Purpose-driven hostage

Crime | Atlanta mom stops courtroom killer with a word of grace | Jamie Dean

When Ashley Smith began reading The Purpose Driven Life, she couldn’t have imagined that just weeks later she would be reading chapter 33 to a quadruple murder suspect who had forced his way into her apartment at gunpoint. She also couldn’t have imagined that her calm faith would lead to the calm surrender of a vicious killer.

Authorities arrested Brian Nichols at Mrs. Smith’s Duluth, Ga., home on March 12, some 24 hours after the convicted rapist grabbed a gun from an Atlanta courtroom deputy and began a killing spree that left four dead.

The FBI launched a massive manhunt for Mr. Nichols, and nearly 17 hours later the escaped convict wound up 30 miles north in the parking lot of the Bridgewater Apartment complex in a truck he had stolen from David Whilhelm, the 40-year-old federal customs agent he had shot dead hours earlier.