Gunman holds boy, 5, hostage for 4th day

MIDLAND CITY, Ala. -- The standoff between police and a gunman accused of holding a kindergartner hostage in an underground bunker dragged into a fourth day yesterday, as authorities sought to continue delicate conversations with the man through a pipe and worked to safely end the tense situation.

Police said Jimmy Lee Dykes shot a school bus driver to death, grabbed a 5-year-old boy off the bus and slipped into the bunker on his property in rural Alabama, where the pair has been since Tuesday.

There were signs the standoff could go on: The shelter has electricity, food, TV, and police have delivered the boy's medication through a 4-inch-wide ventilation pipe leading to the bunker. He reportedly has Asperger's syndrome.

Hostage negotiators have used the pipe to talk to the gunman. Former FBI hostage negotiator Clint Van Zandt said authorities at the scene shouldn't rush to resolve the standoff as long as they are confident that the boy is unharmed.

Midland City Mayor Virgil Skipper said he has been briefed by law enforcement agents and has visited with the boy's parents. "He's crying for his parents," he said. "They are praying and asking all of us to pray with them."

Dykes was known around the neighborhood as a menacing figure who neighbors said once beat a dog to death with a lead pipe. -- AP