If you read any of the interviews she gave, she had begun to believe that he would not hurt HER, but she WAS concerned that if she took off, that he would leave and maybe kill someone else when he was trying to escape. Her decisions made sense to me, and it looks like her intuitions were correct. By the time she left to get her daughter, and called the police in the process, the guy had been 'talked down' to the point where he didn't try to fight his capture. I'd say she did a fine job of negotiating.
"I'd say she did a fine job of negotiating."
Yes, you put it very well. I think the fact that he waved a white flag indicates your assessement is correct, he was in a different mind set.
And, that's a good thing, based on where he was before.
I'm really a bad tempered Irish person (happy St. Patrick's day all), but for all my raging only once in my life did I have an actual, in my heart, desire to murder someone. It was a very revealing moment, and a very bad place to be. So, this woman got this man out of that place, where he had been for longer than the fleeting moment I was there.
She is absolutely a hero.
Let's face it, she's a hero to him, she saved his life, if no other, because without what she did his chances of going down in a hail of bullets was pretty darn good.
Now, he may get the death penalty, and be executed, and he would well deserve it, but he will have some life for a time. And that is good, if he strives to make amends for what he did, and repent his sins.
Let's not forget repentance and forgiveness, because without them, we are just animals; and PETA don't care about our kind.