Hostage Speaks About Ordeal
Sept. 29, 2005 — -- Until this week, Ashley Smith didn't reveal that she gave Brian Nichols, the alleged Atlanta courthouse killer, drugs when he held her hostage because she was afraid of her family's reaction. The recovering meth addict had lost custody of her 5-year-old daughter and was struggling to stay clean.
During the seven hours he was with her in her apartment, Nichols asked Smith for marijuana. Smith offered him what she had -- a small amount of crystal meth.
"I guess you do things in situations where your life is threatened and you don't know why," she said.
"When I offered it to him, I did try to get him not to do it after that," she added. "Now I'm trying to speak out against [drugs]."
She said she refused to take the drug 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 her book, "Unlikely Angel: The Untold Story of the Atlanta Hostage Hero."
Smith also said refusing the drug at that moment was a turning point in her life.
"When faced with the question, do it or don't do it? It was so clear I was never going to do it again," she said.
In the early morning hours of March 12, Smith made a quick cigarette run. When she returned, she found herself face to face with Nichols, who had allegedly shot four people in a spree that started at a courthouse in downtown Atlanta.
"I put my key in the door and I unlocked it, and I turned around and he was right there," Smith said. "And he said, 'Do you know who I am?' "
After Nichols took his hat off, Smith recognized him. She asked him not to hurt her. "I said, 'Yeah. I know who you are. Please, don't hurt me. Just please, don't hurt me. I have a 5-year-old little girl,' " she recounted.
"He said, 'I don't want to hurt you. I don't want to hurt anybody else. So, please, don't do anything that's going to make me hurt you.' "
When Smith spoke to the police after Nichols surrendered, she didn't mention the drugs. "I wasn't afraid of the police, I was afraid of what my family was going to think," she said.
When asked if she believes Nichols is capable of redemption, Smith said she thought so.
"I think everybody is a redeemable soul," she said.
But she said she has no plans to visit him in jail, despite his request.
"Brian Nichols was not my friend when I encountered him on March 12," she said. "I have friends in jail who I don't go visit."
Smith said her main concern now is raising her daughter.
Watch "20/20" Friday night for more of Deborah Roberts' interview with Ashley Smith.
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