A distraught postal employee who wounded three people and held a female hostage overnight in the city's main post office downtown surrendered to FBI agents Thursday, ending a 13-hour standoff punctuated by shotgun fire.
Warren Murphy, a six-year employee of the post office, surrendered peacefully and his hostage was not harmed, FBI spokesman Volne Hayes said.Murphy had holed up in a supervisor's locker room with no windows and only one entrance during the night, keeping federal agents at bay by occasionally firing a shotgun blast under the door.
When he came out of the room, FBI agents immediately took him to the 14th floor of the adjacent Federal Building for examination and to be fingerprinted. He was to be taken before a federal magistrate later.
"What he told me on the way out was that he was concerned about his children and he was distraught about many things," said Peter Rogers, a police chaplain who had taken part in the negotiations that ended the standoff.
The woman hostage was reported to be in a state shock.