Nichols Eyewitness Gives Emotional Testimony

ATLANTA -- Jurors listened to a wrenching five minutes of audio Monday, the same day they heard for the first time from people who witnessed the shootings inside the courtroom.

Lynette Davis was just filling in for Judge Rowland Barnes' regular law clerk who was out on maternity leave. A friend had recommended her because Barnes had asked for someone with more experience. Davis, an attorney, said it took getting used to working in Barnes' office because it was like being with a family.

"There was games that were played everyday at lunch and I thought this is a weird office." Davis says Judge Barnes' chambers were "not like other judge's", that it was a very happy working environment, that Barnes ate breakfast and lunch with them everyday.

On the stand Davis joked that she wanted to tell the law clerk on maternity not to come back because she was having so much fun. Davis described sitting next to Julie Brandau in the courtroom the morning of March 11, 2005.

Barnes was hearing a motion on a civil case before Brian Nichols rape trial was to begin that day. She said it was just before nine and she had turned her back to the judge to look up something on the computer when she heard a loud pop that "sounded like a light bulb exploding."

She says she heard a second pop and then felt a "stinging sensation on her arm." Davis says she turned around and found Julie Brandau at her feet.

"I knew that Julie was dead based on the way that Julie was hit...I wasn't leaving until someone came in and helped."

During Davis's testimony, prosecutors played the audio tape of the shooting in which Davis can be heard screaming and crying and pleading for help for over four minutes.

After everyone in the courtroom had fled, Davis stayed, screaming, "Somebody help me.Somebody help me!" She can be heard pounding on the table and screaming. While the tape was played Davis sobbed on the stand, crying so hard that the Judge ordered a 20 minute break before cross examination.

Richard Robbins, one of the two attorneys arguing before Barnes that morning described Brian Nichols shooting the judge, then Julie, then waving his gun around the room.

"He pointed the gun at me and he was about the calmest, most chilling site I've ever seen."

Robbins said he believed Nichols was going to kill him because he was sitting at the prosecutors table.

He decided to make a run for it, describing as he ran from the courtroom that he expected Nichols to shoot him in the back. Robbins ran to the new courthouse, breaking his hand forcing his way through a locked security door.

Nicole Waller was speaking to the Judge when he was shot. She says she saw Brian Nichols walk into the courtroom with urgency, that his hand was outstretched and that she thought he was there to deliver a paper to the judge.

She says he got within a few feet of the judge and shot him in the head without Barnes ever knowing he was there. She says Nichols seemed deliberate in shooting Julie Brandau, that he barely paused between firing.

Waller says it all happened so quickly that once she realized people were being shot she ducked down behind her podium. After Nichols fled the courtroom, she says other attorneys grabbed her and ran with her to Judge Barnes' chambers.