Hostage Situation in Alabama Ends With Child Safe, Kidnapper Dead

Kidnapper Jimmy Lee Dykes is dead and the five year-old boy he kidnapped and held in a bunker for seven days is safe. 

On Monday, FBI agents entered Dykes' bunker using some type of flash explosive. The subsequent raid ended when agents pulled the child from the bunker and Dykes died. It is not yet clear how the armed kidnapper was killed.

Last week, Dykes, 65, boarded a school bus with a gun and demanded he take two children. When bus driver Charles Poland tried to stop Dykes, he was shot. Dykes then took a five year-old autistic child identified only as Ethan to his home nearby, and entered a makeshift bunker. Dykes was a Vietnam veteran who allegedly suffered from mental illness. His neighbors had described him as a survivalist — a person who prepares for social disorder by stocking up on staples and perhaps firearms.