Buckeye, Ariz.
Two Arizona prison inmates this week released a hostage they had held in a guard tower for 15 days, ending one of the longest prison hostage standoffs in U.S. history. Before surrendering, the prisoners told a radio station that the hostage taking was part of an escape plan that went bad. Inmates Ricky Wassenaar, 40, and Steven Coy, 39, overpowered an officer in a kitchen, and Coy allegedly raped a woman on the kitchen staff. Wassenaar then put on the officer’s uniform and persuaded the two guards in the tower to open the door. The prisoners released one of the guards, a man, but kept the other, a woman, hoping to bargain their way out. After the female guard’s release, she thanked authorities for not storming the tower. “They would have killed me,” she said.
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