MIDLAND CITY, Ala. (AP) — Jimmy Lee Dykes moved to a rural Alabama neighborhood on a rutted red clay road more than a year ago. It didn't take long before he had developed a frightening reputation as a volatile man with anti-government views who threatened his neighbors at gunpoint and was viciously violent to wandering pets.
Multiple neighbors said Dykes, a 65-year-old retired truck driver, is the man suspected of boarding a school bus near his home, killing the driver and taking a 5-year-old boy hostage in a standoff that entered its second full day Thursday.
Alabama State Trooper Charles Dysart told reporters late Wednesday that negotiations with the suspect were ongoing. Earlier Wednesday, Sheriff Wally Olson said that authorities had "no reason to believe that the child has been harmed."
