i just don t know how they did it. this official i talked to wasn t precisely sure how they did it but was well-informed enough to know they had gotten into the bunker and that s how they managed to pull this off this afternoon. but how they did it, whether they used the existing method or some other method, i don t know, but apparently these officials have been talking for several days about the need to do something like this or what they would do if the time came when there was a need to do something like this, and so they were putting plans in motion to do it. what the precipitating event was, why today and not last tuesday, why today and not next friday, i don t know the answer to that yet. pete williams, thanks so much. and we re going back to the scene in midland city, alabama, and our correspondent gabe gutierrez. gabe, we re hearing that a press conference is imminent. can you tell us any more? reporter: that s right. again, martin, within the past
boy has been recovered. he s safe. that that ambulance that was seen driving away that people thought might have the boy, this one official says, yes, that s correct, that ambulance was driving away with this 5-year-old boy who was taken away. they say that the officials on the scene, the law enforcement officials on the scene, actually somehow went into the bunker, got into the bunker from underground and shot the kidnapper. we don t know at this point precisely how they managed to get inside this buried bunker, but that s what happened we re told by two officials, that the kidnapper was shot, that the boy was rescued safely and has been taken away in an ambulance. because as i understand it, pete, there was only one way in and out of this bunker. so if that reporting is correct, is it possible that they found another means of accessing the bunker? they broke in as it were? they opened another access point? the answer to your question is it s possible, yes.
3:12 p.m. fbi agents recovered the child. negotiators felt that the negotiations were deteriorating. they observed mr. dykes holding a gun and, therefore, decided to enter the bunker. they rescued the child who was described as physically unharmed, but the hostage taker is now deceased. let s go back to gabe gutierrez. gabe. reporter: hi, martin. as you mentioned 3:12 this afternoon this standoff is over. it was confirmed that the child is doing okay and that the suspect is dead. police mentioning, of course, that within the past 24 hours negotiations deteriorated and that the suspect was observed with a gun. as you just saw in tra press conference and perhaps you did not see off camera, a number of the officials here that have been so worried over the past few days started hugging each other. it was a very emotional time not just for the sheriff who has
press conference is what, judged or expected to happen in the next few minutes? the next half hour? reporter: last we heard it was supposed to happen really within the next 10, 15 minutes, but as you can imagine, martin, something of this magnitude, local law enforcement was working hand in hand with federal hostage negotiators, with the fbi, a lot of people in this community came together to make this happen. so right now i can t even imagine the logistical challenges that need to be worked out, the child being brought to the hospital, everybody trying to figure out exactly what happened before they come before the public. just an amazing story of this child spending 140 hours or so trapped underground in a bunker and now coming out alive. so we expect the press conference within the near future. that might be delayed so we just don t know at this point, martin. gabe, do stay with us. and thank you so much for your reporting. we re going back to our justice correspondent pete will
driver that was a tremendously tragic loss, they re going to have to deal with that memory for the rest of their lives, too. clint, you outlined the psychological challenges for the team in trying to assess the hostage taker, but this was also a challenging environmental set of circumstances. this was not a house. this was some kind of bunker, wasn t it? what are the specific challenges that are thrown up by some kind of underground setting? number one, there was only one way in and one way out. we re told this bunker was approximately 4 to 6 feet by 6 to 8 feet. it was about 4 feet underground. there was a set of steps that led down to it. martin, if you can imagine a worse case scenario, one way in, one way out, and the subject, mr. dykes is down there, he s armed, he has his hostage, and everything that you would think of normally where, you know, you could come through different windows and doors or you could