Tapes Indicate Prison Hostages Are All Alive : Standoff: The recorded voices of five guards are confirmed by relatives. TV crew waits for inmates’ broadcast.

As an inmate rebellion stretched into a second week at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility, negotiators said Sunday they have audiotapes proving that five guards held hostage are alive.

Sharron Kornegay, spokeswoman for the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction, said the families of the remaining hostages had listened to the tape, received through negotiations, and verified the voices.

Kornegay would not disclose the contents of the tape. She said at an afternoon briefing that negotiations to end the standoff had resumed but would not say if any progress was made.

At the state’s request, a Cincinnati TV station’s satellite truck spent much of the day waiting to move to a fence outside the prison’s exercise yard in response to prisoners’ demands for a live broadcast.

By evening, the crew had not yet received word to proceed.

Seven inmates lost their lives in the first two days of the takeover of L Block. A hostage, Robert Vallandingham, was killed the day after another prison spokeswoman discounted a menacing message on a sheet hung from one of the cellblock’s windows.

James Anthony Demons, the second of two freed hostages, told reporters that Vallandingham was beaten and hung as a direct result of the remarks by Tessa Unwin.

Unwin had said at a press briefing that the statement on the sheet, which warned that a hostage would be killed if demands were not met by an afternoon deadline, was “a standard threat.”

Kornegay declined to comment on Demons’ statement.

In Lucasville, flags remained at half-staff Sunday, and yellow ribbons to demonstrate solidarity with the hostages adorned front doors and telephone poles.

Hundreds of mourners filed through a funeral home in nearby Portsmouth to pay their respects to Vallandingham. Law enforcement officers in the mortuary and standing outside on streets and sidewalks wore black tape over their badges. A memorial service is scheduled today.

Sidewalk signs in front of stores on Route 23, the main road through this community, proclaimed: “Our Prayers Are With Hostages, Families and Guards” and “God Bless Emergency Workers.”

About a dozen residents stood on a low hillside near the prison with posters voicing their bitterness over demands broadcast last week by representatives of the 450 barricaded inmates in exchange for hostage releases.

The inmates’ radio message on Thursday and a TV broadcast on Friday said the removal of Warden Arthur Tate was a condition of a peaceful surrender and asked for an end to “nepotism” in the hiring of guards.

The inmate featured in the TV broadcast also enumerated demands of Muslim inmates. He said they want to be able to wear distinctive religious garb, carry prayer beads and that they want space and office supplies.

Such talk infuriated the protesters on the hill. “When You Commit Crimes Against Society, You Forfeit Your Rights,” read one sign. “Negotiate What?” read another.

But it was the posters that enraged the sister of one hostage.

Certain that the harsh words could enrage inmates, who have battery-powered TVs and radios, she shouted up to the demonstrators.

“You don’t know what they’re doing to them in there. Please, be careful. Please.”