puh-leeze

Jessica Clark

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Another fundy heroine bites the dust…or snorts it: "The only thing that helped Ashley Smith get through an over-seven-hour ordeal where quadruple-murder suspect Brian Nichols held her hostage was her faith in God," announced Fox News. Her faith wasn't the only thing, as it turns out. This week, with the release of her memoir, "Unlikely Angel," Smith admits that she earned Nichols' confidence by offering him a dip into her stash of crystal methamphetamine. Nichols, Smith says in the book, didn't know what "ice" was, or how to take it. "You don't have to smoke it," she recalls telling him. "You can hot rail it or snort it." She cut it up for him herself, using a plastic supermarket card and a $20 bill. Smith didn't tell police investigators, or the media, about the meth until months later.

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Jessica Clark is a writer, editor and researcher, with more than 15 years of experience spanning commercial, educational, independent and public media production. Currently she is the Research Director for American University’s Center for Social Media. She also writes a monthly column for PBS’ MediaShift on new directions in public media. She is the author, with Tracy Van Slyke, of Beyond the Echo Chamber: Reshaping Politics Through Networked Progressive Media (2010, New Press).
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