Still praying this will work out

Alabama bunker suspect faced court date, neighbors say

Investigators have communicated with the suspect through a length of PVC pipe that extends out of the bunker. They've sent down coloring books and crayons for the child, state Rep. Steve Clouse said. They've also sent prescription medicine for the boy, who suffers from Asperger's syndrome and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, he said.

The boy's family is "holding on by a thread," Clouse said. They do not know Dykes, according to Clouse, who has been speaking with the family. Investigators are still communicating with the suspect and "have no reason to believe that the child has been harmed," Dale County Sheriff Wally Olson said Wednesday evening.

"Pray, pray," Olson told reporters.

Tense Negotiations in Alabama Kidnapping

A man with a history of violent behavior and a 5-year-old boy he abducted from a school bus on Tuesday remained holed up in the man’s homemade underground bunker in rural Alabama on Thursday morning.

The negotiations, described as tense and delicate, began Tuesday afternoon, when local law enforcement officials, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and SWAT teams surrounded the bunker off a dirt road in Midland City, a small town in southern Alabama peanut country, near the Florida and Georgia borders.