Atlanta Rumble

The 33-year-old suspect, a former UPS computer technician, waved a white shirt, calling it quits after a fevered manhunt that began 26 hours earlier.

Details for the shaken metropolitan area were scarce throughout the ordeal, and the following report was pieced together through subsequent police and witness accounts.

On Wednesday, Nichols was found with what authorities described as "shanks," or makeshift metal weapons, in his shoes. The next day, Judge Rowland Barnes told the attorneys in the case that he was requesting beefed up security.

"He put his hand on my shoulder and he said to me, 'Be careful,' " said Barry Hazen, the attorney for Nichols.

'Reign of terror'

What one FBI agent referred to as Nichols' "reign of terror" began shortly after 9 a.m. on Friday at the Fulton County Courthouse in the heart of downtown Atlanta.

Moments earlier, Barnes, 64, was presiding in a civil case after arriving at the courthouse with his wife, Claudia, an administrative assistant for another judge.

Following that, Barnes expected to see Nichols enter his courtroom -- but not from behind the bench and brandishing a weapon.

Nichols was being retried on charges including rape and false imprisonment in a case involving his ex-girlfriend. After a relationship of several years with Nichols, the woman was "held against her will. She was savagely raped and brutalized over a fairly long period of time," Fulton County Deputy Chief Gary Stiles said.

Nichols' first trial had resulted in a hung jury a week earlier. Hazen said the case might have gone to the jury on Friday -- and that the prosecution had presented a stronger case than in the first trial.

Leading Nichols to the courtroom -- alone -- was a 51-year-old grandmother, sheriff's deputy Cynthia Ann Hall. First, she took Nichols to a holding area so that he could change into civilian clothes to face the jury.

Nichols -- 6-feet-1-inch tall, 210 pounds and a former college football player -- attacked Hall when she removed his handcuffs in a struggle that lasted about three minutes and was caught on a security video that has not been released.

He slammed her against the cell wall, pushing her out of the camera's view and taking the key to a lockbox where her gun was stored. She was later found and hospitalized in critical condition with a bruise on her brain and fractures to her face.

Nichols retrieved the gun, changed clothes and walked away before making a fateful decision. Instead of escaping, he crossed a skybridge into the next building and headed for the courtroom.

"I'm just stunned that he would risk his own escape to go back and seek vengeance," said CNN host Nancy Grace, a former prosecutor in Atlanta and a friend of two of Friday's victims.

Nichols went first to Barnes' private chambers, tearing out the phone lines, taking three hostages and inquiring about the judge's whereabouts. He left a number of times, finally returning with another deputy taken hostage.

Seizing the second deputy's gun, authorities said Nichols entered the courtroom from behind the bench, firing a single shot into Barnes' head, then shooting and killing court reporter Julie Brandau.

Hazen and the prosecutor on the case, Assistant District Attorney Gayle Abramson, later said they were only moments away from the courtroom.

Nichols started his escape, bypassing the elevators for the stairwell, leaving through an emergency exit, setting off an alarm and starting down Martin Luther King Jr. Drive -- where witnesses said he fired multiple shots into the abdomen of another sheriff's deputy, Hoyt Teasley.

Carjacking spree

As the 43-year-old father of two lay dying, Nichols ran into one of a number of parking garages and began a carjacking spree that left police with a cold trail, authorities said.

A massive manhunt ensued.

He first stole a dark SUV, racing less than three blocks and crashing through the gate of another parking deck.

Tow truck driver Deronte Franklin said that after he directed police into the deck after Nichols, Nichols came back down and stole his truck at gunpoint.

Nichols then drove to another deck about six blocks away where Almeta Kilgo, an employee of the nearby Atlanta Journal-Constitution, said he stole her Mercury Sable. She escaped after refusing Nichols' order to stay in the car, she said.

Speeding away, Nichols drove a couple more blocks to yet another deck, where he stole the car of AJC reporter Don O'Briant. He said Nichols ordered him into the trunk and pistol-whipped him when he refused. O'Briant managed to run away.

"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," O'Briant said.

O'Briant said Nichols approached him by asking for directions to Lenox Square, a mall in the affluent Buckhead neighborhood, about 8 miles north of downtown.

On security video footage released later in the day, O'Briant's green Honda Accord is seen pulling away from a parking space.

Transit escape

About 9:30 am., as chaos reigned at the courthouse, Teasley was declared dead at a nearby hospital.

At almost the same time, Nichols was caught again on the same parking deck's security cameras -- not driving as police believed, but calmly walking away.

The video -- not released until Saturday -- shows Nichols descending a staircase alone and donning a blazer that apparently belongs to O'Briant, before emerging from the staircase with his hands in his pockets.

Police now say they believe Nichols moved