Hostages recall captivity

By WAYNE QUESENBERRY/Staff

Margie Austin returned to work Monday after suffering a panic attack Sunday night. Jim Oliver Jr. is sleeping better now but still replays his recent ordeal.
They and Doug Robinson, who couldn’t be reached for this article, were taken hostage last Wednesday afternoon at the Wytheville Post Office by a man police have identified as 53-year-old Warren A. Taylor. The Sullivan County, Tenn., resident is incarcerated on federal charges stemming from the almost nine-hour standoff that paralyzed part of downtown and attracted media attention from all over the country and world.
The three hostages had never seen the man before and did not know each other.
Austin, a supervisor at the post office, went back to the building Thursday morning to retrieve her cell phone and vehicle. She saw the bullet holes in the wall for the first time.
“It was strange to go back in,” Austin noted Monday. “It was almost like a dream – like it never happened. But I knew it did happen.”
She said she was waiting for the mail truck just before 2:30 p.m. Wednesday. Austin was at the front counter talking to a co-worker and Oliver was just about to leave the lobby.

The ordeal begins
“I saw a man come through the side door pushing a wheelchair,” Austin recalled. “There was a bag in the seat of the wheelchair.”
Oliver, a retired U.S. Army paratrooper with intelligence training who lives in the eastern end of Wythe County, identified the bag as a cloth reusable bag with a Food Lion logo. He also said there was a black tote in the wheelchair.
Both later learned the bag contained several clips of ammunition for the four handguns the hostage-taker had. The tote bag held the man’s medicine for diabetes.
Austin and Oliver described the man as weighing at least 300 lbs. with an antiquated artificial left leg. They said he was wearing a black leather jacket with USA on the back and red and white stripes on the sleeves, dark jeans and T-shirt and a cap with military unit insignia.
“He claimed he had been in an explosive ordnance detachment and said he had in 20 years in the Marines as an EOD operative,” stated Oliver. “At the time, I didn’t know how old he was. He looked like he had been hard on himself.”
Austin added, “He told us his son was killed in Afghanistan two months ago. I think that was a story. I’ve not heard anything since to verify it.”
Oliver said Taylor told them he had rigged his pickup with explosives and had taken off his license plates. Taylor also told them he had poured castor oil in the engine of his vehicle because it was being repossessed.

Other employees escape
Before spending the next eight and a half hours together with Taylor, the three hostages experienced initial terror at the hands of their captor. They saw him shoot at postmaster Terry Clark, who was behind the counter, and they saw Taylor place a package on the island counter. He claimed it contained a bomb.
Clark and another postal worker managed to escape through the back of the building.
“He told me and the other gentleman to lay down on the floor,” Oliver stated. “At first, I thought I was dead – looking down the barrel of a smoking gun.”
According to their recollections, Taylor asked if anyone had a weapon or cell phone. He collected cell phones from each of the hostages.
“He got me around the neck and told me to call 911,” Austin said. “That’s when he looked out the window and saw a police officer with a gun pointed toward the building. He told the officer to put down her gun and, with me in front of him, shot twice out the window. I was afraid the officer would fire back.”
Austin pointed out that Taylor called 911 again and fired his weapon a third time. She and the two other hostages were herded into the “store” section of the post office, where commemorative stamps and other collectible merchandise are sold.
“He had us clean off two ledges,” Austin said. “He let Jim sit in the wheelchair and he sat on one of the ledges. He made me sit on his good leg. The other gentleman was on another ledge.”
For the next few hours, the hostages said, their captor asked them about their families and plans for Christmas. Taylor also ranted about his hatred for the federal government and his disdain that President Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Price while sending additional troops to Afghanistan.
“He told us we’d be home for Christmas and not to worry,” Austin recalled. “I thought he was mentally off. He waved the gun around with his finger on the trigger until Jim told him not to do that. Then he asked us about our families and if we went to church and what we were doing for Christmas.”

Hostage connects with captor
It was Oliver who ultimately gained Taylor’s confidence while discussing the military and government issues. He learned that Taylor drove to Wytheville from Bristol, on his way to Roanoke, and had been in town most of the day. He bought gas in Speedwell and ate at Grayson Restaurant and at Applebee’s.
“He apparently was just passing through and really liked Wytheville,” Oliver commented. “He saw the post office and stopped.”
According to Oliver, Taylor never made any demands. He did ask his FBI negotiator to have someone check out his alleged bomb.
“He said I just want somebody who knows about explosives to come in and look at this bomb,” recalled Oliver. “He said it took him three months to build it and it had five pounds of C-4 explosives inside. He said he had a remote mercury switch connected on his person and if he fell over it would set the bomb off. It looked real to me and he was very talkative about it.”
Oliver described the “bomb” as being a military ammunition box with two lights – one red and one green – embedded on the side. Two antennae were attached to the top of the box by another wire with the entire box wrapped in cloth tape, Oliver said.
Oliver recounted another hairy moment when the state police let a bomb expert drive beside the building to look inside at the device. Oliver was allowed to walk toward the counter and saw SWAT team members in the Wytheville Club House next door.
“Taylor was on the phone to the police,” Oliver said. “I was wearing this blue, hooded sweatshirt and they asked him if that was him in the sweatshirt. Taylor said it was. I immediately raised my hands to show them I didn’t have the phone and couldn’t be talking to them. I was afraid the snipers would start shooting at me.”
From the initial takeover by Taylor, Oliver said he began thinking about ways to take him down. He passed up three opportunities when he had access to the man’s gun.
“When I was first laying on the floor, I was contemplating taking him down when he put the gun in my face,” Oliver pointed out. “There were three different situations when I could have gotten his gun but I didn’t want to traumatize the others. I would have had to hold him up off the floor in case the bomb was real.”

Pizza Hut pizza arrives
A pizza delivery to the post office afforded Oliver a chance to escape, he said. Again, because of the safety of the other hostages, Oliver decided to stay.
“I tried several times to get him to let the others go and keep me,” Oliver pointed out. “I volunteered to go to the door to get the pizza when it was delivered. Taylor couldn’t see me from where he was and I could have run out the door. I was afraid if I did he’d take it out on the other two. I tried to stay on his good side.”
Austin reported that Taylor said he was hungry and asked her to call the command center for food. She said Oliver also asked for cigarettes and matches.
According to the hostages, the Pizza Hut pizza was inside a trash bag and taped shut. The package also contained two cartons of Diet Dr Pepper and Diet Pepsi, cups of peaches and the cigarettes inside another garbage bag and all sealed with duct tape.
“It took four hours to get there,” Oliver noted. “I don’t know why it took so long. Taylor was getting agitated. He called about 20 times.”
Austin and Oliver said someone ran up the steps and threw the bundle inside the first set of doors to the building. Oliver retrieved it.
“It was packaged very strange,” he stated. “I was leery of opening it.”
The pair said Taylor wouldn’t let them go the restroom, instead he told them to use the trashcans. Austin and Oliver managed not to need the services.
“The gunman peed on the floor,” Oliver commented. “The older gentleman peed in the trash can.”

Release at last
As the evening dragged on, Taylor became more agitated. Oliver had to mix the man’s medication.
“I convinced him it was a no-win situation,” Oliver stated. “I played on his dignity about the police storming the building and taking him down.”
According to him, Taylor called the police and told them he wanted to be taken to a prison that would allow him to keep his wheelchair and his artificial leg. He also asked to be transported in a large vehicle.
An hour and a half passed, according to Oliver, before police met Taylor’s terms.
“It took them so long, I was afraid he’d change his mind,” Oliver stated. “I was more worried about the police making a mistake than I was about Taylor. He had asked for the FBI in the beginning and referred to the police as Barney Fifes.”
Finally, the hostages were allowed to leave one at a time, two minutes apart. Austin went first around 10:50 p.m.
“He wanted me to go last,” Austin said. “I said women always go first.”
She later learned Taylor was a registered sex offender.
“If I’d known then what I know now I would have been more afraid,” Austin remarked.
Oliver said police ordered him to come down the steps, turn around and back behind an armored vehicle. He was handcuffed, searched and taken to the interrogation room across the street at Holy Trinity Lutheran Church.
“I guess they wanted to make sure they had the right guy,” Oliver commented. “I was in there about an hour and don’t know what happened with Taylor. I never saw the other two again.”
Since his vehicle was parked at the post office, Oliver was not allowed to get it. He was taken by police to his mother’s house in town, where he spent the night.
“I didn’t sleep Wednesday night,” Oliver recalled. “I was pretty worked up.”
Oliver said his 16-year-old son had called his cell phone from Florida during the time he was a hostage. Mailing the gifts to his sons, the 16-year-old and a 14-year-old in Florida, had brought Oliver to the post office in the first place.
Interrogated separately, Austin, who lives in Austinville, called her dad in Wytheville to come for her. Her 16-year-old daughter was waiting for her.
“I tried to sleep but I couldn’t turn my mind off,” Austin said. “I slept a few hours the next night and the next night I couldn’t sleep. I still don’t have an appetite.”
While Oliver has all the newspaper articles about him and the situation, he has not read any of them yet. He did catch a glimpse of himself in a television interview.
“I still think about it all,” Oliver added. “I’ve been through worse situations. I’ve seen worse. My mission was to keep my two buddies alive. They handled it very well.”
Wayne Quesenberry can be reached at 228-6611 or wquesenberry@wythenews.com.