ATLANTA (AP) – The woman held hostage in her apartment by the suspect in Atlanta’s courthouse slayings said Sunday that her ordeal began with the man sticking a gun in her side and tying her up, but ended with the weapons on the floor as he let her go to see her young daughter.

After hours of talking about the killings, their families and God, Ashley Smith said Brian Nichols “just wanted some normalness to his life.”

Smith called 911 after she was freed, and police soon surrounded her suburban apartment complex. Nichols, who police say killed three people in the courthouse Friday and a federal agent later, 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 in a statement televised on CNN. If he didn’t give up, she told him, “Lots more people are probably going get hurt and you’re probably going to die.”

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 outside her apartment when she returned from a store about 2 a.m.

“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.

“I thought he was going to strangle me,” she said.

She said as the night wore on, she tried to win his trust. 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.

“I told him I was supposed to see my little girl the next morning at 10,” Smith said. “I asked him if I could go and he said no.”

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 didn’t bring any weapons when he had her help him move a truck he had stolen away from the apartment complex.

When Nichols 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.

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 did not say anything when he was arrested but was “very calm, very compliant with officers’ directions to him in securing his arrest. He was very cooperative,” Gwinnett County Police Chief Charles Walters said Sunday.

Police say Nichols drove a stolen vehicle to the woman’s Gwinnett County apartment complex, which he may have picked at random.

“The bottom line is that law enforcement had no idea where he was – this victim, the community owes a tremendous debt to her because she kept her calm and provided us with the information that ultimately led to the arrest,” Walters said.

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. Nichols faced a life sentence if convicted.

In that case, Nichols was accused of bursting into his ex-girlfriend’s home with a loaded machine gun, binding her with duct tape and sexually assaulting her over three days. Nichols claimed the sex was consensual.

However, Nichols’ defense attorney for the rape charge said continuing with that case would “seem to be a colossal waste of time and tax money.”

“Obviously, the rape charge pales in comparison to everything else he is facing,” defense attorney Barry Hazen told NBC’s “Today” on Sunday.

The deputy who was overpowered at the courthouse 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.

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