Officers stormed an underground bunker in the US where a five-year-old boy had been held hostage for nearly a week, rescuing him and leaving his kidnapper dead.
Steve Richardson of the FBI’s office in Mobile, Alabama, said that negotiations had deteriorated with 65-year-old Jimmy Lee Dykes.
Dykes, who a week earlier had abducted the child from a school bus after shooting and killing the driver, had been seen with a gun.
Officers believed the boy was in imminent danger, Mr Richardson said, and stormed the bunker to rescue the child, who was taken to a hospital in nearby Dothan. It was not immediately clear how Dykes died.
Daryle Hendry, who lives about 400 yards from where Dykes’ bunker was located, said he heard a boom, followed by what sounded like a gunshot, around the time officials said they stormed the bunker.
Neighbours described Dykes as a man who once beat a dog to death with a lead pipe, threatened to shoot children for setting foot on his property, and patrolled his yard at night with a flashlight and a firearm.
Authorities have said Dykes gunned down 66-year-old bus driver Albert Poland before taking the boy from the bus.
Poland, who was buried on Sunday, has been hailed as a hero for protecting the other nearly two-dozen children on board from harm.
“This man was a true hero who was willing to give up his life so others might live,” Governor Robert Bentley said after learning of the boy’s rescue.