'He held me so close I could feel his heart pounding against my back,' Court TV producer Maria Zone said of the four-hour hostage ordeal she endured at an upstate prison recently.
Zone told Court TV she feared that convicted murderer Kenneth Kimes would make good on his threats to hurt her with a pen. 'I just had these flashes of him jabbing me in my eyes,' she said.
Kimes grabbed Zone, 35, during the taping of an interview for a Court TV documentary, holding her hostage inside of Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, N.Y. Kimes is serving a 125-year sentence for the murder of Manhattan millionaire Irene Silverman. Silverman's body has never been found, and Kimes has maintained his innocence.
Kimes eagerness to tell his side of the story was the reason he agreed to the interview, but when the television crew arrived at the prison, he had second thoughts, cameraman Drew Harty told Court TV.
Hardy said while Zone and Kimes were negotiating about whether the interview would actually take place, the inmate 'was quite nervous, he was a little agitated, it was quite an unusual situation.'
Kimes ended up taking Zone hostage during a break about five minutes into the filming. Harty, who was filming the interview along with sound operator Jeremy Drowne said that Kimes grabbed Zone and yelled 'Get back, get back! I'm going to hurt her.' Officers quickly removed Harty and Drowne from the room.
Zone said that she did not want to interfere with the hostage negotiators, but she did urge Kimes to end the stand-off.