RALEIGH, N.C. -- Three knife-wielding convicts Wednesday swapped four people held since Tuesday for food, water and cigarettes, and authorities said negotiations were under way for the release of the remaining four hostages.
The remaining hostages, including prison chaplain Lacy L. Joyner, were not being threatened, prison spokesman Stuart Shadbolt said.
He said Joyner told authorities, 'Everybody's all right,' and another of the hostages said, 'They are treating us fine.'
The captives were in the second night of their ordeal in a 5-by-10-foot room in the third-floor diagnostic center of the century-old prison. Prison officials apparently had no plans to agree to the convicts' demands -- or to rush them.
'We'll wait as long as it takes,' said Shadbolt. 'We would not allow them to negotiate to leave.'
Shadbolt said the convicts, two of them not eligible for parole until the next century, released the four hostages at 12:10 p.m. EST.
Prison officials were communicating by telephone with the convicts, who seized the eight hostages -- including two other prisoners -- Tuesday morning.
He said the inmates had made some 'rather unreasonable' demands but he declined to reveal them.
'We obviously are not talking about the phases of the moon,' he said. 'We are talking about issues I am not at liberty to discuss.'
He said the inmates had issued 'no deadlines or ultimatums. It is not a shouting match,' he said. 'It is a fairly rational conversation.'
'Rather than get into the specifics of the requests they are making, let us continue working to try to reach a point like we reached this afternoon,' said Shadbolt, referring to the release of the four hostages. The trade came more than 25 hours after after one of the convicts suddenly grabbed a prison employee and shoved him into the room on the third-floor diagnostic center of the prison.
Officials said this triggered a 'domino effect' with other convicts seizing employes and pushing them into the room.
Still held in the 5-by-10-foot office were Joyner, corrections officer David Atkins, and data compilers Hugh M. Martin Jr., and Jimmy J. Stallings.
WPTF radio news director H. Bart Ritner delivered the food, water and cigarettes to the inmates. The inmates said Tuesday they wanted to talk to a reporter and Ritner was selected by prison officials.
Ritner said the room in which the hostages and inmates are in is 'quite small.' There is no toilet in the room.
Ritner said he had seen the men who remained as hostages.
'They all looked healthy and looked happy, as happy as you could look under the situation,' he said.
Shadbolt said the inmates allowed prison officials to choose which hostages would be released. Officials chose William Beckwith, 52, because he was the oldest and Charles Cameron because he had the largest family. Both men were identified as 'data compliers' for the prison.
The inmates also decided to release two prisoners they were holding, Bobby Lee Mills and Roger Lee McQueen.
'I was able to see the other four who remain there and they all seemed to be healthy and unharmed,' Shadbolt said. 'I feel that in a matter of not too long a time everyone will be reunited with their families.'
The convicts were identified as William Darrell Little, 27, of Dobson; Ezekiel Hall, 28, of New York and Melvin Surgeon, 31, of Annapolis, Md. They are serving long sentences for felonies ranging from robbery to kidnapping.
Shadbolt said Little was not eligible for parole until 1989, Hall was not eligible until 2014 and Surgeon was not eligible until 2015.
Prison officials first said the convicts had taken just six hostages -- the chaplain and five prison employees.
But, when the trade was made, Mills and McQueen also were freed.
Prison authorities said they had not commented on the presence of Mills and McQueen because they did not know whether they were hostages or captors.
It was not clear how Mills and McQueen got into the room.
Mills, 27, was recently convicted in Raleigh for the so-called 'mummy murders' of three people. He is serving three life sentences for the murders, in which the victims' faces were wrapped with tape.
McQueen, 44, of Fayetteville, was convicted in Cumberland County on two counts of first-degree murder and is serving a life term.
