Channel 2 Investigates

EXCLUSIVE: Go inside the high-max unit Brian Nichols calls home

By Mark Winne, WSB-TV
By Mark Winne, WSB-TV
Fulton County Courthouse killer Brian Nichols is opening up exclusively to Channel 2 Action News more than a decade after a deadly rampage that killed four people.
“I don’t know what I could actually say to, you know, express my apologies,” Nichols told Channel 2 Investigative Mark Winne in an interview that was years in the making. “Words sometimes are not enough.”
Nichols is opening up more about the conditions of his confinement -- one of the most secure situations in Georgia.
"We knew he had escaped from a secure facility," Assistant Corrections Commissioner Tim Ward said. "We're going to make sure that Brian Nichols does not get out and harm anybody else."
Channel 2 Action News is the only station to go deep inside the high-max unit in Butts County where Nichols is spending life behind bars. 
“I’ve been in a lot of prisons, but I don’t remember any place I’ve seen like the high-max unit at the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison here in Jackson,” Winne said.
Prison officials said they knew what they got when Nichols arrived, and they knew what he was capable of doing.
“We’re going to make sure it’s humane, but we’re going to make sure it’s secure,” Ward said.
“It’s solitary confinement, and rightfully so. I’ve done some very bad things,” Nichols said.
Ward said Georgia has close to 53,000 state prisoners, and Nichols is one of, if not the, most dangerous.
“We knew that he had escaped from a secure facility, so he had the high likelihood that he might try that again,” Ward said.
Once you get inside the high-max unit, we’re told to get where Nichols is, you have to go through layers of bars and a big metal door.
“There are bad days and there are worse days,” Nichols told Winne. “I’m not being abused or treated in any way that’s illegal.”
Nichols is allowed one hour out of his cell every day. But he’s highly-protected during that hour.
Because of intense security concerns, our exclusive interview with Nichols had to be by phone.
“What lengths would you go to to escape again?” Winne asked Nichols.
“And do what exactly? What is most important is that I’m able to see my family,” Nichols said. “If I’m out running around in the woods trying to hide from helicopters with infrared cameras and SWAT teams with night vision goggles, I’m not going to be able to go home and see my family. I’m going to be running around in the woods and sleeping in the woods. I’ve kind of been there and done that. As bad as prison is, it’s a much better existence than being on the run.”

Cox Media Group

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