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(Source: Multnomah County Sheriff's Office - Faces of Meth™) |
Hostage Who Became Faith Icon Gave Meth to Captor
An Atlanta woman who was hailed for talking a gunman into surrendering by reading him a popular Christian self-improvement book now says she also gave the man some methamphetamine from her private stash during the ordeal, the Associated Press reported Sept. 27.
Ashley Smith, 27, taken hostage after Brian Nichols killed four people in a shootout at an Atlanta courthouse, says in her new book, "Unlikely Angel: The Untold Story of the Atlanta Hostage Hero," that Nichols asked Smith for marijuana, but all she had was meth. She gave him the drug but declined to use it with him. "I was not going to die tonight and stand before God, having done a bunch of ice up my nose," she wrote in the book.
Smith was lauded for reading Nichols a passage from the Rick Warren book, "The Purpose-Driven Life," was awarded $70,000 for helping police capture the fugitive, and has appeared on national TV. She says she has not touched drugs again since the hostage ordeal.
She said she was afraid to tell police about giving the drugs to Nichols. "Later I came forward and shared the details about the drugs with the appropriate authorities, but I regret not having done so at the very beginning," she said. "I remember what Jesus said: The truth will set you free. That's how I want to live my life; I want to be an honest person and experience the freedom that goes with it."
"Instead of running away from God's voice, now I seek it and try to learn from his words," she wrote. "I still pray all the time for the friends I knew in the drug scene ... I pray that what has happened in my life will impact them in some way. I want them to know that God loves them no matter what they've done."
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