Ashley Smith: An ordinary woman with extraordinary courage...

ATLANTA - Ashley Smith, the woman held hostage in her apartment by the suspect in Atlanta’s courthouse slayings, said Monday she hopes Brian Nichols realizes he did the right thing by not killing her and instead surrendering without a fight.

“I hope that he’s sitting in jail right now, thinking that he did the right thing and that he knows he did the right thing," Smith said on NBC's "Today" show.

Smith, 26, added that Nichols "finally let me leave when I told him I needed to" go see her 5-year-old daughter, Paige, who was at a church function.

Nichols apparently was touched by that mother-daughter connection. "I just told him that she didn't have a daddy anymore and if he killed me she wouldn't have a mommy either. I saw her face in my head almost the entire time," she told NBC. Smith's husband was killed in a stabbing four years ago.

"It calmed him down a little," Smith added, noting that when she finally opened her door to leave, Nichols asked, "Will you tell Paige hello for me?"

Discussing God
Smith told a news conference on Sunday that when Nichols let her go he said he wanted to stay at her apartment for a few more days.

During the ordeal, Smith said she gently talked to Nichols, turning from hostage to confidant as they discussed God, family, pancakes and the massive manhunt going on outside her apartment.

“I believe God brought him to my door,” Smith said just hours after her 911 call ended a manhunt for Nichols, who is accused of killing four people and wounding a fifth.

 Brian Nichols

He felt 'already dead'
Over the course of the night, Nichols untied Smith, and some of the fear lessened as they talked. Nichols told Smith he felt like “he was already dead,” but Smith urged him to consider the fact that he was still alive a “miracle.”

“You’re here in my apartment for some reason,” she told him, saying he might be destined to be caught and to spread the word of God to fellow prisoners. She told him his escape from authorities had been a “miracle.”

Smith later called 911 after she was freed, and police soon surrounded her suburban apartment complex. Nichols gave up peacefully, waving a white towel in surrender.

“I honestly think when I looked at him that he didn’t want to do it anymore,” Smith said. If he did not give up, she told him, “Lots more people are probably going get hurt and you’re probably going to die.”

'Best-case scenario'
Police said they were impressed by the way Smith handled herself.

“She acted very cool and levelheaded. We don’t normally see that in our profession,” said Gwinnett County Police Officer Darren Moloney. “It was an absolutely best-case scenario that happened, a complete opposite of what you expected to happen. We were prepared for the worst and got the best.”

The crime spree began when Nichols allegedly overpowered a courthouse deputy escorting him to his rape trial Friday and took the deputy’s gun, then killed the presiding judge and court reporter. He also is accused of killing a deputy who tried to stop him outside the courthouse and a federal agent during his flight from authorities.

Smith said her ordeal began around 2 a.m. Saturday morning with Nichols sticking a gun in her side in the parking lot of her apartment when she returned from a store.

He tied her up and told her to sit in the bathroom while he took a shower. “He said, ‘I’m not going to hurt you if you just do what I say,”’ she said. He told her: “I don’t want to hurt you. I don’t want to hurt anybody else.”

He wanted 'normalness'
Choking back tears, she said she told Nichols that her husband died four years ago and if he hurt her, her little girl wouldn’t have a mother or father. Smith’s attorney, Josh Archer, said her husband died in her arms after being stabbed.

The two talked about the Bible and she handed him photos of her family. When morning came, Nichols was “overwhelmed” when Smith made him pancakes with real butter, she said. He told her he “just wanted some normalness to his life,” she said.

Nichols at one point called her "an angel sent from God," Smith said.

The two watched television news reports about the slayings and the manhunt. “I cannot believe that’s me on there,” Smith quoted Nichols as saying.

Escape 'was preventable'
Nichols could appear in federal court as early as Monday to face a charge of possession of a firearm by a person under indictment, the charge authorities are using to keep Nichols in custody while they sort out charging in the slayings, said U.S. Attorney David Nahmias.

The Fulton County District Attorney’s Office hopes to formally charge Nichols with the new crimes within 30 days, spokesman Erik Friedly said Sunday. Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard still would like to resolve Nichols’ interrupted rape retrial.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported Monday that a courthouse surveillance camera recorded Nichols’ initial surprise attack on Deputy Cynthia Hall but that no one in the control center noticed the assault.

“It’s not just horrible, it was preventable,” Senior Superior Court Judge Philip Etheridge told the newspaper.

Video captures attack
A video camera, which is supposed to be monitored by two guards in a command post, shows Nichols and the deputy arriving in the holding area between two courtrooms, according to a law enforcement official who saw the tape. The video shows Hall guiding Nichols, whose hands are still handcuffed behind his back, into one of two open cells.

Hall releases one cuff and turns Nichols around to unhook the remaining cuff. But the muscular, 33-year-old Nichols then lunges at Hall, knocking the petite, 51-year-old grandmother backward into another cell. Both disappear from camera view. Two to three minutes later, Nichols emerges from the cell, holding Hall’s gun belt and police radio. He picks up her keys from the floor and locks her in the cell.

A few minutes later, he emerges in civilian clothes. He locks the door behind him and calmly walks out of the holding area, carrying the gun belt, according to the official who saw the tape.

Judge Etheridge said Hall should not have been alone with Nichols, a former college linebacker who had been found with two sharpened door hinges in his socks earlier in the week.

Hall remained in critical condition Sunday, Grady Memorial Hospital officials said. Killed were Superior Court Judge Rowland Barnes, court reporter Julie Brandau, Sgt. Hoyt Teasley and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent David Wilhelm.

© 2005 MSNBC Interactive
URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7157845/

(Note: I highly encourage you to read the transcript of Smith's account of the whole ordeal. It's truly amazing.)

My commentary...

What amazing courage and faith this woman has.

I can not fathom what it must be like to witness your spouse being stabbed to death, then to see them die in your arms as Ashley did four years ago.

I furthermore can not understand what it must be like to have a known-murderer come into your apartment and threaten your life knowing that if you were to die your 5-year-old daughter would be an orphan.

Lastly, it's amazing that someone would have such strength and courage to talk their way out of danger and live to tell the world about it.

This story is captivating. It's all over the news here in America and around the world, and everyone wants to know, "how did she do it?"

Her aunt says it wasn't her, it was God working through her.

(From CNN): Smith said she asked Nichols if she could read. She retrieved a Bible and a copy of "The Purpose-Driven Life."   She said he asked her to repeat a paragraph "about what you thought your purpose in life was -- what talents were you given."

You see, Ashley was given a choice in her life. When her husband died, she could have blamed herself and been depressed for years to come. However, she decided to press onward, against tragedy and put her faith into something greater than herself. She probably began reading the Bible for comfort and solace during that great time of fear and uncertainty - just like she did last week, while facing death.

Ashley looked fear right in the face and in the most direct, yet politest way possible said, "This is God's will, I will trust in Him, and I will be victorious". Sure enough, her faith paid off and she lived to tell about it. 

Everyone wants to know why they are here and why they were created and Ashley was no different. She probably prayed night after night, asking God to show her a purpose, a reason for living.

Well this past week, in the most mysterious way possible, it appears that God has answered her prayer. Now the whole world knows who Ashley Smith is, her amazing story, and about her amazing faith in God, who kept His promise: "I will never leave you, nor forsake you."

Just another example of triumph in the midst of a horrendous tragedy.

My prayers go out to the friends and families of the victims in last week's shootings. May God bring them strength during this time of great trial.

Related links...

March 11: Two Dead, Four Injured, In Shooting At Atlanta Courthouse...

March 12: US Customs Agent Found Dead in Atlanta...

March 12: Atlanta Courtroom Shooting Suspect Captured, Being Held by FBI...

March 14: Ga. Courthouse Reopens Amid Tight Security...

Other news...

"We're not leavin' until you are..."

Hundreds of thousands of demonstrators chanted "Freedom, sovereignty, independence," and waved a sea of Lebanese flags in Beirut on Monday, the biggest anti-Syrian protest yet in the opposition's duel of street rallies with supporters of the Damascus-backed government.

Crowds of Druse, Christians and Sunni Muslims flooded Martyrs' Square and spilled over into nearby streets — responding to an opposition call to turn out for the removal of Syrian troops from Lebanon.

"We are coming to liberate our country. We are coming to demand the truth," said Fatma Trad, a veiled Sunni Muslim woman who traveled from the remote region of Dinniyeh in northern Lebanon to take part.

The assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri exactly one month ago sparked the series of protests against Syria, the dominant power in Lebanon.

The throngs fell silent at 12:55 p.m. — the exact time Hariri was killed four weeks ago by a huge bomb in Beirut. The silence was broken only by church bells tolling and the flutter of flags.

.....

Protesters chanted "Truth, freedom, national unity!" or "We want only the Lebanese army in Lebanon!"

"Syria out, no half measures," read a banner, borrowing from President Bush's description of Damascus' gradual withdrawal from this country of 3.5 million.

Related: 30 percent of Syrian forces withdraw from Lebanon...

Study Shows U.S. Election Coverage Harder on Bush...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. media coverage of last year's election was three times more likely to be negative toward President Bush than Democratic challenger John Kerry, according to a study released Monday.

The annual report by a press watchdog that is affiliated with Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism said that 36 percent of stories about Bush were negative compared to 12 percent about Kerry, a Massachusetts senator.

Only 20 percent were positive toward Bush compared to 30 percent of stories about Kerry that were positive, according to the report by the Project for Excellence in Journalism.

The study looked at 16 newspapers of varying size across the country, four nightly newscasts, three network morning news shows, nine cable programs and nine Web sites through the course of 2004.

Examining the public perception that coverage of the war in Iraq was decidedly negative, it found evidence did not support that conclusion. The majority of stories had no decided tone, 25 percent were negative and 20 percent were positive, it said.

The three network nightly newscasts and public broadcaster PBS tended to be more negative than positive, while Fox News was twice as likely to be positive as negative. Read more...

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Former NAACP President Kweisi Mfume says he will run for the U.S. Senate in 2006...

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Finally, the picture of the day...

Fri Mar 11,12:06 AM ET
In the seats at right, Stratosphere spokesman Mike Gilmartin (L) and a reporter take a spin on 'Insanity,' a new thrill ride, over 900-feet above the Las Vegas Strip at the Stratosphere Tower in Las Vegas, Nevada, March 10, 2005. REUTERS/Sam Morris/Las Vegas Sun

Have a great day,

-Justin