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Tuesday, March 15, 2005 Volume VII Number 10
by Ken Kemp
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rian Nichols jumped at the opportunity. His instincts kicked into high alert. A deputy walked him down the courtroom hallway on the way to face the judge. Nichols had been charged with a crime. A serious crime. Rape. He believed he had been falsely accused. Then something snapped. |
The deputy escort, Cynthia Hall, was armed with a loaded pistol. A surveillance camera captured the scene. Nichols overpowered her, ramming her head to the concrete floor, knocking her unconscious. He grabbed her gun. From there, he sauntered casually down the hall and outside across a bridge to the courtroom. While his escape was filmed, it went unnoticed (a deadly oversight) and was not reviewed until later. Nichols walked into Superior Court Judge Rowland Barnes’ chambers, opened a door to the courtroom, and shot him in cold blood as he sat unaware on the bench. Court reporter Julie Ann Brandau ran to his aid and for her response took a single bullet to the head. Nichols fired on her dispassionately. Both the judge and the court reporter died on the scene.
Fulton Sheriff's Deputy Hoyt Teasley gave chase. Nichols turned and shot him, too. Another dead. In the parking garage, he pistol whipped a reporter and took his car. In town, he found a man working in his front yard. When David Wilhelm identified himself as a federal agent, Nichols shot him down, too. Shot him dead. Then he commandeered his automobile. He made another escape.
The city of Atlanta went on high alert. It was an intense manhunt.
Young Ashley Smith moved into a new apartment that day. Three years before, her husband was brutally attacked, stabbed repeatedly by a still unknown assailant. The man she married, the father of her child, died in her arms. He left behind a little girl. Paige. After a long and deep period of mourning, Ashley went back to work as a waitress and enrolled in school. She was determined to make something of her life. Her grandmother helped with Paige. She found friends at church to support her. She didn’t finish unpacking until after midnight. Her daughter was with Grandma. She went to the local convenience store for a pack of cigarettes.
In the shadows, an assailant approached her in the parking lot of her new residence as she returned. He drove a pistol into her ribs; a painful, terrifying surprise assault. She froze in fear.
He muscled her into the house shoved her into the bathroom and began to tie her arms and legs with tape, an extension cord and the shower curtain. When he took off his hat, she recognized him. He was the perpetrator of the rampage covered on the evening news. It was Nichols. A man charged with rape. She believed she would be killed. She began to sob. She closed her eyes and pictured her little girl, Paige.
She began to pray.
She asked God for strength. This was the God who gave her life meaning; energized her as a Mom; brought healing in the wake of a terrible, unthinkable loss; the God who sent Jesus to save her. She began to pray for her assailant. The binding in the close quarters of the bathroom apartment hurt.
Then she spoke to him. There was a strength, a conviction, a passion, a powerful, compelling passion. The man who in an instant of rage eliminated any possibility of vindication in the courtroom now stood undetected in the confines of a young woman’s apartment with nothing more to lose, a man headed for death row and certain condemnation heard a woman’s plea. It was more than a plea for her own life. It was a plea for a five year old – Paige – already fatherless. Now perhaps motherless. And then she spoke of hope - hope that can only come from a transforming encounter with Jesus.
She wept.
He wept, too. A man lost and broken and condemned – he wept, too.
And then he cut her loose.
The sun brought daylight through the curtains in the early morning hours. She read to him. First from the Bible. She found passages that spoke of re-birth, of forgiveness, of healing and of hope. Then she grabbed a copy of The Purpose Driven Life from the shelf, and flipped the pages to a familiar chapter. It was the chapter that helped her to see that she needed to get past her grief and her despair and get back to work and back to school. She had a life. It had meaning. God had a plan. It was for her good. She turned to the chapter and explained its meaning and then she asked Brian Nichols, “What do you think God’s purpose is for me?”
He knew the answer. “To be Paige’s mommy.”
She cooked him breakfast. Pancakes with real butter.
“You’ve got to do the right thing,” she told him. “Turn yourself in. No more killings. God has a purpose for you, too. Maybe it’s to bring God’s message of hope to others in the prison.”
Later that morning, he opened the door and let her walk away. “Go back to Paige,” he told her. “Take good care of her,” he added.
Ashley Smith smiled and walked out. Paige’s mom.
With her life.
* * * * * *
It’s Tuesday morning. You are a leader.
You’ve been moved by Ashley’s story, too. The nation is calling her a hero. They are talking about her faith. Her poise. Her passion. Something in her heart has touched a nation. It’s a credible witness to the love and power of faith in Jesus.
What is it about this kind of faith that is so disarming? So compelling?
Maybe it’s because it’s for real.
It’s an Easter story for 2005.
Posted in Placentia, California
© Copyright Kenneth E. Kemp 2005
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