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there's nothing to celebrate in this case. Lets just say that I rethought some things after listening to his "hostage" speak on the news last night.
it's open and shut. view the tapes. give the jury an hour. put him on death row to waste tax payers money....
there's nothing to celebrate in this case. Lets just say that I rethought some things after listening to his "hostage" speak on the news last night.
What is the matter with you? Doesn't this brother deserve a fair trial?
We can spend millions in Iraq and you are worried about the expense of a trial that that this man has a right to?
Your at ude is a disgrace!
the killer is a disgrace... and he didn't give the people he killed a fair trial. he doesn't deserve ... he deserves bread and water til he dies
Save that kind of talk for another country. You're in America where people have rights!
Exactly! people have the right to not be raped(which he did already) and not to be killed(which he did recently numberous times).
KILL HIM!
what a ed up country we live in where people are more concerned with the rights of the trash then throwing it out....
dude, if I, my friend, my mama, etc gunned down a couple innocent peeps, i'd tap the vein so you can get a good shot at it....
i never said he doesn't deserve a trial. i said it would be good if he went down in a hail of bullets. i stand by that. i also said it should be an open and shut case. and it should be. we shall see.
some may have been swayed by some womans statements, which i didn't see...his hostage that he let go......well perhaps he saw himself on every ing channel....perhaps he knew he had nowhere in to go.....it was death or surrender....he pussed out. so be it.
What I was asking was, do you now think he should be put to death, or is that the statement you reversed?
I never thought he should be put to death. I didn't feel bad for him before, I do now.
Y?
Oh, ok.
I feel worse for the people he killed, the families of those people, and the lives of others he has negatively affected.
exactly.. manny, i think you are feeling bad for the wrong side... you are expressing sympathy for the lady he raped, the 51 year old grandmother he killed, the judge, etc..
wtf is wrong you???
dangerous mother er... but manny loves him... you're warped buddySecurity cameras had been rolling Friday morning as Nichols — a former college linebacker who had been found in court earlier in the week with two homemade knives in his shoes — overpowered deputy Cynthia Hall as the 5-foot-tall officer escorted him to his rape trial. No one was monitoring the cameras.
why let him off easy through death? put him in an insanely strict prison.
death could've been cheaper and easier than a trial if the swat had just killed him..
i don't know cole...if death is the easy way out, why don't more inmates fight for it over life?
He was incarcerated and looked what happened? I say give a hima fair trial and let the jury decide his fate. I'm sure there is plenty of evidence at hand.
IMHO, some are dying to find out.
I agree that this is the issue at play for me. This guy obviously has ZERO reservations to kill. He is an absolute threat to those around him. If he kills another prison guard...what then?
The only frustrating thing is that the stay on death row is like 8 to 15 years. The point is almost moot. His proclivity to kill will be strongest in the first few years.
Our justice system is just jacked. What can I say. Totally corrupted and inefficient.
But it is still the best judicial system in the world!
and not a bad way to make living either.
It's a career that brings me satisfaction in many ways, not the least of which is monetary.
I don't know that he will spend that much time on death row. I think the 8-10 years is an average and not like a mandatory period. I don't think there will be a great deal of room for appeals in his case, nor will there be conflicting evidence.
You know what, this is my last post on the subject because I'm so sick of some people in here.
Those of you who claim to be christians, could learn a lot about what a real christian is like by listening to what Ashley Smith has to say.
You are the one's who have a thirst for blood and can't wait to have your vengence carried out like a pack of rabid dogs, yet I am the one who is warped? Well coming from you Clandestino, I'll take that as a compliment. Does not Christ teach you to love everyone? So would it be so wrong if I did love Brian Nichols?
I never said I felt good about any of the acts that he commited, and I simply expressed regret over this entire situation. But as much as you would love to think that the person who commited those crimes is entirely different from every one of you; that he is some sort of monster, he is not. He is a man, the same as most of the people here.
We all live in and support the world's most violent culture. We're off on white noble steeds saving the world from violence, when we can't even control what happens on our own soil.
Say what you will about me, but don't make me out to be warped because I dont want any part of any more blood being spilled, and because I choose to give my compasion more freely. Maybe if our society was more compasionate as a whole, we'd have less cases of this happening.
COURT KILLER'S 'ANGEL' SPEAKS
By NILES LATHEM
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March 15, 2005 -- THE random encounter that brought about an astonishingly peaceful ending to Atlanta's ferocious weekend killing rampage began in the dead of night in the parking lot of a suburban apartment complex.
It was 2 a.m. Saturday. Ashley Smith, a 26-year-old widow and mother of a 5-year-old girl, was taking a break from unpacking, just two days after moving into a new apartment in the Bridgewater Apartment complex in Duluth, Ga.
She went out to a convenience mart to buy a pack of Marlboro Lights.
When she got back, she saw a man in a blue truck parked in one of the reserved spaces — the same man she'd seen when she left earlier. He was still sitting there, and she immediately felt frightened.
She got out of her car and hurried to the front door, according to media interviews and a lengthy statement she gave in her lawyer's office.
As she was unlocking her door, the man shoved a gun into her ribs and pushed her inside.
"Stop screaming," the man said to her. "I won't hurt you if you stop screaming."
Then he asked her, "Do you know who I am?"
When she appeared confused, he removed a University of Georgia baseball cap and asked again, "Now do you know who I am?"
Smith shuddered as recognition washed over her.
He was Brian G. Nichols, the 33-year-old, hulking ex-collegiate linebacker who on Friday, in a shocking spasm of violence, escaped from his rape trial and allegedly shot Judge Rowland Barnes, a court reporter and a sheriff's deputy to death.
Then, according to police, he pistol-whipped and carjacked his way to freedom — and later killed a customs agent while a massive manhunt was under way.
WHAT happened to Smith — after Nichols bound her hands and legs and shoved her into a bathtub — is certain to be the subject of a searing Hollywood drama one day.
For seven intense hours, Smith and the fugitive talked. They talked about God and faith, her 5-year-old child, Paige — and they talked about miracles.
The simple emotions and words of this brave waitress, who was studying to become a medical assistant, were poignant and powerful. Her gentle humanity, it appears, pierced through Nichols' red fog of rage.
And amazingly, the encounter ended at around 9:50 a.m. — not with another senseless act of violence, but with Smith cooking Nichols pancakes and eggs, and the spent fugitive finally allowing her to pick up her daughter and offering to hang her curtains.
"Will you tell Paige o for me?" were Nichols' last words to Smith.
Atlanta cops, who arrested Nichols without a struggle after Smith called 911, were awed with how she defused the volatile situation.
"She acted very cool and levelheaded. We don't normally see that in our profession," said Police Officer Darren Moloney.
"It was absolutely the best-case scenario that happened . . . We were prepared for the worst and got the best."
ASHLEY SMITH would seem an unlikely heroine. A for mer high-school basketball player, Smith's life had gone adrift after the inexplicable and unsolved 2001 stabbing of her husband, Mark, who died in her arms.
Daughter Paige lived with an aunt while Smith went aimlessly from job to job, relatives said.
Recently, she was putting her life back together, moving into the new apartment, working as a waitress at a local sports bar and studying for her new career.
Now, as Nichols paced and threatened to kill her if police showed up, an incredible determination to survive rose up in her, overwhelming her terror.
She said initially Nichols was nervous and hostile — telling her, "I really don't feel comfortable around here," and spoke of the need to relax, sit down, watch TV and "eat some real food."
He took a shower and changed into a T-shirt from a bar where she once worked. Nichols also began to calm down and talk to his frightened hostage, who had been given permission to "hop" into the bedroom.
There she began talking about her daughter and her family tragedy.
"My husband died four years ago. And I told him that if he hurt me, my little girl wouldn't have a mommy or a daddy. And she was expecting to see me the next morning. That if he didn't let me go, she would be really upset," she recalled.
They moved to the living room.
Nichols untied her.
Smith then asked Nichols if she could read. When he agreed, she pulled out "The Purpose Driven Life," a book of Bible-driven inspiration and read him the first paragraph of the 33rd chapter, which talks about "serving God by serving others."
Nichols asked her to read it again.
They continued to talk. He looked at her family photographs. She showed him her husband's autopsy report and told him that's what the families of the people he killed will be looking at, the Atlanta Journal Cons ution reported.
Nichols wondered what his family was thinking watching the news, which was dominated by his killing spree. He also told her, as if to trying to offer an explanation, that he was a "soldier," and that "his people needed him for a job to do, and he was doing it."
She recalled, "I basically just talked to him and tried to gain his trust — most of my time was spent talking to this man about my life and experiences in my life, things that had happened to me.
"He needed hope for his life. He told me that he was already dead. He said, 'Look at me, look at my eyes. I am already dead,' " Smith said.
AS THE hours passed, they watched TV news coverage of the killings. Trust between the killer and his hostage was building to the point that at one point he called her an "angel sent from God."
"He looked at the TV, and he just said, 'I cannot believe that's me out there,' " she said.
Smith told him that his life could still have purpose, that it was a "miracle" that he was still alive.
At about 6:30 a.m., Nichols said he needed to move the truck. Smith agreed to follow him in her car, fearing that if she refused, he would kill her right then and there.
After he ditched the truck, she drove him back to her apartment, by now believing that she had his complete trust and that he would soon let her go.
She made him breakfast — pancakes and eggs.
"He was overwhelmed. 'Wow,' he said, 'real butter pancakes.' "
Smith pressed him to give up, talking about miracles and redemption.
Smith announced she needed to pick up her daughter at a local church, and Nichols asked what time she needed to leave.
She told him 9:30, washed the dishes and got ready to leave.
As she was walking out of the house, Nichols asked if he could stay a few more days, offering to give her $40. He also offered to do chores such as hang her curtains.
She replied that he could do whatever he wanted and then, incredibly, walked out into the sunny morning, free from her horrific ordeal.
Smith called the police. Nichols surrendered by holding a white T-shirt out of the window.
Nichols was taken to the high-security maximum-security prison in Atlanta. Yesterday, state prosecutors filed three murder warrants against him and the feds are expected to follow with a fourth murder charge for the murder of the customs agent.
Meanwhile, Smith met with lawyers to discuss TV interviews and book deals.
She said she believes "God brought him to my door, so he couldn't hurt anyone else."
Luke 15:11-32
(11) And he said, A certain man had two sons:
(12) And the younger of them said to his father, Father, give me the portion of goods that falleth to me. And he divided unto them his living.
(13) And not many days after the younger son gathered all together, and took his journey into a far country, and there wasted his substance with riotous living.
(14) And when he had spent all, there arose a mighty famine in that land; and he began to be in want.
(15) And he went and joined himself to a citizen of that country; and he sent him into his fields to feed swine.
(16) And he would fain have filled his belly with the husks that the swine did eat: and no man gave unto him.
(17) And when he came to himself, he said, How many hired servants of my father's have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger!
(18) I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee,
(19) And am no more worthy to be called thy son: make me as one of thy hired servants.
(20) And he arose, and came to his father. But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him.
(21) And the son said unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son.
(22) But the father said to his servants, Bring forth the best robe, and put it on him; and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet:
(23) And bring hither the fatted calf, and kill it; and let us eat, and be merry:
(24) For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found. And they began to be merry.
(25) Now his elder son was in the field: and as he came and drew nigh to the house, he heard musick and dancing.
(26) And he called one of the servants, and asked what these things meant.
(27) And he said unto him, Thy brother is come; and thy father hath killed the fatted calf, because he hath received him safe and sound.
(28) And he was angry, and would not go in: therefore came his father out, and intreated him.
(29) And he answering said to his father, Lo, these many years do I serve thee, neither transgressed I at any time thy commandment: and yet thou never gavest me a kid, that I might make merry with my friends:
(30) But as soon as this thy son was come, which hath devoured thy living with harlots, thou hast killed for him the fatted calf.
(31) And he said unto him, Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine.
(32) It was meet that we should make merry, and be glad: for this thy brother was dead, and is alive again; and was lost, and is found.
Not sure if you were referencing me as bloodthirsty or not, but if looking out for and trying to protect Nichols next possible victim makes me bloodthirsty, then I guess I'm bloodthirsty. I think Nichols is a day late and a dollar short for a little Mr. Nice Guy all of a sudden. How can we be sure this can be sustained?
I agree with what you say Manny about Nichols really being no different than anyone else. But we simply have to hold people to account. Especially those who have shown no reservation to kill. Society has an obligation to protect those who will have to tend to this man.
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