On a raw February morning in 1977, Indianapolis police radio frequencies crackled with the first acts of what was to become a bizarre and frightening, three-day-long psychodrama. A man named Tony Kiritsis had wired a shotgun to the back of Richard Hall’s head. In a type of manic march, Kiritsis nudged and shoved Hall from his downtown Indianapolis office over piles of snow on midtown streets. Kiritsis was belligerent. Hall’s throat was bound and it appeared as though the harness device strapped to the shotgun might choke him. Kiritsis fingered the trigger with his right hand as he held the barrel in his left, prodding Hall. It was cold. Both men were in shirtsleeves. Citizens and police were simply stunned by what they saw.
The cursing and screaming Kiritsis commandeered a police car and sped off to the west. Something was about to change in American media coverage, and forever in the life of Richard Hall. For three days his angry, ranting captor threated to kill him as radio, television, wire service and newspaper reporters covered every turn of event.
We have waited four decades to hear more of the story. Richard Hall now shares his singular experience of being the victim of an historic act of terror that seized the world’s attention and ushered the media into an unpredictable new world.
by Tom Cochrun, former reporter WIBC radio and WTHR-CH 13
-from Kiritsis and Me: Enduring 63 hours at Gunpoint
