Shot Fired Inside House of Maryland Hostages

A shot was fired Monday inside the house where an alleged killer has been holding his ex-girlfriend’s mother and two other people hostage since Friday, authorities said.

After the shot, police used a loudspeaker to urge the suspect, Joseph Palczynski, to let them bring in an ambulance. But authorities said later that police did not believe anyone inside the house was seriously hurt.

“We are reasonably secure that no one needs medical help,” Baltimore County police spokesman Bill Toohey said. “We’re not rushing in there.

“His conversations with us have led us to believe we don’t have to go in.”

Palczynski, 31, has been on the run since March 7, when police say he kidnapped his ex-girlfriend, Tracy Whitehead, and killed the couple she was staying with and a neighbor. A fourth person was killed and a boy was wounded when Palczynski allegedly carjacked a vehicle.

Palczynski, who has spent much of his adult life in prison and mental health institutions, on Friday shot his way into the home of Whitehead’s mother, Lynn, and took her and two others hostage.

On Monday, a man and a woman believed to be the hostages yelled out the window to police that Palczynski would do something drastic if police didn’t put Tracy Whitehead on the phone.

Shortly after the shot was fired in the house, several shots were fired, apparently from the windows of the house, as Palczynski had done earlier in the day and on Sunday. Police who had been pleading with Palczynski while stationed in an armored vehicle moved away from the house.

Newspaper and broadcast reports have said Palczynski’s main demand has been to speak to Tracy Whitehead. Police have said they will not discuss the negotiations.

Police escorted people out of the blue-collar neighborhood Sunday night in armored cars and prevented dozens of residents from entering or leaving their homes because of the standoff. About a dozen people were trapped in their homes Monday, and some used walkie-talkies to relay details of the standoff to one another and to those outside the blocked-off area.

Palczynski had threatened Tracy Whitehead’s family before the hostage standoff began, a family member said. Susan Milliner, a cousin, told the Baltimore Sun that when Palczynski held Tracy Whitehead captive for 30 hours, he told her he was going to “get her family.”