Northshore Christian Church - Everett, Washington

Ashley Smith Article

By now, you probably think you’re familiar with Ashley Smith’s story. Maybe too familiar. Earlier this year, the details of her terrifying hours with accused courthouse killer Brian Nichols vied only with the Runaway Bride debacle for the public’s—and the media’s—attention. On March 11, 2005, Nichols allegedly gunned down three people in an Atlanta courthouse, escaped, and made his way to Smith’s apartment. Over the course of one night, Smith, a 27-year-old widow, managed to talk Nichols into peacefully turning himself in. And a media star was born.

In her new book, Unlikely Angel, written with Stacy Mattingly and in stores today, Smith reveals some surprising details of the seven hours she spent in her home with a desperate man, including her admission that she shared crystal methamphetamine (or “ice”) with her captor. Smith also relates the painful story of the five years before she was taken hostage—her years-long battle with drug addiction, the premature birth of her daughter, Paige, and the murder of her husband, Mack. And while so much has been made of the fact that Smith read aloud from Rick Warren’s The Purpose-Driven Life to Nichols, Angel reveals that, in fact, she read little more than a paragraph, and it was the telling of her own story and the sharing of her faith that turned Nichols around and allowed Smith to pass the night unharmed. In a phone interview, a soft-spoken Smith revealed to The Book Standard how she came to write the book, and what she hopes people will learn from it.

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