Ashley Smith

 Ashley Smith is a hero. The WAPO has this.

•  A new American hero was anointed yesterday, on talk radio and television, in police stations and coffee shops.

  Ashley Smith, an anonymous suburbanite last week, burst into the nation's consciousness, lavishly praised as the woman responsible for ending the massive manhunt for the Atlanta courthouse murder suspect. The police chief in Duluth, Ga., where Smith was held captive, crowned her "a champ," and network correspondents and commentators dubbed her "a hero." Her captor, she says, went even further: "An angel sent from God" is what Smith remembers being called by Brian Nichols, the shooting suspect she calmed.

Ashley talked to Brian Nichols about God. Her faith saved her and who knows how many others. God works in mysterious ways.