Jesus
http://www.ajc.com/news/content/metro/gwinnett/0305/14hostage.html
You're an angel that God led me to'
Duluth woman recounts the hours she was held hostage by Brian Nichols
Just two days after moving into her Duluth apartment, Ashley Smith is up late unpacking.
At about 2 a.m. Saturday the 26-year-old runs out of cigarettes and heads to a local convenience store to buy a pack of cigarettes
When she returns, she sees a man in a truck was waiting outside her door. She had seen the man earlier but didn't think much of it.
She gets out of her car and shuts the door.
She hears the door on the truck close at about the same time. Fear rises in her.
Holding her key in her hand, she makes her way to her front door. As she slides her key into the lock, she turns to see the man from the truck. She screams. He pokes a gun into her ribs.
"Stop screaming," he demands. "I won't hurt you if you stop screaming."
She fears the worst — that she will be raped and killed.
"Do you know who I am?" he asks.
He is wearing a dark blazer beneath a red ski parka but no shirt. He has a new UGA cap on his head.
She doesn't know him.
He removes the cap, showing his shaved head.
"Now do you know who I am?" he asks again.
She recognizes him. She begins to tremble with fear.
"I won't hurt you," he tells her reassuringly.
He takes her into the bathroom, places her in the tub and sits on a small seat, holding a gun.
He leaves her to check for others in the apartment. When he returns, he tries again to reassure her.
"I don't want to hurt anyone else," he says. Worried that her screams could bring too much attention, he warns her.
"If you scream, the police will come. There will be a hostage situation," he says. "I'll have to kill you and kill myself."
He binds her with masking tape and carries her into the bedroom, where he restrains her with more tape, an electrical cord and some curtains. He makes no sexual advance.
"I just need to relax," he tells her.
He needs a shower and leads her as she hops back to the bathroom. He sits her on the chair and drapes a towel over her head for modesty. He places his his guns on the counter and showers.
Afterward she finds him some fresh clothes — a t-shirt and trousers — and he seems to be calmer.
He unbinds her and they sit in her living room.
"I've had a really long day," he says.
He offers her some faint explanation — maybe his first to account for how he had spent this long day.
"I feel like I'm a warrior — that people of my color have gone through a lot."
But he says he's had enough. "I don't want to hurt anybody anymore," he tells her. "I don't want to kill anybody.
"I want to rest."
The tenor of the moment becomes more normal, as normal as it could be.
Smith asks if he would mind if she reads.
Nichols says OK. She gets the book she'd been reading, "A Purpose Driven Life." It is a book that offers daily guidance. She picks up where she left off - the first paragraph of the 33rd chapter.
"We serve God by serving others. The world defines greatness in terms of power, posessions, prestige and position. If you can demand service from others you've arrived. In our self-serving culture with its me first mentality, acting like a servant is not a popular concept."
They talk and lose track of time. They look at her family photos. "Who's this?" he asks, pointing to a picture. "Who's this?"
She talks about her family. Her husband died in her arms four years ago after he had been stabbed in a knife fight in Augusta, her hometown. She has a 5-year-old daughter.
She asks him not to kill her because that would leave her daughter without a mother or a father.
She tells him she is supposed to meet her daughter Saturday morning at about 10 a.m. at Hebron Baptist Church in Dacula. She hadn't seen her in two weeks. "She's expecting to see me," she tells him. "She's already been through a lot in her life."
Smith shows Nichols her late husband's autopsy report.
"That's what a lot of people will have to go through now, because of what you've done," she tells him. "You need to turn yourself in. No one else needs to die and you're going to die if you don't."
Smith asks Nichols how he feels about what he did. She asks him to think of the families of the victims.
She senses a change. "He wasn't a warrior anymore," she recalled later.
"You can go in there right now, pick up that gun and kill me," he tells her. "I'd rather you do it than the police."
He talks about his mother in Africa and wonders what she must be thinking about her son.
They sit watching the TV news of the shooting spree. The screen fills with the story of his attack on Cynthia Hall, the 51-year-old deputy had overpowered Friday morning to begin his rampage.
"I didn't shoot her," Nichols interjects. "I hit her really hard. Lord, I'm sorry. . . . I hope she lives."
He sees himself on the broadcast. "I can't believe that's me," he says.
Nichols later pulls out the badge and driver's license of David Wilhelm, the U.S. Customs Agent he had killed hours before. He hands them to Smith.
Smith looks at the license and tells Nichols that Wilhelm was 40 years old. "He probably has a wife and kids," she says.
"I didn't want to kill him," Nichols says. "He wouldn't do what I asked him to do. He fought me, so I had to kill him."
As the night wears on, Smith begins to feel her chances improve.
Nichols tells her he will let her go see her daughter later in the morning.
At around 6:15 a.m., Nichols says he needs to move the truck he had stolen from Wilhelm from in front of the apartment before the sunrise.
Smith agrees to follow him in her car. He leaves the guns under her bed.
As they drive, Smith thinks about calling 911 on her cellphone, but she decides against it. She fears police will come and surround them. There'd be a shootout.
Nichols ditches the truck off Buford Highway, about two miles from the apartment complex.
"Wow, you didn't drive off," Nichols says as he gets into her car. "I thought you were going to."
She drives him back to her apartment. She no longer doubts that she will be set free.
Back at the apartment, Nichols is hungry. She cooks him eggs and pancakes, gives him fruit juice. They have breakfast together.
Nichols asks when she needed to see her daughter. At 10 a.m., Smith responds. It'd be good if she could leave at 9:30 to get there.
Smith washes the dishes and gets ready to leave.
Nichols asks her to come visit him in jail. "You're an angel that God led me to," he tells her. "I want to talk to you again. Will you come see me?"
She told him she would.
"I'll be back in a little while," she tells him as she prepares to leave.
Nichols gives her an odd look that leads Smith to doubt whether he believes her.
At the door, he hands her $40. Smith says she doesn't need it.
"Take it," Nichols says. "I don't have any need for it."
Nichols holds a tool from Wilhelm's truck and asks if he can hang some pictures or some curtains.
Smith tells him to do whatever he likes.
As she walks out of the apartment in the bright, warm daylight, Smith begins to shake all over. She drives to a stop sign and dials 911. She tells the dispatcher that Nichols is in her apartment.
Within minutes, a Gwinnett police SWAT team swarms outside Smith's apartment. Nichols holds out a white piece of cloth and surrenders.
Sunday night, after recounting her time with Nichols, Smith says she has found some purpose to his finding her.
"I believe God brought him to my door so he couldn't hurt anyone else," she says.
