SENTINEL WATCH April 11, 2005 Issue

FROM HOSTAGE TO HEALER

CHANNING WALKER

THE DETAILS of Ashley Smith's seven-and-a-half-hour hostage ordeal after the Atlanta courthouse murders last month are by now etched into our collective consciousness. The inspiration and awe from her story linger on. But perhaps for many individuals the most haunting element in all this is the gnawing question: If it happened to me, would I do anywhere near as well?

Consider this 26-year-old single mom. She'd made some mistakes growing up, even had a few scrapes with the law. A few years ago she took a huge blow when her husband was knifed and died in her arms. His killer is still at large. But always in the background was the religious training her grandparents gave her. They'd raised her in the church, made sure she regularly attended services. In fact, they gave her the spiritual grounding that sustained her when she was taken hostage by the alleged quadruple-murderer in the courthouse tragedy.

As she arrived home about 2 a.m., Ashley Smith was confronted by her captor. He forced her at gunpoint into her apartment and bound her. Eventually he softened, unbound her, and the two of them talked. She stressed how much her young daughter—who no longer had a dad—needed at least one parent. Somehow she seems to have glimpsed something good and decent in her captor, and appealed to those qualities. She dealt with him compassionately, cooked him a pancake breakfast, even read to him from the Bible. And reasoned with him about his life's purpose. "Your miracle could be," Smith said to him, "that you need to be caught for this. If you go to prison, then you need to share the Word of God with all the prisoners there."