by Ashley Smith
To my dear friend and pastor, Chuck Gordon, thank you for The Church at Greenbrier—I feel so at home there. Thank you for your concern and for all your prayers and support.
To Dr. Frank Page, thank you for all your support and prayers, and for letting people know during the beginning of all this that I am a child of God and have been for a long time. I just got lost, and Jesus is the one who found me.
To my Aunt Kim’s prayer group—thank you. You guys have always known that prayers get answered, and now so do I.
I also want to thank my small group for all of the fellowship and for your constant prayers for me over the last six months. And to everyone who has begun to pray for my mom and her battle with cancer, thank you so much. We need you. Please keep praying!
To Bridges of Hope, thank you for showing me the way of hope and for teaching me that I am an addict. Thank you for giving me the knowledge to recover and stay recovered. To all the recovering drug addicts out there, just knowing you’re out there trying to stay clean one day at a time keeps me encouraged! To the drug addicts not yet recovered, thank you for showing me where I came from—but please know there is a better way, and it is Jesus.
To the Columbia County Sheriff’s Department, thank you for your work on Mack’s case and for doing your job and never giving up. And to the Honorable Judge Duncan Wheale, thank you for your guidance and concern for Paige and me.
Last, but so importantly, Stacy Mattingly, thank you first for being so Christlike. Thank you for your prayers and concerns. Thank you for being able to “become me” and do this book the way Jesus wanted us to. We did it and I know he is smiling! You are a great friend to me. I know who to call when I need a prayer, and that is one of the best feelings in the world.
photo section
I never saw this highway sign. I was too busy working and moving on March 11 to pay much attention to the news—to my step-dad’s great dismay.
(Davis Turner/Getty Images)
Top: I did see Brian Nichols’s mug shot on TV. But when he held me at gunpoint and told me who he was, I couldn’t remember it.
(Splash News/NewsCom)
Bottom: My first interview after being held hostage. By the emotion on my face, I probably just finished talking about my young daughter Paige.
(Curtis Compton/NewsCom)
Top: My first-grade picture, 1983. Augusta Christian Schools. Mom, Aunt Kim, and Uncle David all worked there; my grandpa was the former headmaster.
Bottom: Here’s my basketball picture, junior year at Lakeside High School—before I started using drugs. Pot smoking started the next summer. It was all downhill from there.
Top: Me at about seven. My mother loves this picture—I smiled on cue! It was just Mom and me in those days.
Bottom: Eighth grade at Augusta Christian—my last year before heading to public school. I was the only grandchild who wasn’t a natural blond.
Top: New parents. My husband Mack and me a few days after Paige was born. Man, were we young—21 and 20! May 1999.
Middle: Mack looking mad and me trying to humor him. Not unusual. Summer 1998. We had just started dating. I got pregnant a few months later.
Bottom: Christmas 2000. Aunt Kim had taken me Christmas shopping in Atlanta. Mack loved Abercrombie & Fitch—he was all about brand names.
Top: Mack and me on a Friday night. We were getting ready to go out. Probably in a limo with our friends. Not good.
Middle: Strung out on ice, 2003. My friend snapped the picture, saying, “You’re gonna thank me for this.” She wanted me to see how bad I looked: skinny, delirious, unable to produce a real smile. Sad.
Bottom: Mack and me with our best friends, Mike and Katie—Mack’s nephew and his wife. New Year’s Eve 2000. This was taken just before we went to the club where Mack knocked me out cold and left me lying on the sidewalk.
Our wedding invitation. We loved it.
Top: Mr. and Mrs. Mack Smith. I was 4½ to 5 months pregnant and happy to be his wife. Just for pictures I let him wear those sneakers—he always had the latest.
Bottom: Our wedding reception. He slammed the cake in my face. I knew it was coming—we were having fun here!
Top: The first time I saw Paige was in this Polaroid, taken right after she was born prematurely and put into the special-care nursery. She was fighting for her life. I cried and cried.
Bottom: Paige coming around. We had to wash our hands for two minutes and put on robes and masks before holding her. She was the size of my hand.
Top: Miracle baby. Angel child. Me at age 20 holding Paige a few weeks after she was born. I practically lived at that hospital and drove those nurses crazy.
Middle: Daddy snuck home from work to catch a quick cat-nap and hold the new love of his life.
Bottom: Our first Easter as a family, 2000. We vowed to take a family picture every Easter—but we only had one more together.
Top: My favorite picture of Mack. Tan, content, sitting outside, where he liked to be most. April 2000.
Bottom: Mack’s death announcement. I was in a total Xanax haze writing this and making the funeral arrangements.
Mack holding his “best buddy”—his spitting image with that pug nose! I showed this to Brian Nichols after telling him what happened to Mack. I wanted him to feel my loss.
Top: Mack’s death certificate. It was horrible getting this—to have to see the cause of death, time of death. “Homicide.” My worst nightmare. Horrible.
Bottom: Mack’s grave, Christmas 2002. Paige and I decorate on holidays. I used to take her there when I was high on pills, just to sit. So unfair to her.
FBI agents after the surrender, March 12. I was terrified there would be a shoot-out and a lot of blood. I prayed like crazy. Let him surrender!
(Davis Turner/Getty Images)
My apartment complex on the morning of March 12—the place was crawling with cops, FBI agents, SWAT teams, you name it.
(Davis Turner/Getty Images)
Top: I couldn’t believe it when I saw Brian Nichols coming down the hill without a fight. No gun in his hand. Head up. He had turned himself in. I just thanked God.
(Davis Turner/Getty Images)
Bottom: Brian Nichols in custody I hope he knows that God is pleased he made the choice to surrender.
(Tami Chappell/NewsCom)
Top: Paige and me at my cousin Sarah’s wedding last December. This was how I introduced Brian Nichols to my little girl. I would cry over this picture as I tried to gain his trust.
Middle: Four generations. “Mema,” Mom, Paige, and me at our family reunion, June 2005. God blessed me with such a great, supportive family.
Bottom: Aunt Kim and me, May 2005. Paige’s end-of-the-year school program—the first one I attended at her new school. It was so special to me.
Top: Reconnecting with my little girl. Paige and me one recent Sunday after church. This is how we live every day now—side by side.
Middle: Me with my brother Christian at our family reunion, June 2005. The first picture I’ve taken with him in six years. Just a sign of my isolation. Sad.
Bottom: My sister Leah and me at her birthday party, June 2005. She wanted lots of photos taken. A happy time.
March 24, 2005. With Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue at the Georgia capitol. I was humbled to be honored by him and the other officials. My life truly is a testimony that miracles do happen.
(Parker Smith/Getty Images)
(Copyright © 2005 by United Press International. Used by permission.)
Praise for
Captive
(previously titled Unlikely Angel)
“This is a woman who understands grace.”
—Rick Warren, author of The Purpose Driven Life
“Required reading. . . . Could serve as a companion volume to The Purpose Driven Life.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Smith’s revelations offer a new wrinkle to a story that . . . captivated the country.”
—Newsweek
“The real miracle of the Ashley Smith story is not that a former addict, redeemed by faith, could respond to a brutal killer but that a current addict, scared out of her gourd, could have been given the grace to treat that murderer as a person as complicated as herself—and have helped him reach that part of himself that was better than his actions.”
—Wisconsin State Journal
“A newly minted author and celebrity.”
—Atlanta Journal-Constitution
“A remarkable tale of redemption.”
—Augusta Chronicle
“Smith leads the reader through the long, dangerous night, minute-by-minute.”
—The Sunday Oklahoman
credits
Photography credits
All photographs courtesy of the author unless otherwise indicated.
copyright
A hardcover edition of this book was jointly published under the title Unlikely Angel in 2005 by Zondervan and William Morrow, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.
Acknowledgment is made for permission to reprint portions of The Purpose Driven® Life by Rick Warren. Copyright © 2002 by Rick Warren. Used by permission of Zondervan.
Some of the names in this book have been changed.
CAPTIVE. Copyright © 2005 by Paigeturner, Inc. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
FIRST WILLIAM MORROW PAPERBACK EDITION PUBLISHED 2015.
The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition as follows:
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Smith, Ashley, 1978–
Unlikely angel : the untold story of the Atlanta hostage hero / Ashley Smith with Stacy Mattingly.
p. cm.
ISBN-10: 0-310-27067-7
ISBN-13: 978-0-310-27067-6
1. Smith, Ashley, 1978— 2. Hostages—Georgia—Atlanta. 3. Violence—Religious aspects—Christianity. 4. Nichols, Brian. 5. Warren, Richard, 1954—Purpose driven life. I. Stacy Mattingly.
II. Title
BR1725.S49A3 2005
277.58′231083′092—dc22 2005020936
ISBN 978-0-06-243920-8 (pbk.)
EPub Edition AUGUST 2015 ISBN 9780062439871
15 16 17 18 19 OV/RRD 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
about the publisher
Australia
HarperCollins Publishers (Australia) Pty. Ltd.
Level 13, 201 Elizabeth Street
Sydney, NSW 2000, Australia
www.harpercollins.com.au
Canada
HarperCollins Canada
2 Bloor Street East - 20th Floor
Toronto, ON M4W 1A8, Canada
www.harpercollins.ca
New Zealand
HarperCollins Publishers New Zealand
Unit D1, 63 Apollo Drive
Rosedale 0632
Auckland, New Zealand
www.harpercollins.co.nz
United Kingdom
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF, UK
www.harpercollins.co.uk
United States
HarperCollins Publishers Inc.
195 Broadway
New York, NY 10007
www.harpercollins.com