ground floor, telling police what happened. Police put out an APB for the green Honda Accord, and within minutes the car's description is on local TV and radio stations, signs are flashed on local freeways. The search for that car will become one of the most massive law enforcement searches in the history of the state of Georgia. RICHARD PENNINGTON, ATLANTA POLICE CHIEF: When a police officer is killed, and in this case a judge, we're going to do everything we can and of course that court reporter too. We're going to do everything we can to locate and apprehend that person. So it's important to first find the car.

BROWN: But police have made a critical mistake. In the early chaos of setting up the manhunt for Nichols, everyone assumes he is on the road, in that stolen green Honda.

DON CLARK, FMR FBI SPECIAL AGENT IN CHARGE: The beginning of those types of investigations are truly chaotic. Bits and pieces of information are coming from all aspects of the investigative arena there. And so I'm not making an excuse for the police officers, but I can see why someone would make that mistake and think that, yes that car's the one.

BROWN: But what no one knows yet is the investigation is based on a mistaken assumption. The green Honda Nichols is believed to be driving never leaves the parking structure. Nichols only steers it to another level of the same garage. A security videotape shows Nichols in the garage stairwell heading for the street. His apparent calm as he straightens and buttons a dark jacket is in eerie contrast to his murderous rampage.

Apparently, unnoticed, Nichols walks a few blocks to a commuter train station. No police alerts have been posted at area train stations. No alerts have been issued to ticket takers or conductors. Nichols just boards a train and takes it north to the Buckhead area of Atlanta. Police, meanwhile, are still looking for that green Honda. They widen their dragnet, pulling in state and Federal agencies.

PENNINGTON: Our officers are out patrolling every square mile of the city of Atlanta and also Fulton County. We have notified the surrounding jurisdictions, and they're doing the same thing.

BROWN: It would be much later before they realized their mistake. The green Honda found still in the parking garage, where it was stolen.

VERNON KEENAN, DIR. GEORGIA BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION: About 90 minutes ago, the green Honda that we've had the nationwide lookout for was found here. A citizen who had seen the television newscast remembered the tag number, and he was in the parking garage at the -- next to the bottom level. He saw the vehicle, remembered the tag number from the television broadcast, and contacted law enforcement. At this time we do not know what vehicle the suspect is driving, and that's what we're attempting to find out.

BROWN: Police have lost their best lead. They have no idea now where Brian Nichols is. They know only that he is out there somewhere armed and dangerous. They do not then know that he has surfaced again, gun in hand. It's 10:40 Friday night. According to police reports, a man matching Nichols' description assaults a woman as she is about to enter her boyfriend's apartment in Buckhead. Nichols, she said, put a gun to her back, then struck her boyfriend with the weapon before running off into the darkness.

Sometime later that night about 10 miles from the courthouse where this all began Nichols kills again. David Wilhelm is a 40-year- old special agent in the U.S. immigration and customs enforcement service. Wilhelm has only just recently moved to Atlanta. He and his wife are building a home in Buckhead. That Friday night, Wilhelm is getting a jump on the weekend's work, laying bathroom tile. He is about to come face to face with Brian Nichols.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: And he won't be the last person to cross paths with the fugitive. Coming up in this NEWSNIGHT special report, the final terrifying hours of the manhunt and the hostage whose life hung in the balance.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: The story that's been pieced together in the last few days was still unfolding late Friday night. Brian Nichols was a fugitive with a price on his head, the target of an enormous manhunt. Police had no idea where he was. Saturday morning would bring new clues.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN (voice-over): Saturday morning, 6:30. Police get the call shortly after dawn. Two carpenters hired by David Wilhelm to help him build his house have arrived to find the door open, his dead body visible on the floor inside. Police arriving on the scene take quick inventory. Wilhelm's gun and badge are gone. So is his blue Chevy pickup truck. Nichols is the immediate suspect.

RICHARD PENNINGTON, ATLANTA POLICE CHIEF: Brian Nichols took his truck and he took his weapon, his Glock, and he took his identification and ID. We know that for a fact. The construction worker found the body of the custom agent inside his resident at approximately 6:30 to 7:00 a.m. A lookout was given for the truck and a massive search as we put the broadcast out throughout the metropolitan area and the state.

BROWN: For more than 24 hours, Brian Nichols' picture has been a fixture on local and national television. He is on the front page of morning newspapers. Radio stations are still broadcasting armed and dangerous alerts. There is a bounty on Brian Nichols' head, $60,000 for information leading to his capture.

PENNINGTON: I think probably that he's very desperate. He's probably scared because he knows that we have his picture plastered all over the news throughout the United States. He knows that he's killed a law enforcement officer. He's killed a judge. So, he's a wanted man. And he knows that law enforcement will continue to hunt him down.

BROWN: In Atlanta, it is all anyone seems to be talking about. Where is Brian Nichols? Ashley Smith knows. The 26-year-old former waitress and widow had gone to buy cigarettes at a convenience store about 2:30 Saturday morning. Nichols is outside the store in a blue pickup truck, Wilhelm's pickup truck. And he follows Smith from the convenience store back to her apartment complex, follows her to her front door.

ASHLEY SMITH, FORMER HOSTAGE: I started walking to my door, and I felt really, really scared. So I put my key in the door, and I unlocked it, and I turned around, and he was right there.

And I started to scream. And he put a gun to my side and he said, Don't scream. If you don't scream, I won't hurt you.

So I said, All right, OK, I won't scream. We went in the house, and he shut and locked the door.

And he said, Do you know who I am? I said, No, because he had a hat on. And then he took his hat off, and he said, Now do you know who I am? And I said, Yeah, I know who you are. Please don't hurt me. Just please don't hurt me. I have a 5-year-old little girl. Please don't hurt me. He said, I'm not going to hurt you, if you just do what I say.

BROWN: Smith's young daughter was staying with her aunt. Ashley is alone in the middle of the night with an armed man wanted for three murders. No one yet knew there had been a fourth.

SMITH: He looked around my house for a few minutes, I heard him opening up drawers and just going through my stuff. And he came back in and said, I want to relax, and I don't feel comfortable with you right now. So I'm going to have to tie you up.

He brought some masking tape and an extension cord and a curtain in there, and I kind of thought he was going to strangle me. I was really kind of scared. But he told me to turn around and put my hands behind my back, and he wrapped my hands in a prayer -- in a praying position, so I did that. And he wrapped masking tape around my hands.

He had the guns laying on the counter. But I guess he really wasn't worried about me grabbing them because I was tied up.

BROWN: After his shower, Smith says, Nichols seems to relax. He unties her. Smith starts to talk, tells Nichols about her life, tries to persuade him to let her go.

SMITH: My husband died four years ago, and I told him that if he hurt me, my little girl wouldn't have a mommy or a daddy. And she was expecting to see me the next morning. And if he didn't let me go, she would be really upset.

He still told me no. But I could -- I could kind of feel that he started to know who I was, and he said, Maybe, maybe I'll let you go. Just maybe. We'll see how things go.

I asked him why he chose me and why he chose Bridgewater Apartments, and he said he didn't know, just randomly.

BROWN: Nichols has one request. He asks Smith to help him ditch his getaway vehicle.

She follows him in her own car, wondering if she should call 911 from her cell phone. She decides against it, fearing Nichols might escape or that she might die in a shoot-out. Abandoning the pickup truck Nichols had used, they return to her apartment and the longest night of Ashley Smith's life, as she is held hostage by a man who can determine if she lives or dies goes on. In the hours before dawn, she talks with Brian Nichols about her church, about her faith and God.

SMITH: But after we began to talk, and -- he said he thought that I was an angel sent from God, and that I was his sister, and he was my brother in Christ. And that he was lost and God led him right to me to tell him that he had hurt a lot of people, and the families, the people.

BROWN: She also shares with him passages from the inspirational best-seller "The Purpose Driven Life" by Rick Warren.

As the hours tick off toward dawn, Ashley Smith keeps the conversation going, hoping talking will be enough to save her life.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: As far as Ashley Smith knows, the man who holds her life in his hands has already murdered three people. Does she stand a chance? Is there a possibility another side of him that she might reach? When we come back, how it all played out.

This is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: When the first bulletins about Brian Nichols were broadcast on Friday morning, police described him as armed and extremely dangerous. He should not, they said, under any circumstances be approached. It was hard to imagine then that the search for Mr. Nichols could end peacefully.

In the early hours of Saturday, Ashley Smith had no idea how her part of the story would end. She was a hostage. She was terrified. And she was doing everything she could to persuade Nichols to trust her, to give himself up, to put down his guns. Ms. Smith drew on her faith and searched for ways to connect with a killer.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN (voice-over): Ashley Smith talks to Nichols about more than just God. Hoping that it might help save her life, Smith shows Nichols photos of her small daughter, reminding him that she has to pick up the little girl in the morning.

SMITH: I didn't want him to hurt anybody else. And I really didn't want him to hurt himself or anyone else to hurt him. He's done enough -- he had done enough. And he really, honestly when I looked at him, he looked like he didn't want to do it any more.

BROWN: Smith makes Nichols breakfast. He says he's overwhelmed to be eating real butter.

SMITH: Well, 9:00 came. He said, What time do you have to leave? I said, I need to be there at 10:00, so I need to leave about 9:30. So I sat down and talked to him a little bit more.

BROWN: Smith doesn't know exactly why Nichols decides to let her go.

SMITH: He put the guns under the bed. Like you know, I'm done, I'm not going to mess around with you anymore. But I think he knew that I was going to do what I had to do. And I had to turn him in. And I gave him -- I asked him several times, you know, Come on, just go with me.

He said, I'll go with you in a few days.

BROWN: As she's about to leave, Nichols asks if he can do anything while she's gone, like hang her curtains. Her desperate gamble seems to be paying off.

BART HULSEY, GWINNETT COUNTY SWAT TEAM: She thought her way through this. She managed to make a rapport with him and made herself a person, not just an object.

BROWN: Finally, after seven hours as a hostage, Ashley Smith leaves her apartment. Nichols lets her take her cell phone. She calls 911 from her car and is told to go to the leasing office of her apartment building. Emergency dispatchers record her 911 call. It's 9:50 Saturday morning. A county police officer is dispatched to the scene, calls for backup.

CHARLES WALTERS, GWINNETT COUNTY POLICE CHIEF: We activated our SWAT team and uniformed people and the SWAT folks were able to contain the area. We had approximately 30 officers on the scene, 30 SWAT officers on the scene.

BROWN: Inside Ashley Smith's apartment, Brian Nichols is watching TV. This is what he sees.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The hostage situation that you're seeing live pictures of right now...

VERNON KEENAN, DIRECTOR, GEORGIA BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION: He looks out the -- he looks out the window and he sees the Gwinnett County SWAT team has got him surrounded. And his choice then is either surrender or confront -- have a confrontation with the police.

BROWN: The tactical teams crouch outside the building, training their guns on the windows. After several tense minutes, they see Nichols waving a white T-shirt.

WALTERS: Mr. Nichols surrendered, waving -- literally waving a white flag. So, it ended as well as a situation like this can possibly end.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The suspect is coming out with his hands up. He's got a white towel. The suspect is laying down in front of the doorway of the apartment. He's about six feet out. His hands are clear, no visible weapon.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Confirmed his name was Brian Nichols.

BROWN: Nichols is in handcuffs within minutes.

WALTERS: There was no aggressiveness. He complied with the officers' instructions. There was no resistance. It was the best possible way for this to end. It was very peaceful. And he was very submissive to the officers' requests.

BROWN: The SWAT formations, the police cars, the flock of helicopters have all drawn a crowd. Residents of the apartment complex press against the police barriers. Motorists pull off nearby roads, stand by their cars, relay the scenes into their cell phones.

When Brian Nichols is led out of the apartment, there are cheers. Just over 26 hours after Brian Nichols was led from his jail cell to court, he is on his way back to jail, back to court. The city of Atlanta exhales again. It is over, over except for those who knew and loved Judge Rowland Barnes, Julie Ann Brandau, Deputy Hoyt Teasley, David Wilhelm.

For them, it is just a beginning, the awful effort to go on through sorrow and loss that time can ease, but never erase.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: And, so the saga that began so violently ends almost quietly, after 26 hours of terror.

When we come back, the toll of Brian Nichols' killing spree and where this all goes next.

A break first.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Tonight, the scope of what Brian Nichols did is painfully clear. He was placed in the custody of the Fulton County Sheriff's Office today and tonight is at the maximum security Atlanta Federal Penitentiary. He has a court appearance tomorrow morning.

CNN's Gary Tuchman joins us tonight from Atlanta -- Gary.

GARY TUCHMAN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, no formal charges have been filed yet. So, this will not be an arraignment tomorrow. What it will be is a status hearing beginning at 10:00, the purpose of which is for the district attorney to tell the magistrate judge why Nichols should stay in jail.

And what the district attorney will say is because of his previous rape indictment. He was undergoing a rape trial, Nichols, last week, when he escaped Friday. A mistrial was declared. But it will be enough to keep him in jail while the district attorney and the feds decide on charges. The district attorney says it will be at least seven days, no more than 30, before he comes up with a multitude of charges, which will definitely include four charges of murder -- Aaron.

BROWN: Gary, thank you, Gary Tuchman, who's in Atlanta tonight.

Erica Hill is in Atlanta as well. And she gives us a look at some of the other news of the day -- Erica.

HILL: That's right, Aaron, just about 45 minutes past the hour now.

Here's what is happening right now.

First up, an anthrax scare at the Pentagon today. Officials say sensors at two mail delivery buildings detected signs of the bacteria, but later tests came back negative. The buildings will remain closed until at least tomorrow.

In California, a judge says denying same-sex couples marriage licenses is unconstitutional. The ruling could clear the way for California to become only the second state to allow same-sex couples to marry. But the issue would be out of the court's control if a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage makes it onto California's November ballot and is approved by voters.

Former President Clinton is resting at home tonight. He was released from the hospital late this afternoon, where he underwent surgery last week to remove scar tissue and fluid that developed after his heart bypass surgery last year.

Major League Baseball is showing more signs it will cooperate with a government probe into steroid abuse. The league handed over hundreds of pages of drug testing results to a congressional committee after initially balk at the request.

And NEWSNIGHT continues in just a moment, but, first, a story of survival from the 9/11 attacks in CNN's anniversary series "Then and Now."

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Lauren Manning is considered a September 11 miracle. The Cantor Fitzgerald vice president was going into the World Trade Center when a fireball exploded down the elevator shaft, blowing her out the door and setting her on fire.

LAUREN MANNING, VICE PRESIDENT, CANTOR FITZGERALD: As I was running, I was, you know, praying, probably screaming to God, please, you know, help me, help me. You know, I can't leave now. It's not my time to leave.

ZAHN: Manning was burned over 80 percent of her body and spent six weeks in a drug-induced coma. Her husband, Greg, was by her side the whole time. GREG MANNING, HUSBAND OF LAUREN: I was going to stand by her. I was going to be with her every step of the way. I was going to do everything I could to get her through it.

ZAHN: Lauren says she decided to live for her family.

L. MANNING: I have the most incredible love for my husband and my son. They have served as the ultimate energizers.

ZAHN: Her husband Greg's powerful daily e-mails about Lauren's battle for life are contained in the best-selling book "Love, Greg and Lauren." Lauren has never read it.

L. MANNING: I'm living Greg's book. So, when I'm ready to go back for a good review, then I'm sure I will pick it up.

ZAHN: After dozens of surgeries, Lauren still has many more to go and undergoes daily physical and occupational therapy.

L. MANNING: I feel privileged to have life. And I have sought to make the most of every moment I have.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(ROOSTER CROWING)

BROWN: Okeydoke, time to check morning papers from around the country, around the world. We haven't started with "The Christian Science Monitor" in a while, so we shall tonight.

"Iraqi Parties Gridlocked Over Terms. Iraq's Major Kurdish and Shiite Parties Have Failed to Form a Coalition Ahead of Tomorrow's National Assembly Opening." Didn't I report on this program that they did make a deal? Once we say you've made a deal, please don't back out. "Iger's Challenge: How to Reanimate Disney." That's Bob Iger, who was named to succeed Michael Eisner, upon whose shoe I once spilled cream cheese. And it didn't go well for him at any point after that. I don't know that they're related.

"The San Francisco Examiner." "Gay Marriage Ban" -- that's a true story about the cream cheese. I'll tell you more about it some other night. "Gay Marriage Ban Ruled Illegal in the State, Setting Stage for Appeal. San Francisco Superior Court Judge Says No Rational Purpose in Denying Rights to Same-Sex Couples." That'll go to the state Supreme Court there.

Anything else I like? "Invest Regular Amounts at Regular Intervals." That's stock market advise, if you wondered.

"The Examiner in Washington." It looks a lot like the one in San Francisco, but this is a great story. "Nationwide Sting Targets MS-13 gang. These are the new Crips and Bloods. And it's big; "100 Suspects, Including 25 in the D.C. area, 10 in Baltimore." We're trying to get something together for tomorrow on that. Join us for that.

"Philadelphia Inquirer," couple of good stories on the front page. "Clergy Abuse Suits Thrown Out. Cases of 18 Adults Against the Archdiocese Filed Too Late, State Court Rules, Setback For victims, Affects Other Suits as Well." "Secret to Atkins: Less Eating." See, fewer calories, you don't gain as much weight. How are we doing on time? Thank you.

"Pro-Choice View an Obstacle for GOP Hopefuls," says "The Washington Times." Down here, if you're wondering where that story is. "Pro-Life Nominees Likely," Condoleezza Rice or Rudolph Giuliani. It strikes me as a little early to be handicapping this thing. A lot of crazy things can happen between now and '08.

"Cincinnati Enquirer." A local story leads it. "Libraries OK Cuts in Staff, Hours. Board of Trustees Votes to Close Downtown Branch on Sundays." That's a nice time for a library to be open.

"The Chicago Sun-Times" will end it with the weather in Chicago. By the way, Henry Hyde is retiring. The weather tomorrow in Chicago, "promising."

I promise we'll wrap it up in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Our thanks to the NEWSNIGHT staff, who worked all weekend to get this program on the air tonight.

We'll see you tomorrow, 10:00 Eastern time. Good night for all of us.

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