FBI confirm Jimmy Lee Dykes fired on authorities, had explosives planted on property

As FBI and police negotiators sought for days to end a hostage crisis in Alabama as Jimmy Lee Dykes held a young boy hostage in an underground bunker.

Authorities now report that Dykes had rigged the bunker with explosives, tried to reinforce it against any raid, and when SWAT agents stormed the shelter Monday to rescue the boy, Dykes engaged in a firefight that left the captor dead, the FBI and officials said.

Ethan, now free from his kidnapper Jimmy Lee Dykes, can celebrate his birthday with his family. photo supplied

Ethan, the boy kidnapped, celebrates his sixth birthday on Saturday and appears to be doing well at home with his family.

An FBI statement late Tuesday said Dyke, 65, had planted an explosive device in a ventilation pipe he’d told negotiators to use to communicate with him on his property in the rural Alabama community of Midland City. The suspect also placed another explosive device inside the bunker, the FBI added.

Dykes has murdered Charles Poland, the bus driver, when he took Ethan and threatened the other children. The Feds confirmed the pair knew one another, but Dykes was a “lone wolf” otherwise.

“They always look for a TPI. As they negotiate, they can bring in a co-worker or a friend, somebody that the hostage-taker likes and respect. Sometimes that can help move things along,” former FBI assistant director John Miller explained Wednesday on “CBS This Morning.”

“And with Jimmy Lee Dykes, they found there was no TPI,” he continued, “…They said, ‘he has no friends.’ The closest thing he had to a friend was Charlie Poland and that was the bus driver who he killed.”