Tony Kiritsis' Apartment

Author: Jewls Krueger

In February 1977, a 44 year old Indianapolis real estate developer named Anthony "Tony" Kiritsis took mortgage executive Richard "Dick" Hall hostage at gunpoint, wired a sawed off shotgun to the back of Hall's neck with a "dead man's line" trigger, and held him captive for 63 hours, most of it inside Kiritsis' own apartment at the Crestwood Village complex on the west side of Indianapolis.

The standoff was broadcast live on local and national television, captivated the nation, and won a Pulitzer Prize for the photograph that came to define it.

The People and the Apartment

Anthony George Kiritsis was born in Indianapolis on August 13, 1932, the fourth of five children of Greek immigrant parents. He served briefly in the U.S. Army as a small arms instructor at West Point and worked for years as a small time real estate developer in Indianapolis. By the mid 1970s he had purchased a 17 acre property in the suburb of Speedway, Indiana with hopes of developing it into a shopping center.

He financed the project with a $130,000 mortgage from Meridian Mortgage Company, a family owned firm run by Richard O. Hall and his father M.L. Hall.

When Kiritsis was unable to secure investors or major retail anchors for the property, he fell behind on his mortgage payments. He became convinced that the Halls were deliberately sabotaging his project so they could acquire the land themselves at a discount. He lived alone in an apartment at the Crestwood Village apartment complex on the west side of Indianapolis, a quiet, low rise apartment community of brick buildings off West 10th Street.

The Hostage Taking

On the morning of February 8, 1977, Kiritsis arrived at Meridian Mortgage's downtown Indianapolis office for an 8 a.m. appointment carrying a sawed off 12 gauge Winchester shotgun. He attached the muzzle of the shotgun to the back of Hall's head with wire and ran the wire down to the trigger and then to his own neck, creating what he called a "dead man's line." If Kiritsis was shot or pulled away, the gun would discharge into Hall's head.

Kiritsis marched Hall out of the building and paraded him through downtown Indianapolis in near zero degree weather, surrounded by police and television crews. After several blocks, he commandeered an unattended Indianapolis police cruiser and forced Hall to drive them back to Kiritsis' apartment at Crestwood Village. He told police he had rigged the apartment with dynamite.

Inside the Apartment

Kiritsis & Hall - Public Domain

For nearly three days, Kiritsis held Hall inside the small apartment, much of the time with the shotgun still wired to the back of Hall's head. He chained Hall in the bathroom at various points and demanded a public apology from Meridian Mortgage, $5 million in compensation, and immunity from state, federal, and civil prosecution.

Kiritsis repeatedly called WIBC AM radio newsman Fred Heckman, who served as an unofficial mediator and broadcast portions of their conversations live. Television trucks and reporters surrounded the apartment complex, and a sympathetic neighbor turned her own unit over to WIBC as a staging area with a direct view of Kiritsis' apartment door. On February 10, after a tentative agreement was reached, Kiritsis led Hall at gunpoint to the lobby of the apartment building, where he delivered an obscenity laced, 23 minute monologue that was broadcast live in prime time on every Indianapolis television station. He then released Hall and was immediately taken into custody.

Trial and Aftermath

Kiritsis was tried in October 1977 on charges of kidnapping, armed robbery, and armed extortion. On October 21, 1977, he was found not guilty by reason of insanity after defense psychiatrists testified he had been in a paranoid delusional state during the standoff. The verdict was met with audible cheers from a crowd at an Indianapolis Pacers game when it was announced over the public address system.

Kiritsis was committed to state mental hospitals and held for roughly eleven years. He was released in January 1988 after the state was unable to prove he remained a danger or mentally ill. He returned to Indianapolis and lived quietly until his death from natural causes on January 28, 2005. The Kiritsis trial, along with the trial of John Hinckley Jr., led Indiana and several other states to revise their laws to place the burden of proof for insanity defenses on the defendant. Richard Hall lived with lasting trauma from the ordeal and published a memoir titled "Kiritsis and Me" in 2017. He died in 2022.

In the Media

A movie was made about the incident in 2026 called "Dead Man's Wire", directed by Gus Van Sant and starring Bill Skarsgård as Tony Kiritsis and Dacre Montgomery as Richard Hall.

Tony Kiritsis' Apartment Today

The Crestwood Village apartment complex still stands today on the west side of Indianapolis, just south of West 10th Street and not far from the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. It remains a working, occupied apartment community. The unit where Kiritsis held Hall hostage is a private residence today, occupied by a tenant with no connection to the 1977 events.

Please be respectful of the current residents and the surrounding community, stay on public roads and walkways, and do not enter the property or attempt to identify the specific unit.