Christopher Duffner, 26, of 1124 Parkway St. in Covington lumbered up the aisle on the bus within a half hour of the bus' 1:30 a.m. departure from Columbia, S.C., police said. Placing a sharp metal object against the driver's throat, Mr. Duffner forced the driver from his seat and took control of the wheel, said Capt. Ross Stutts of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department.
Police said that after gaining control of the bus, Mr. Duffner ranted about the action movie Speed (in which a madman threatens to detonate a bus unless a certain speed is maintained) and threatened to drive off a bridge.
The news Saturday from Charlotte, N.C., where the harrowing bus ride ended, shocked the older brother with whom Mr. Duffner shared a home.
"He was one of the greatest guys in the world," said Joseph Duffner, 34, of Covington, one of seven children in the family. "I still don't believe it."
Chris Duffner, a fork-lift operator for a Northern Kentucky company, left Cincinnati Wednesday for Myrtle Beach, S.C., Joseph Duffner said.
There, the Ludlow native planned to meet with a family friend about a construction job, but was expected back at work Monday.
But two men allegedly robbed Mr. Duffner at gunpoint, stealing the $400 in spending money he'd taken south for the weekend and forcing a change in plans, Joseph Duffner said. The older brother wired a Cincinnati-bound bus ticket Friday to Chris and expected his return Saturday.
A 2:30 p.m. phone call Saturday from a Charlotte police detective - a call which Joseph Duffner suspected might be his brother seeking a ride from the local Greyhound station - stunned the family.
"The Chris we know, this isn't something he would do," said Traci Duffner, Joseph's wife. She recalled a generous brother-in-law who often helped friends with car repairs and home remodeling. "'We'd like to talk to somebody on that bus who saw him. None of this makes sense."
Mr. Duffner was best man in Joseph and Traci's June 1995 wedding. Police could offer the couple few explanations of how Chris Duffner died, only that a struggle between Mr. Duffner and some of the bus's 25 passengers preceded his death.
After emergency crews transferred Mr. Duffner to Carolina Medical Center in Charlotte, he was pronounced dead at 3:21 a.m., police said. There were no external injuries to Mr. Duffner indicating a cause of death, Capt. Stutts said, confirming that he had neither been shot nor stabbed.
"We don't know (how he died)," Capt. Stutts said. "A medical examiner will do an autopsy sometime next week."
A calm bus driver forced the vehicle to a stop, and he and some of his passengers overwhelmed the hijacker.
Beyond a scratch to the driver's neck, none of the others was injured, police said. But five were taken to hospitals complaining of chest pains.
Witnesses aboard the bus described Mr. Duffner's strange behavior. "He was talking out of his head the entire time. He said he was going to 'stab them before they stab me,' " said passenger Sherry Knight of Charleston, S.C.
Ms. Knight said she and Mr. Duffner had boarded one bus in North Charleston and transferred to the Charlotte-bound bus in Columbia. "It got pretty hairy for a while. I just started praying," said passenger Claude LaRue of Atlanta, on his way to a family reunion in Virginia.
"He meant to kill us. He said he was going to take us to the mountains and maybe let the kids off before he drove off" with the other passengers, said Kay Lane of Jonesborough, Tenn., who said she sat next to Mr. Duffner before he took over the bus.
Police said Mr. Duffner ordered the passengers to the back as he drove north on Interstate 77. Bus driver H. Gene Sparks, keeping a seat near the front of the bus, kept everyone calm.
For nearly an hour, Mr. Duffner "had been driving the bus in somewhat of a reasonable manner," Capt. Stutts said. But as the bus approached Charlotte, "he started weaving in the road and speeding. That's when some of (the passengers) feared for their life and decided they needed to do something."
As the bus neared Charlotte, Mr. Sparks noticed that the hijacker "started to talk more erratic than he had been and acted more erratic," said Rick Vanhoy, Greyhound's area manager in Charlotte.
Mr. Sparks pulled the emergency brake, and he and Mr. Duffner tumbled into the stairwell, where they fought. Another Greyhound driver who was riding the bus to start a trip from Charlotte, Gary Sutton of Columbia, S.C., grabbed the wheel and stopped the bus against the concrete median, said Mr. Vanhoy.
Then some of the passengers "took it upon themselves to overtake the overtaker," and went to Mr. Sparks' aid, Mr. Felder said.
Joseph Duffner said his brother had never been in trouble before and did not have a drinking or drug problem. But Joseph Duffner said their father's death last year had a lasting impact.
"It really affected him, and he hasn't been the same," he said.
Associated Press contributed to this report.
