Alabama Hostage Standoff Continues
By: NBC News
Updated: January 31, 2013
(WSFA) Authorities and the suspected killer of a school bus driver and abductor of a 6-year-old kindergartner remain locked in a hostage standoff in southeastern Alabama that's spanned more than 30 hours.
The child is said to be "okay", having been given access to medicine and the box of crayons and a coloring book he requested.
The child, whose name isn't being published, has remained in an underground bunker with his captor since Tuesday afternoon when he was plucked from the school bus he was riding home. The abductor, identified as 65-year-old Jimmy Lee Dykes, is accused of boarding the child's bus in the town of Midland City where he fatally shot the bus driver before kidnapping the boy.
Hostage negotiators have pleaded with the suspect to hand over the child and give himself up to police. Communication with Dykes, via a PVC pipe connected to his bunker, has so far yielded no movement.
The child is said to have a medical condition, for which authorities were successful Wednesday morning in getting medication. The situation remains "static".
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