Wow not sure if this is true but if it is wow


Lelia Struve email [log in to unmask] msn [log in to unmask]
----- Original Message -----
From: <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Monday, March 14, 2005 8:31 PM
Subject: Re: [CWFAD] OUT OF DEATH CAN COME LIFE..........


> Wow, this is quite a story. Thanks for sharing it with us. Love, Michelle
>
> --
> "Be Alive In 2005"
>
>
> -------------- Original message --------------
>
> 'I believe God brought him to my door'
> Taken hostage in her home, Duluth woman shared her life, faith
>
> By BILL RANKIN, DON PLUMMER
> Atlanta Journal-Constitution
> Published on: 03/14/05
> Just two days after moving into her Duluth apartment, Ashley Smith is up
> late unpacking.
> About 2 a.m. Saturday, the 26-year-old runs out of cigarettes and heads to
> a convenience store to buy a pack of Marlboro Light Menthols.
>
> CURTIS COMPTON/AJC STAFF
> (ENLARGE)
> During her hours with Brian Nichols, Ashley Smith talked about her
> 5-year-old daughter and her late husband. She told Nichols if he killed
> her, he would leave her daughter an orphan.
>
> EMAIL THIS
> PRINT THIS
> MOST POPULAR
>
>
>
> . Full coverage of the shooting at the courthouse and the capture of Brian
> Nichols
>
>
> When she returns, she sees a man in a truck waiting outside her door. She
> had seen the man earlier, but didn't think much of it. Seeing him again
> puts her on high alert.
> She gets out of her car and shuts the door.
> She hears the truck door close about the same time. Fear rises in her.
> Holding her key in her hand, she makes her way to her front door and
> senses his presence. As she slides her key into the lock, she turns to
> face 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 now: Brian G. Nichols. She begins to tremble.
> "I won't hurt you," he tells her.
> He takes her into the bathroom, places her in the tub and sits on a small
> chair, holding a gun.
> He leaves her to check for other people in the apartment. When he returns,
> he tries again to reassure her. "I don't want to hurt anyone else," he
> says.
> He worries that her screams could bring too much attention. "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 guns on the counter and showers.
> After he finds some fresh clothes - a T-shirt from a bar where she once
> worked and the trousers of a former boyfriend. 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 to
> anyone of how he had spent this long day.
> "I feel like I'm a warrior. The 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 atmosphere 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, "The Purpose Driven
> Life." It is a book that offers daily guidance. She picks up where she had
> left off - the first paragraph of the 33rd chapter.
> "We serve God by serving others. The world defines greatness in terms of
> power, possessions, 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."
> He stops her and asks her to read that again.
> 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 tells him 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 implores him not to kill her because that would leave her daughter
> without a mother or a father.
> She tells him she is supposed to visit her daughter Saturday morning 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 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 - what about 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, who is in Africa on business, 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 he 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 whom he is accused of killing 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."
> Smith tells Nichols he must surrender.
> "I deserve a bullet in the back," he tells her.
> No, Smith says, but he must be held accountable for what he did.
> Smith tells Nichols his life still has a purpose. By ministering to other
> inmates, "you can go to jail and save many more people than you killed."
> As the night wears on, Smith begins to feel her chances improve.
> Nichols tells her he will let her go to see her daughter later in the
> morning.
> Around 6:15 a.m., Nichols says that before sunrise he needs to move the
> truck he is accused of stealing from Wilhelm.
> She 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 needs to see her daughter. At 10:00 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 sent from God
> to me," he tells her. "I want to talk to you again. Will you come see me?"
> She tells him she will.
> "I'll be back in a little while," she says.
> Nichols gives her an odd look that makes Smith wonder whether he believes
> her.
> At the door, he hands her $40. "Take it," Nichols says. "I don't have any
> need for it."
> Nichols holds an electronic stud finder he took from Wilhelm's truck and
> asks if he can hang some of her pictures or curtains while she's gone.
> Smith tells him to do whatever he likes.
> As she walks into the bright, warm daylight, Smith begins to tremble. 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. Smith
> was watching from behind a van parked across the parking lot.
> Sunday night, after recounting her time with Nichols, Smith said she
> believes there was some purpose to his finding her.
> "I believe God brought him to my door so he couldn't hurt anyone else,"
> she said.
> I AM SURE THAT EVERYONE HATES THIS MAN FOR WHAT HE DID. BUT ONCE THERE WAS
> A MAN WHO HAD BELIEVERS KILLED. HIS NAME WAS SAUL WHO LATER BECAME PAUL.
> WE STILL NEED TO PRAY FOR THOSE WHO HAVE DONE US WRONG, OUR ENEMIES WE ARE
> TOLD TO PRAY FOR. PLEASE KEEP THIS IN MIND TONIGHT AS YOU HAVE READ THIS
> STORY. FROM:
> http://www.ajc.com/news/content/news/noads/0305/14hostage.html
>
>
>
> "IT'S A JUNGLE OUT THERE" WEAR YOUR ARMOR
> SISTER FIRE
> PRAYER REQUEST: http://www.ourchurch.com/view/?pageID=38489
>
>
> To subscribe send email to:  [log in to unmask]
>
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Sponsor
> ADVERTISEMENT
> Children International
> Would you give Hope to a Child in need?
>
> ·Click Here to meet a Girl
> And Give Her Hope
>
> ·Click Here to meet a Boy
> And Change His Life
>
> Learn More
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
> To visit your group on the web, go to:
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CWFAD/
>
> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
> [log in to unmask]
>
> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.