The Nation - News from Nov. 10, 1985

A former mayor and a town clerk taken hostage at knifepoint in Highland Lake, Ala., by two escaped prisoners were released unharmed near the Georgia border, and police issued a nine-state alert for the fugitives. Frank Lucas, 46, the ex-mayor, and Harriet Cornelius, 48, were freed 10 miles southeast of Phenix City, police said. “We were threatened all the time with a knife,” said Lucas, adding that the escapees from a work crew were drunk Friday when they forced him and Cornelius out of Town Hall. The hostages were left tied up in the woods but Lucas said he worked his wrists free and found help at a farmhouse.