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Hostage Halts Robbery 'Like In the Movies'
Headed to the bank, James Spruill drove erratically on the Beltway, getting a state trooper to pull him over, then jumped the gunman in the back seat.
(By Mark Gail -- The Washington Post)
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Detectives spent part of yesterday working with county police and federal authorities to identify the suspect apprehended in the car. He gave state police interrogators multiple names after his arrest, and police initially described him only as in his teens or early 20s.
About five hours after he was taken to the College Park barracks, the suspect attempted to hang himself by tying his shirt around his neck and to his cell door, police said.
Miller, the commander of the barracks, said the suspect was spotted quickly and cut down by a duty officer before he suffered any injuries. Miller said he was being held overnight at Prince George's County Hospital Center for a psychological evaluation.
Miller said little is known about the second assailant. He was described as black, 5-foot-7 and 160 pounds and was last seen wearing dark pants and black hooded sweat shirt.
A state police forensics team spent several hours combing through the family's home. Miller said those samples had not led to an identification last night.
On Sept. 24, a Southern Maryland bank manager and her two young children were abducted at gunpoint from their home. The suspects drove the woman to the PNC Bank she managed in St. Mary's County and held one of her children hostage while she went inside to get money out of the vault.
The next month, police charged three men and a woman, alleging that they secretly followed the bank manager for several weeks and planned the abduction and robbery. Police recovered about $110,000 of the $168,000 stolen, much of it buried in two safes in the back yard of one of the suspects.
Staff writer Mary Beth Sheridan and staff researcher Alice Crites contributed to this report.
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