"Walter Riedl...figured the only way to keep his wife safe was to give the gunman the keys to his truck and volunteer to become his hostage."

"The 69-year-old Riedl told Linda, his sweetheart since high school, not to cry, that everything was going to be OK...."

Driving Riedl’s 2004 GMC 2500HD pickup truck — a cattle trailer still attached with a cow inside of it — [James] Kruger drove erratically and acted irrationally as he sought to elude police, Riedl said. Opportunities to escape eluded him.

As they approached Dodgeville on Highway 18, he knew the city’s two traffic lights would give him a chance to jump out.

“First time in my life we got two green lights,” Riedl said.

Still, he never panicked...