Two Alabama state legislators who have been in touch with the family of the 5-year-old boy held hostage in a bunker discuss the case.
By Erin McClam, Staff Writer, NBC News
The Alabama boy held captive for three days in an underground bunker has the medicine he needs, plus crayons, coloring books and even television to keep him calm. But authorities still could not say Thursday when he might be freed.
Authorities canceled a news briefing Thursday evening, saying there was nothing new to report. Hostage negotiators were still talking to the boy's captor through a lengthy PVC pipe, but there was no sign of progress, and a police chief told Alabama media that the man has been known to stay in the bunker as long as eight days.
The boy, a 5-year-old named Ethan known to his mother as "Love Bug," was apparently unharmed, a state senator said. His family, which has not spoken publicly since the abduction, was "holding on by a thread," a state representative told NBC News.
"We are all just hoping this can come to a safe end," Rep. Steve Clouse said on the TODAY show.
Jimmy Lee Dykes, 65, a Vietnam veteran described by authorities as a loner with anti-government suspicions and by neighbors as a paranoid menace, is suspected of taking the boy after storming his school bus Tuesday afternoon and killing the driver.
A source close to the investigation said the bunker, which is on Dykes' property and was described by a neighbor as 4 feet long, 6 feet wide and 8 feet deep, was equipped with power, food, television and plenty of supplies.
The source said negotiators had gotten medicine, crayons and coloring books to the boy.
Clouse told reporters that the boy suffered from Asperger's syndrome and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder but had been able to get his medicine while held captive.
People in the small Alabama town of Midland City, not far from the Florida line, expressed hope again that prayer might help. For the negotiators, a former chief hostage negotiator for the FBI said, it was a matter of waiting.
"He doesn't want to hurt the child. He didn't take the child to hurt him," said the former negotiator, Clint Van Zandt, an analyst for MSNBC. "The child is simply the means to keep law enforcement from crashing into his bunker right now."
He added: "Time is on the side of the negotiator."
One report suggested it could still be a long wait.
James Arrington, police chief of the nearby town of Pinckard, told The Birmingham News that Dykes has been known to stay in his bunker as long as eight days.
The source told NBC News that the man believed to be Dykes walked onto the bus on Tuesday with a note, demanding that two children be handed over to him. The bus driver refused and was shot and killed.
Clouse said the kidnapping appeared to be random.
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Neighbors in Midland City have said they saw Dykes tirelessly digging and working on the bunker. One man said it was protected by several feet of sand on top.
The bus driver, Charles Albert Poland Jr., 66, has been hailed as a hero. The county school system said 21 children made it off the bus alive, and NBC station WSFA reported that the boy may have been captured after he fainted.
Of the driver, Clouse told TODAY: "He started the day as a bus driver and ended it a hero."
Matthew DeLuca, Gabe Gutierrez, Isolde Raftery and Alastair Jamieson of NBC News contributed to this report.
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