AP Exclusive: Call to accused courthouse shooter being probed

<p>A criminal investigation is being conducted into telephone contact between a Connecticut woman and accused courthouse gunman Brian Nichols that may be related to an alleged escape plot he was planning, authorities told The Associated Press.</p><p>The FBI is assisting the Fulton County district attorney's office in its probe that involves at least one call between Lisa Meneguzzo and Nichols, FBI spokesman Stephen Emmett said Wednesday.</p><p>"We're supporting Fulton County in its criminal investigation," Emmett told AP.</p><p>He said the FBI has questioned Meneguzzo, who helps out at a family-run business in Torrington, Conn. Emmett declined to elaborate.</p><p>"We're not going to expand. We're not going to talk about Lisa," he said.</p><p>Meneguzzo's relationship with Nichols is unclear, but she visited him at least four times in jail since the shootings that killed four people in March 2005, according to visitor records previously obtained by AP.</p><p>Two investigators from the district attorney's office traveled to Connecticut in late February or early March, according to David Shepack, the Litchfield County, Conn., state's attorney.</p><p>"They were in our jurisdiction," Shepack said. He declined to elaborate.</p><p>The extent of the investigation is unclear, as is whether there could be further charges filed against Nichols or anyone else who may have helped him in the alleged escape plot.</p><p>Meneguzzo declined to comment Wednesday when reached by the AP on her cell phone.</p><p>"I'm not going to discuss any of this," Meneguzzo said.</p><p>Nichols lawyer Gary Parker declined to comment, and Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard has not returned repeated phone calls and e-mails from the AP seeking comment on the subject over the last three weeks.</p><p>News of the investigation follows a Feb. 27 court filing by prosecutors in the Nichols murder case in which they disclosed a transcript of a recorded telephone call between Meneguzzo and Nichols in which Nichols asked her to describe the location of a tower and barbed wire around the jail where Nichols was being held at the time.</p><p>Meneguzzo was on her cell phone outside the Fulton County Jail at the time of the conversation with Nichols, who was inside.</p><p>Prosecutors said in their filing that the June 24, 2006, conversation and others they have gathered are "undeniably damning and relevant to defendant's future dangerousness." Prosecutors have obtained recordings of some 400 hours of Nichols' telephone calls while in jail.</p><p>The court filing followed previous assertions by prosecutors that Nichols has plotted another escape while in custody for the killings of a judge, court reporter, sheriff's deputy and federal agent.</p><p>Nichols was moved to the DeKalb County Jail in October 2006 while the Fulton County Jail was being renovated.</p><p>Nichols, 35, was being escorted to a courtroom in the Fulton County Courthouse for the continuation of his retrial on rape charges when he allegedly beat a deputy, stole her gun and went on a deadly shooting spree.</p><p>He is accused of killing the judge presiding over the rape trial; a court reporter chronicling the proceeding; a sheriff's deputy who chased him outside; and a federal agent he encountered at a home a few miles away that night. Nichols surrendered the next day after allegedly taking a woman hostage in her suburban Atlanta home.</p>