ATLANTA -- The woman held hostage in her apartment by the suspect in Atlanta's courthouse slayings said the two spent hours talking about the killings, their families and God and that Brian Nichols "just wanted some normalness to his life."

Speaking publicly Sunday, Ashley Smith said the ordeal began around 2 a.m. Saturday morning with Nichols sticking a gun in her side and tying her up. But Nichols, who is accused of killing three people at the courthouse Friday and a federal agent later, eventually let Smith go to see her young daughter, she said.

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Smith called 911 after she was freed, and police soon surrounded her suburban apartment complex. Nichols gave up peacefully, waving a white towel in surrender.

"I honestly think when I looked at him that he didn't want to do it anymore," Smith said. If he did not give up, she told him, "Lots more people are probably going get hurt and you're probably going to die."

The crime spree began when Nichols allegedly overpowered a courthouse deputy escorting him to his rape trial Friday and took the deputy's gun, then entered the courtroom where his trial was being held and killed the presiding judge and court reporter. He also is accused of killing a deputy who tried to stop him outside the courthouse and a federal agent during his flight from authorities.

Smith said Nichols, 33, took her hostage in the parking lot of her apartment when she returned from a store.

"He said, `I'm not going to hurt you if you just do what I say,"' she said. "I don't want to hurt you. I don't want to hurt anybody else."

She said Nichols tied her up with masking tape, a curtain and extension cord and told her to sit in the bathroom while he took a shower.

But as the night wore on, she tried to win his trust, she said. Choking back tears, she said she told Nichols that her husband died four years ago and if he hurt her, her little girl wouldn't have a mother or father.

Smith's attorney, Josh Archer, said her husband died in her arms after being stabbed.

He eventually untied her, and some of the fear lessened as they talked. Nichols told Smith he felt like "he was already dead," but Smith urged him to consider the fact that he was still alive a "miracle."

"You're here in my apartment for some reason," she told him, saying he might be destined to be caught and to spread the word of God to fellow prisoners.

He eventually put down the guns police say he took when he overwhelmed sheriff's deputies, putting them on the floor and later under a bed. When morning came, Nichols was "overwhelmed" when Smith made him pancakes, she said. They watched television news reports about the slaying and the manhunt for Nichols.

"I cannot believe that's me on there," Smith quoted Nichols as saying.

Smith said Nichols eventually let her leave her Duluth apartment to go check on her daughter, and that was when she called 911.

"I told him that I didn't want him to hurt anybody else, he didn't want to hurt anybody else," Smith said. "He told me he just wanted a place to stay, to relax, to sit down and watch TV, to eat some real food."

Smith said she had gone to a QuikTrip gasoline station and was accosted by the man when she returned home to her apartment. During the ordeal, she said she went from fearing him to feeling sorry for him.

"I really didn't keep track of time too much because I was really worried about just living. I didn't want to die. I didn't want him to hurt anybody else. And I didn't want him to hurt himself, or anyone else to hurt him. When I looked at him, he looked like he didn't want to do it any more."

Smith said Nichols did not bring any weapons when he had her help him move a truck he had stolen away from the apartment complex.

When Nichols finally let Smith go, he said he wanted to stay at the apartment for a few more days, but she said she thought he knew she was going to call 911 after she left.

Smith said Nichols tied her up but eventually untied her. She said he asked if he could stay in her apartment for a few days and even offered to hang some curtains. When he showered, he made her stay in the bathroom with him but covered her head with a towel, she said.

Smith is eligible for a $60,000 reward, but said she was more concerned about preventing Nichols from hurting anyone else.

"My husband died four years ago, and I told him if he hurt me my little girl wouldn't have a mommy or a daddy," Smith said. "I asked him why he chose me, and he said he didn't know. But after we began to talk, he said that I was an angel and that he was lost and God led him right to me."

She said she urged him to give up.

"He was scared to death," Smith said. "He didn't want to die. He was scared having to face what he had done already."

Police said they were impressed by the way Smith handled herself.

"She acted very cool and levelheaded. We don't normally see that in our profession," said Gwinnett County Police Officer Darren Moloney. "It was an absolutely best case scenario that happened, a complete opposite of what you expected to happen. We were prepared for the worst and got the best."

Nichols could appear in federal court as early as Monday to face a charge of possession of a firearm by a person under indictment, the charge authorities are using to keep Nichols in custody while they sort out charging in the slayings, said U.S. Attorney David Nahmias.

The Fulton County District Attorney's Office hopes to formally charge Nichols with the new crimes within 30 days, spokesman Erik Friedly said Sunday.

Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard still would like to resolve Nichols' interrupted rape retrial, Friedly said. In that case, Nichols was accused of bursting into his ex-girlfriend's home with a machine gun, binding her with duct tape and sexually assaulting her over three days.

Meanwhile, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported Monday that a courthouse surveillance camera recorded Nichols' initial surprise attack on Deputy Cynthia Hall but that no one in the control center noticed the assault.

"It's not just horrible, it was preventable," Senior Superior Court Judge Philip Etheridge told the newspaper.

A video camera, which is supposed to be monitored by two guards in a command post, shows Nichols and the deputy arriving in the holding area between two courtrooms, according to a law enforcement official who saw the tape. The video shows Hall guiding Nichols, whose hands are still handcuffed behind his back, into one of two open cells.

Hall releases one cuff and turns Nichols around to unhook the remaining cuff. She uncuffs him so he can change from a jail jumpsuit into street clothes. But the muscular, 33-year-old Nichols then lunges at Hall, knocking the petite, 51-year-old grandmother backward into another cell. Both disappear from camera view. Two to three minutes later, Nichols emerges from the cell, holding Hall's gun belt and police radio. He picks up her keys from the floor and locks her in the cell.

Nichols then enters the empty cell. A few minutes later, he emerges in civilian clothes. He locks the door behind him and calmly walks out of the holding area, carrying the gun belt, according to the official who saw the tape.

It was not until after the shootings began that Hall was found on the cell floor.

Judge Etheridge said Hall should not have been alone with Nichols, a former college linebacker who had been found with two sharp door hinges in his socks earlier in the week.

"There should have been at least two, possibly three, good-sized deputies and they should have been warned," Etheridge said.

Hall remained in critical condition Sunday, Grady Memorial Hospital officials said. Although hospital officials initially reported she may have suffered a grazing bullet wound to her forehead, they now believe she was struck on the head, said spokeswoman Denise Simpson.

Channel 2 Action News reporter Tom Jones contributed to this report.