COLUMBIA, S.C. - A man who police say killed a judge and two others in an Atlanta courtroom Friday has ties to South Carolina, including a brief football career at Newberry College.

Brian Nichols, 33, opened fire in the courtroom where he was being tried for rape and then ran from the courthouse, setting off a massive manhunt, Atlanta police said.

In South Carolina, alerts were issued in Richland, Lexington, Newberry and Sumter counties - all places where Nichols has lived or has other connections, State Law Enforcement Division Chief Robert Stewart said.

"We have no specific information that this bad boy out of Atlanta is here," Stewart said.

Stewart had urged the public to be on the lookout for the green 1997 Honda Accord that Nichols was last seen driving, but late Friday, police reported that the car had been found in a downtown Atlanta parking lot, not far from where it was stolen.

Stewart said late Friday he had no information on what type of car the suspect may now be driving.

Nichols was on trial at Fulton County Courthouse for rape and other charges stemming from an August assault Friday morning when authorities said he took a gun from a sheriff's deputy and opened fire just after 9 a.m.

Superior Court Judge Rowland Barnes, his court clerk and a sheriff's deputy were killed. A second deputy was shot in the head but is expected to recover.

The court clerk, Julie Brandau, was born in Moncks Corner. Brandau, a Snellville, Ga., resident, had been Barnes' court reporter for about 25 years.

Nichols played football for Newberry College in 1992 and 1993, but was kicked off the team after he was linked to a dorm room theft, said Ryan Gross, a spokesman for the university athletics department.

Newberry County Sheriff Lee Foster told The (Columbia) State that Nichols was arrested in April 1994 and charged with first-degree burglary. Nichols took a VCR, portable CD player, speakers and other items with a total value of $1,931 from a dorm room, according to a police report in the case.

Nichols still had an open 1996 arrest warrant from Newberry stemming from the burglary charge, records show.

Former head coach Mike Taylor would not comment on why Nichols was released and added that the player had already been recruited when Taylor came to the team in 1992.

"I inherited him," said Taylor, who now coaches at North Greenville College. "He played for me in '92 and '93, and in the spring of '94 I released him from the team."

A football program from the period identified Nichols as 6-foot-2 junior defensive end from Baltimore.

Henry Shull lived across the street from Nichols and his parents in Lexington for about three years in the mid-1990s. Shull said the family moved from the home about 10 years ago.

"I didn't know him," Shull said of Nichols. "I talked to his mom and dad some...His mom and dad was real nice."

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Associated Press Writer Jim Davenport in Columbia, S.C., contributed to this story.