Multiple neighbors said Dykes, a 65-year-old retired truck driver, was the man suspected of boarding a school bus near his home, killing the driver and taking a 5-year-old boy hostage to begin a standoff that entered its second full day Thursday.
* * *
Asked about Dykes, neighbors said he was 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 shotgun.
He had been scheduled to appear in court Wednesday morning to answer charges he shot at his neighbors in a dispute last month over a speed bump.
* * *
“He’s very paranoid,” her husband said. “He goes around in his yard at night with a flashlight and shotgun.”
* * *
MyFoxAl.com reports that law enforcement sources say that Dykes is a “survivalist” who stocked his bunker with food and other materials to lengthen his time below ground.
Dykes is believed to be a Vietnam War veteran who suffers from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, according to the report.
5 comments
Skip to comment form ↓
hexidecima
January 31, 2013 at 7:20 am (UTC -7) Link to this comment
I’d hazard a guess that he isn’t a Vietnam vet with the vagueness of the claim. My guess woudl be that he’s one of those military wannabees, they’re the craziest. Could be wrong.
tara
January 31, 2013 at 7:04 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
you jackass, the guy isn’t a confederate or a redneck. he’s not one of us. he’s from a beach town in florida. he’s also a registered democrat.
Lady Day
January 31, 2013 at 9:09 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
He sounds like a senior lab tech I had to work with, once: volatile temper and gun collection. Oh, the stories I could share.
@ tara: as a former resident of Alabama (unfortunately… although Rocket City tends to be a tad bit more civilized, if you want to call it that), I’m pretty familiar with Alabama and, to some extent, Florida and the various shades of redneck indigenous to those states, and it has been my observation that beach towns in Florida are just as redneck as rural Alabama and south Georgia. They don’t call the Gulf Coast the Redneck Riviera for nothing. Same people, same culture. The fact that the dude may have also lived in north Texas for a while gives him even more redneck credentials.
BrianX
February 1, 2013 at 2:26 am (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Furthermore, if he was a registered Democrat, that doesn’t necessarily mean anything… there are still Dixiecrats out there, and they’re still wingnuts forty years after the big electoral realignment.
Corvus illustris
February 1, 2013 at 10:02 am (UTC -7) Link to this comment
(sigh) Alabama redneck today, militiaman here in Michisippi tomorrow. As (the black Canadian pianist) Oscar Peterson said, the South begins at the 49th parallel.