At a bond hearing July 31, defense attorney Gerald Brown did not ask for his client’s release from Clarke County Jail because Nelms apparently has no permanent address. District Attorney Ken Mauldin said in the August 1 Athens Banner-Herald that Nelms was “basically living in the streets for the past month.” Nelms was not a university student, but a witness had spotted him in the library the afternoon of the fire.
University Librarian William Potter said the fire had started in a stack of boxed United Nations materials awaiting reshelving outside a storage room in the center of the library’s documents depository. The blaze quickly spread throughout much of the second-floor documents area, the Banner-Herald reported July 30.
After initially estimating the damage at $1.5 million, State Insurance Commissioner John Oxendine said the final amount will “probably be a little higher” due to reconstruction costs. Library officials still hope to reopen the building by August 18.
Posted August 4, 2003.