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Tuesday, July 25, 2000
Two killed in three-day hostage standoff in Orlando home
News-Journal wire services
ORLANDO - A three-day standoff in a suburban home ended Monday with the death of a woman being held hostage with two children and their captor's suicide.
Murder suspect Jamie Dean Petron was found dead in the home about 3:15 p.m. Hostage Andrea Hall, who was in the home with her two nieces, was found dead in the kitchen, said Orange County Sheriff Kevin Beary said.
The two girls, a 16-year-old and an infant, were not injured. They were hiding in a walk-in closet and were on the telephone with negotiators when Petron shot himself in the chest.
"This was a very scary and intense situation," Beary said.
Hall, 40, might have been shot Sunday by police sharpshooters who fired into the home, said Orange County Sheriff's Capt. Steve Jones.
It's also possible she was hit when Petron fired at a police robot that entered the home Monday morning, Jones said.
"We are being cautious because SWAT team members, from both law enforcement agencies, fired at the house and there were shots fired from inside the house," Jones said. "We are not going to leave out the possibility that a bullet came from law enforcement."
An autopsy will determine who was responsible for the shot.
Authorities first realized someone was dead at about 8:30 a.m. Monday when they spotted a covered body lying on the kitchen floor as they scanned the house looking for Petron, Jones said. A SWAT team crept into the house around noon and learned it was Hall.
Deputies remained in the four-bedroom house for then next three hours as Hall barricaded himself in the master bedroom with 16-year-old Althea Mills and 9-month-old Danique Akoon.
Negotiators spoke with Petron several times during the day and he allowed them to talk to the teen-ager, although authorities said Petron "scripted" things for her to say.
Petron grew increasingly agitated after being kept awake through the night with police loudspeakers and a remote-controlled robot that police guided into the house. Scores of officers from the sheriff's department, Orlando Police, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and the FBI surrounded the home.
Throughout the siege, Petron had promised to release the hostages. At about 2:40 p.m., he told police he would release them in 20 minutes.
As the minutes counted down, police stayed on the line with a terrified Althea Mills as she huddled in the closet with a cordless telephone and her baby niece.
"Through most of this ordeal, the 16-year-old was taking care of the baby. The family should be proud of her," said Orange County Sheriff's Lt. Al Rodrigues, a hostage negotiator.
Police said Petron had warned negotiators several times over the 51-hour standoff that it would be ending and had no reason to believe him in those last minutes.
"I couldn't call it, whether he was going to take his life or come out and surrender," said Rodrigues, a 15-year veteran hostage negotiator in Orlando.
Petron, an auto mechanic wanted for the slaying of a Broward County convenience store clerk, had shot an Orange County Sheriff's deputy in the leg before he'd stormed into the Mills home.
In the house were homeowners Thelma Mills, her son Norman West, 28; her daughter Althea Mills, 16; Hall, her sister; and Hall's children Nicholas Hall, 8; and Nicolette Hall, 11 months.
Thelma Mills quickly escaped from the home and Petron allowed West to leave after shooting him in the jaw during a scuffle. West was hospitalized in stable condition Monday.
Petron released Hall's children Sunday afternoon, about three hours after a sniper had shot at him. Authorities said Petron had told him someone in the house was injured in that incident, but the could not verify it.
"(Hall) just came from New York two months ago, and now she's dead," said Monica Connor, an in-law. "You're not safe, nowhere. It could be you, it could be me."
Petron was suspected in the Friday shooting death of Jorge Trillos, 22, a convenience store clerk in Pompano Beach, authorities said.
Store owner Samir Hantash, 48, was also shot, and remained in critical condition Monday, said Veda Coleman-Wright, a Broward Sheriff's Office spokeswoman.
About 20 homes were evacuated during the standoff in the Meadow Woods subdivision, about 10 miles east of Walt Disney World.
"It could have been my house," said Jorge Torres, a 15-year-old neighbor and Hall family friend.
"I think it brings all of us closer together and it tells people to keep their doors closed - locked," he said.
Records show the elder Petron was sentenced to 20 years in prison in 1986 for attempted first-degree murder, forgery and battery on a law enforcement officer. He was released from prison in late 1995.
"These damn judges. That's who they should blame for this," Connor said. "He should have been in jail."
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