The Boy Held Hostage in a Bunker by a Madman

An autistic 5-year-old boy was held underground by a murderer for over a week

By Kassondra O'HaraPublished 2 years ago • 13 min read

Jimmy Lee Dykes (L) & Ethan Gilman (R)

For 15 years, I worked for a 9–1–1 center where I listened to some of the most horrifying things that someone could imagine. The worst, by far, was when a child was involved. When a call came in that a kid was hurt or in danger, there was no doubt that while our hands moved and our voices organized responses, our brains were back and forth between policy and prayer. In 2013, we received word of a hostage situation that was happening in a neighboring town. It was everyone’s worst nightmare.

The Hostage Crisis Begins

January 29, 2013, was the beginning of a very long, very stressful seven days for law enforcement and residents of Midland City, Alabama. It began around 3:30 p.m. when children were being bussed to their residences after school. As school bus driver, 66-year-old Charles Albert Poland, Jr. pulled to a stop to drop off children, a man that Poland had met several times boarded the bus and pulled out a Ruger pistol. That man was 65-year-old Vietnam War veteran, Jimmy Lee Dykes.

Dykes handed Poland a letter beginning with: “I have a story to tell.” It then ordered Poland to select two well-behaved boys with no physical or mental problems. He wanted Poland to cuff the boys together with a black zip-tie. The letter also stated,

“No harm will come to the kids. When the story is finished, they will go free and I will die.”

Dykes told Poland that he wanted a six-year-old boy and an eight-year-old boy and would shoot him if he didn’t comply. Poland blocked Dykes’ access to the aisle of the bus and calmly stated “Sorry. You’re going to have to shoot me.” Dykes then fired five shots into Poland, killing him.

Dykes ran inside the bus, grabbed five-year-old Ethan Gilman, and fled with him. The other children on the bus, not knowing if the man would return, exited the bus through the front door, having to pass Poland’s body. They ran down the dirt road to a local church.

15-year-old Tré Watts had called 911 while Dykes was still on the bus.

“Where is your emergency?” asked the operator, Brittin Norris.

“We’re on the bus and someone’s trying to take our kids,” Tré said.

“Somebody on the bus is trying to take a kid?” Ms. Norris said.

“Yes, ma’am.”

The sound of gunshots filled the line followed by the screams of children.

The 9–1–1 operator asked Tre, “Oh, my gosh. What’s going on?”

“The bus driver’s dead,” Tré said.

“The what?”

“The bus driver’s dead.”

“Hang in there, baby, hang in there,” Ms. Norris told him. “Just get down.”

The Bunker

Dykes ran with Ethan until he made it underground. The previous year, Dykes had built an underground bunker approximately 170 feet behind his mobile home. It was underneath a raised mound of dirt and was secured on one side by a cinder block wall.

The entrance was on top and covered by a heavy wooden door, approximately 2 feet x 4 feet which was reached by cinder block steps. There was a 4-inch-wide piece of PVC pipe that jutted from the ground approximately five feet. It was able to be turned 90 degrees, like a periscope.

When Dykes arrived at his Bunker with Ethan, he too called 9–1–1. He informed the operator that he had a hostage and that the boy was unharmed. He also stated that he did not want to shoot the bus driver, but Poland wouldn’t do what Dykes told him to do. He insisted that responders speak to him through the PVC pipe located at this bunker and would no longer speak on the phone. With that, he disconnected.

Lt. Bill Rafferty was one of the first officers to arrive on scene. Dykes informed Rafferty that if responders tried to enter his bunker by force, there would be a “loud boom.” Dykes also asked about the bus driver’s condition. Rafferty knew that Poland had passed but told Dykes that he wasn’t sure of his condition.

At 8:09 p.m., the first FBI negotiator arrived on scene and joined the throngs of local deputies, state troopers, city police, and SWAT teams. At 9 p.m. Dykes told law enforcement that he was done talking for the night.

Officers on the scene, however, were nowhere near done for the night. They questioned a neighbor, Michael Creel, about the layout of the inside of the bunker as he had helped Dykes build it. Creel explained that a wooden ladder led down the narrow shaft to a 6-foot by 8-foot room that was just high enough for a man to stand up.

The FBI wanted as much information as possible so that they could plan a way to rescue Ethan and capture Dykes without any casualties. Looking at the PVC that emerged from the ground, they thought about trying to lower down a camera or microphone. As they examined the pipe, they realized that something was wedged inside.

Using an X-Ray machine, they discovered a bomb, made up of gunpowder and shotgun pellets. Attached was a cord that ran into the bunker. One pull by the suspect and the FBI negotiators could die. As they looked around the property, they noticed more than a dozen PVC pipes sticking out of the ground. They were in the middle of a minefield.

Day Two

Early that morning, officers evacuated residents living nearby. The FBI placed a speaker and microphone near the pipe in order to safely communicate with Dykes without letting him know that they had discovered his bomb.

Dale County Sheriff Wally Olson welcomed the FBI’s assistance in a situation as dire as the one before him. In fact, that afternoon, the FBI’s Critical Incident Response Unit and members of the FBI Hostage Rescue team responded and set up their command post in an old building across the highway. The Critical Incident Response Team was made up of criminal profilers and technicians in specialized areas, while the Hostage Rescue team would be the ones to go in after Ethan if negotiations failed.

At this point, the FBI and local officers were flying blind. They had never trained for this type of hostage situation before. There were no doors, no windows, no blueprints.

When it was revealed that Ethan was autistic and was required to take several behavioral drugs, negotiators talked Dykes into allowing them to drop off the medicine near the hatch for him to take inside, along with toys, coloring books, and crayons. They also eventually talked him into accepting a “throw-phone” which would create a direct line between him and negotiators. They explained that the weather had gotten pretty miserable outside and that trying to talk through the PVC pipe made it hard to understand him.

Dykes’ Demands

At this point, it wasn’t very clear to anyone what Dykes wanted. He told negotiators that he would release Ethan, on the condition that a female reporter would take Ethan’s place in the bunker and broadcast his “story.” He stated that once his story had been told, he would place a plastic bag over his head, fill it with helium, and have the reporter hold his hand as he died.

Naturally, the FBI was not going to let this happen. Instead, they had a female FBI negotiator call Dykes and introduce herself as a reporter. He explained that it could take several days to tell his story on the air. Later, Dykes called negotiators back and was furious. He had somehow figured out that the “reporter” was fake.

During this time, FBI agents managed to sneak a concealed camera into the bunker, where they could see Dykes, Ethan, a blue tarp that covered what appeared to be a bucket toilet, and a three-level bunk bed.

After Dykes blew up about the reporter incident, he stated that he no longer wanted to talk to the FBI. This pulled Lt. Rafferty into the mix. Rafferty wasn’t a negotiator, but his fellow officers felt that he could pull it off.

Day Three

By this time, the incident was big news all over the country, and especially in southern Alabama. Everyone had ideas on what needed to happen next. I received several calls from citizens explaining what my department needed to “tell the FBI to do.”

We weren’t even in the same city, but luckily the FBI has pretty substantial training in this area. “Colonel Crusher,” a local militiaman, even showed up on the scene in his fatigues and beret with promises of heroics and saving the day. He was escorted from the premises.

To the public, it appeared that officials were just standing around waiting for something to happen, when in reality, the behind-the-scenes logistics were mind-boggling. Fastest routes to emergency rooms were being planned, doctors were being prepared, bomb techs examined the PVC pipes on the property, the hostage rescue team sought out local vets who could treat a dog with a gunshot wound if needed, in addition to spending hours talking to Dykes.

Rafferty continued to try to talk Dykes into surrendering, but Dykes remained firm. After searching his home, they found several Wal-Mart and Home Depot receipts showing where he had purchased shotgun shells and a small propane bottle. They realized that his threat to blow up the bunker if they tried to make entry was possible.

Day Four

Members of the media continued to pour into Dale County. It was discovered that Dykes had a television in the bunker, so reporters were told to keep any images of what the agents were doing off the air.

What no one knew, until after it was over, was the FBI had spent days reconstructing a replica of the bunker from the images they had in order to rehearse a forced rescue. They needed to be able to surprise Dykes in the event that negotiations failed.

Day Five

On Saturday, FBI agents escorted Dykes’ daughter Cindy to Alabama and checked her into a hotel under a false name in case they needed her to talk to her father. Cindy and her father had a tumultuous relationship at best and she had not spoken to him in over 25 years. Her mother left Dykes when Cindy was only three years old after drunken beatings convinced her that if she didn’t leave, he would kill her.

Meanwhile, in Quantico, VA, FBI explosives expert Kevin Finnerty and his team assembled six replicas of the bomb that they believed Dykes had in his bunker. They filled a PVC pipe with half a pound of gunpowder and duct-taped it to the propane bottle. They concluded that Dykes could detonate the bomb by shooting a pellet gun into the shotgun shell primer on the pipe’s end cap.

Dykes’ became more and more agitated during conversations and Rafferty found it harder to calm him down. Rafferty knew that if they didn’t figure out something soon, that Dykes would soon blow, maybe even literally.

In order to ease the tension, Sheriff Olson held a press conference where he thanked Dykes for “taking care of the child.”

Day Six

On the sixth day of the crisis, it was obvious that Dykes was unraveling. He began to neglect the boy that he was caring for in the beginning. Conversations amongst the FBI, local authorities, and the district attorney turned more to “what happens if” as they ran through scenarios involving rushing the bunker. Dykes then gave Rafferty a deadline. He set 5:30 p.m. the following day to be their last chance to meet his demands.

Day Seven

The FBI decided to play one last card in the hopes of negotiating with Dykes. They brought his daughter, Cindy to the scene. She had brought along photos of her four children and one of her and her father. Two officers carried a laptop to the bunker door so that Dykes could speak with his daughter over video chat. Dykes carried the laptop down the ladder, opened it up, and said hello to Lt. Rafferty.

It’s Go Time

As soon as Dykes’ feet struck the bunker floor, the FBI detonated explosives that were attached to the eye bolts that secured the cables to the hatch. The rescue team rushed to the entrance. The next nine seconds would feel drastically longer for the entry team.

During their rehearsals in their mock bunker, agents had designed a cross-bar to be placed across the bunker entrance. They could hang from the bar and drop into the bunker, saving precious time.

The point man grabbed the bar, flung it over the entrance, and swept down into the bunker below. Halfway down, the agent became entangled in some sort of web. The second agent dropped down and tried to push the point man through the obstacle while sitting on his head and shoulders.

Dykes grabbed his pistol and began firing at the agents. As they were pulled from the bunker, miraculously, neither were hit. However, Dykes then pulled the cord to the bomb inside the PVC pipe. The explosion rocked the agents standing by the entrance and sent smoke flowing into the bunker.

At the command post, onlookers were horrified when they saw the point man come out without Ethan. Agents sent down Ella, a German Shepherd attack dog, but she panicked when she became entangled in the same obstruction. As they pulled her back up, the agents could see a net of steel cables that Dykes had strung between the wall and the ladder.

Agents began throwing down flash bangs in an attempt to disorient Dykes as breaching specialists carved away at the cables using bolt cutters.

All of this took approximately four minutes and rescuers were in fear for Ethan. They had to get to him. The point-man jumped into the bunker. On the way down, his elbow struck the frame of the entry hole, dislodging his pistol from his hand. The gun landed under the ladder. The agent lunged forward and could tell he was touching Ethan’s head. He grabbed the boy and wrapped himself around him facing a wall. The agent assured him, “You’re going to be OK, Ethan.”

Two more agents landed inside the bunker and located Dykes. During the struggle, Dykes was shot 12 times in the face, neck, torso, and hand. Even though he appeared to be dead, they handcuffed his body just to be safe. Ethan was lifted out of the bunker to safety.

Ethan, the Boy in the Bunker

Ethan turned six not long after the events. Sheriff Olsen, DA Kirke Adams, FBI Agent Steve Richardson, and several other law enforcement officers loaded up a Target cart with toys for Ethan and delivered them to his birthday party.

Even before the hostage situation, Ethan already had a tough life. He was autistic and required a lengthy list of medications to control his behavior. His mother was addicted to drugs and alcohol and lost custody of Ethan.

A lot of people who know Ethan believe that his unstable background is what helped him to survive the ordeal in the bunker. He was already tougher than a lot of kids his age because he had to be.

Ethan was raised for a while by his mother, who lost custody again after Ethan’s sixth birthday. He then lived with his grandmother, who passed away, and his half-brother who also lost custody. Ethan remained in the foster care system until 2015 when the Turner family fostered him, and legally adopted him. He doesn’t need quite as many medications as before and has nine siblings. At 14, he doesn’t remember much from his time in the bunker.

Who Was Jimmy Lee Dykes?

Jimmy Dykes was a Vietnam veteran who was a loner, but vocal about his disdain for the government. Dykes was estranged from his entire family, including a brother, sister, an ex-wife, and two daughters. He previously had minor interactions with law enforcement including improper exhibition of a weapon and marijuana possession. Despite earning commendations in the Navy, the veteran Dykes was generally very paranoid and abhorrent.

Neighbors described how he once beat a dog to death with a lead pipe, threatened to put antifreeze in water bowls to kill strays, threatened to shoot children who crossed his property, and patrolled his property at night with a flashlight and gun.

Dykes was a bitter, angry man, who lacked empathy and hated the government. His narcissistic personality made him believe that he had something important to say, that everyone needed to hear, and he did what he thought necessary to make it happen. And he died for it.

The Aftermath

The bus driver, Charles Poland, Jr. who gave his life to protect the children in his care, had hundreds of people attend his funeral. That stretch of highway in Midland City now bears his name. I think about him and Ethan everytime I drive it.

Tré Watts was given an award by the National Association for Pupil Transportation for the invaluable information that he was able to provide 9–1–1 dispatchers.

Brittin Norris, the 9–1–1 dispatcher who took the call, resigned shortly after the incident. She admitted that the stress of the job overwhelmed her, as it does so many.

Lt. Bill Rafferty was awarded the Medal for Meritorious Achievement, the FBI’s highest award for a non-agent. He keeps a picture of Ethan in his office to remind him of that day and why he dedicated his life to law enforcement. He was disappointed that he couldn’t save Jimmy Dykes but has realized that Dykes made his choice. No one even heard his story that he was willing to die to tell.

***Story previously published on Medium.com by the author***