Mother of Alabama boy held hostage in bunker tells Dr Phil he saw agents shoot kidnapper

The mother of the Alabama boy snatched off a school bus and held hostage in an underground bunker for days by Jimmy Lee Dykes, says her son saw officers shoot dead his kidnapper.

Jennifer Kirkland's has revealed that her son, named Ethan, 6, saw the killing in an interview with TV host Phil McGraw, set to air Wednesday.

In a promotional clip for the show, Dr. Phil, reported by the Associated Press, Kirkland says:

"He says, 'The Army came in and shot the bad man.'" 

According to ABC News, McGraw visited the pair two days after Ethan was freed in a rescue Feb 4. after being held for six days as a hostage by Dykes, 65.

SWAT agents stormed the bunker, in rural southeast Alabama, and killed Dykes to end the standoff. 

In the interview, for "The Dr. Phil Show," Kirkland tells McGraw  that Ethan "has had a very hard time sleeping soundly." 

"He slings his arms and tosses and turns. He's cried out a few times." 

The sight of school buses also seems to bother Ethan and he hasn't yet returned to school.

Reported, McGraw surmises that the Ethan associates buses with a traumatic experience. 

Dykes shot the driver of Ethan's school bus — Charles Albert Poland, 66 — to death before taking him, seemingly randomly.

However, McGraw told ABC:

"We know for example that Mr. Dykes seemed to have some empathy for the child. We do know that Mr. Dykes fried him chicken in the bunker to feed him and take care of him." 

According to ABC News, "The Dr. Phil Show" has said it planned to provide Ethan and his mother with support and resources.