ATLANTA - Police on Saturday arrested a suspect in the Atlanta courthouse rampage that left a judge and two others dead, Atlanta Police Chief Richard Pennington told CNN television.
The suspect, 33-year-old Brian Nichols, was arrested at an apartment complex in north Atlanta after police spotted the last vehicle he had allegedly stolen in the wake of Friday`s killings at the downtown Atlanta courthouse.
Pennington said that "even though he did peacefully turn himself in," the case was only beginning.
No injuries were reported during the arrest, but the pick-up truck Nichols apparently used to get to the Gwinnett County apartment complex belonged to a man who was found dead on Saturday.
Friday morning`s rampage also left a sheriff`s deputy in critical condition in hospital.
The 6-foot-1 (1.86-meter), 210-pound (95-kilo) Nichols on Friday wrested a gun from the deputy, who was escorting him to an eighth-floor courtroom where he was due for a hearing in his rape case. He allegedly shot her in the mouth before bursting into the courtroom and fatally shooting Fulton County Superior Court Judge Rowland Barnes and a court reporter, authorities said.
As he fled the building, Nichols allegedly shot and killed another sheriff`s deputy.
Nichols, who has been in jail for the past six months, was wearing a suit, as he had been allowed to change out of his prison garb for his court appearance.
The judge had earlier asked authorities to provide extra security because he thought Nichols could turn violent if convicted. On Thursday, Nichols was found to be hiding two hand-made knives in his shoes.
Nevertheless, he was not wearing leg shackles and was only escorted by one deputy, who removed his handcuffs as she led him to the courtroom.
Nichols had been in jail since August on charges of breaking into his former girlfriend`s apartment, binding her with duct tape and raping her. He was being retried and faced possible life imprisonment, after a first trial ended in a hung jury on Monday.
A 60,000-dollar reward had been posted for information leading to the capture of Nichols, a computer technician.
For much of Friday, police had searched for a green Honda in which Nichols was believed to have made his getaway, but they eventually found the car parked in the parking lot where it was thought to have been stolen.
Authorities were also investigating a death threat against district attorney Gayle Abramson, which was phoned in Friday by a man claiming to be Nichols. Abramson was the prosecutor in Nichols`s rape case, which was being tried by Barnes.
Barnes, 64, was one of the most senior judges in Atlanta, handling high-profile and controversial cases.
Last month, he sentenced to probation an Atlanta ice hockey star, Dany Heatley, who killed a teammate in a car crash. Barnes agreed to a plea from the family of Graham Snyder not to put Heatley in jail.
Barnes also made national headlines when he ordered a woman accused of killing one of her seven children to undergo sterilization to prevent her from having more children.
Friday`s shootings followed the execution-style slaying in Chicago of a federal judge`s husband and mother less than two weeks ago.
Police identified a man who killed himself Wednesday as the prime suspect in the late February killings. The judge had recently dismissed a malpractice case the suspect brought against doctors who treated him for cancer more than a decade ago.
The rash of violence against court officials has raised concern across the United States and is to be discussed at a high-level meeting of federal judges next week.
03/12/2005 17:23 GMT