Hostages were put through a 12-hour ordeal before a SWAT team burst in Monday.
By Associated Press
Published September 11, 2004
PANAMA CITY, Fla. - Four inmates face charges of kidnapping, attempted escape, battery on a corrections officer and holding people hostage after a 12-hour standoff at the Bay County Jail.
One of the hostages, a nurse, was shot along with two of the inmates when a SWAT team stormed the jail on Monday.
Kevin Winslett, 32, the alleged ringleader, Matthew Coffin, 22, and Kevin Nix, 28, were each charged Wednesday with four counts of kidnapping and one count each of holding persons hostage, being a principal to battery of a corrections officer, being a principal to depriving an officer of a communication device and attempted escape.
James Norton, 31, was charged with four counts of kidnapping and one count each of holding persons hostage, battery on a corrections officer, depriving an officer of a communication device and attempted escape.
The kidnapping charge carries a possible life sentence.
Coffin was "a wild man" who stalked around with a broomstick that had been sharpened into a spear, said Bay County sheriff's Capt. Jimmy Stanford.
Stanford was on the SWAT team and helped negotiate the release of three jail employees - two female nurses and a male guard - from the third floor of the six-story jail where inmates took over the infirmary Sunday night.
Stanford said negotiations began to sour when Coffin, Nix and Norton began taking prescription pills. Their mood changed and Winslett began losing control of them. Coffin was threatening a more violent approach to the final hostage and other, nonparticipating inmates, Stanford said.
Stanford said when the SWAT team entered, Nix was holding the final hostage with a scalpel to her throat and a needle at her stomach. Stafford fired three shots, wounding Nix in the leg and wounding the nurse in the side and a leg. A shot fired by another deputy wounded Norton.
Investigators initially said the inmates were trying to bring attention to the jail's living conditions, but now say the men simply wanted to escape.
