September 28, 2005
Celebrated Hostage Gave Crystal Meth to Captor
By EDWARD WYATT
Ashley Smith, who was held hostage in her apartment in March by the man now charged with murder in the Atlanta courthouse shootings, was hailed as a hero after she disclosed how she had persuaded her captor to surrender, partly by reading to him from the spiritual best seller "The Purpose-Driven Life."
But in a memoir released yesterday, Ms. Smith also recounts that she gave the kidnapper some of her supply of crystal methamphetamine during her captivity and that she did not tell the police for some time afterward.
In the memoir, "Unlikely Angel: The Untold Story of the Atlanta Hostage Hero," Ms. Smith recalls that Brian Nichols, who has been charged in the death of three people shot at the Fulton County Courthouse and a fourth killed elsewhere in Atlanta soon before her kidnapping, asked her if she had any marijuana. She answered no but said she did have some "ice," or crystal meth.
Ms. Smith says that at the time, she was fighting an addiction to crystal methamphetamine that had previously led her to spend time in a psychiatric hospital and to lose custody of her 5-year-old daughter. ...
<http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/28/national/28purpose.html>
March 15, 2005
Spiritual Book Helped Hostage Mollify Captor
By EDWARD WYATT
''The Purpose-Driven Life'' by Rick Warren, a California pastor, has sold more than 22 million copies around the world, none more important, perhaps, than the one owned by Ashley Smith, the Duluth, Ga., woman who was held hostage in her apartment by Brian Nichols, the man accused in the courthouse killings last week in Atlanta.
Ms. Smith said on Sunday that while she was being held, she retrieved a copy of ''The Purpose-Driven Life'' from her bedroom, read parts of it to Mr. Nichols and discussed with him the book's themes of finding God's purpose for oneself. Those discussions, she said, led her captor to release her unharmed and to his later surrender to the police.
The incident seems likely only to add to the success of a book that is already a cultural phenomenon. First published in 2002 by Zondervan Publishing, the book continues to sell strongly. It was the fifth-biggest seller last year at Barnes & Noble stores around the country, and though it had recently ranked about No. 50 on Amazon.com's hourly list of best sellers, by early yesterday evening, after Ms. Smith's comments received widespread publicity, the book jumped back into Amazon's top five.
Speaking to reporters in her lawyer's office in Atlanta on Sunday, Ms. Smith said that while Mr. Nichols held her hostage, she asked if she could read. He consented, and she fetched ''The Purpose-Driven Life'' from her bedroom.
''I turned it to the chapter that I was on that day,'' Ms. Smith said, according to a transcript posted by CNN.com. ''It was Chapter 33. And I started to read the first paragraph of it. After I read it, he said, 'Stop, will you read it again?'''
Chapter 33 is titled ''How Real Servants Act.'' ''It mentioned something about what you thought your purpose in life was,'' she said. ''What were you -- what talents were you given? What gifts were you given to use? And I asked him what he thought. And he said, 'I think it was to talk to people and tell them about you.'''
Later, she added, ''After we began to talk, he said he thought that I was an angel sent from God. And that I was his sister and he was my brother in Christ. And that he was lost and God led him right to me to tell him that he had hurt a lot of people.''
Ms. Smith continued: ''After I started to read to him, he saw -- I guess he saw my faith and what I really believed in. And I told him I was a child of God and that I wanted to do God's will. I guess he began to want to. That's what I think.'' ...
<http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/28/national/28purpose.html>
Carl