Pubdate: Fri, 30 Sep 2005
Source: New Zealand Herald (New Zealand)
Copyright: 2005 New Zealand Herald
Contact:  http://www.nzherald.co.nz/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/300
Author: David Usborne
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/meth.htm (Methamphetamine)

DRUG STASH SAVED MY LIFE, SAYS HOSTAGE

NEW YORK - A woman taken hostage by a man accused of gunning down a 
judge and two other people inside a courthouse has said she escaped 
death by giving him crystal methamphetamine.

Ashley Smith, a 27-year-old widowed mother celebrated across the 
United States for her survival, made the startling revelation in her 
book about the incident, Unlikely Angel: The Untold Story of the 
Atlanta Hostage Hero.

She gave further details in an interview with Oprah Winfrey.

The hostage-taker, Brian Nichols, who faces trial on charges of 
killing the three people in the Atlanta courthouse and a fourth 
during his escape bid, held Smith captive in her apartment for seven 
hours in March.

Nichols eventually released Smith and she called the police to tell 
them where he was.

Praised for her level-headedness and later showered with rewards from 
various law enforcement agencies totalling about US$72,500 
($105,000), Smith earlier told police she had calmed her assailant by 
talking to him about God and reading passages from the popular 
self-help book The Purpose-Driven Life.

It was only several months later that she admitted to investigators 
that Nichols had at one point - after tying her to her bed with 
masking tape and extension cords - asked for cannabis and that she 
had instead given him crystal meth.

Smith, whose husband died from stab wounds during a brawl four years 
ago, said she realised on that day that she was addicted to drugs but 
she has not touched them since.

When Nichols asked her to join him and snort the meth, she declined.

"Looking down at my drug pouch, I realised that I would rather have 
died in my apartment than have done those drugs with Brian Nichols," 
she wrote in the book.

"If the cops were going to bust in here and find me dead, they were 
not going to find drugs in me when they did the autopsy.

"I was not going to die tonight and stand before God, having done a 
bunch of ice up my nose."

It still seems to be the case that they spent many hours talking 
about God and spirituality.

Smith showed him a long scar on her belly, suffered when she crashed 
her car while high on drugs. The fact that the ordeal forced her to 
beat her addiction seems also to have been a religious experience for her.

"It's hard for people to understand the miracle of the story," she 
said. "This was totally a God thing, to me in my life. This was God 
getting my attention, going, 'I'm going to give you one more chance'."

There is no talk of drugs charges being pressed against Smith or of 
her rewards being rescinded.

"The woman did a brave act at a desperate time," commented Richard 
Kolko of the FBI in Atlanta. "The FBI has no reason or inclination to 
go back and retrieve the reward."
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