American Hostage ending explained: the verdict in the real Tony Kiritsis case made Indiana change its laws

The MGM+ series wrapped its eight-episode run on November 1 with "Break the Bank." Shawn Ryan and Eileen Myers created it from the 2022 scripted podcast of the same name, about the 1977 Indianapolis standoff in which Tony Kiritsis wired a sawed-off shotgun to the head of his mortgage broker, Dick Hall, and held him for 63 hours. Jon Hamm plays Fred Heckman, the radio news director Kiritsis insisted on talking to. Giovanni Ribisi plays Kiritsis, and Kristoffer Polaha plays Hall.

How the standoff ends

Tony comes down because of an immunity deal, and Fred helped sell it to him. Fred also knows it's worthless. In the previous episode, he caught police officers rehearsing how to kill Tony, and he begged him to come downstairs unarmed.

Tony comes down armed anyway, and makes the most of it. He has Dick read out a statement of his grievances against Meridian Mortgage, then takes the microphone himself and finally gets the national audience he's been demanding for three days.

The moment Dick is free, Tony is arrested. Police argue that coming downstairs with a gun voided his immunity. Tony points out, not unreasonably, that the deal never said anything about being unarmed. His lawyer, John Ruckelshaus, played by Adam Arkin, quietly walks away from him.

The verdict

At a hearing, Fred admits that he lied. Tony calls him to the stand, then decides Fred isn't trustworthy enough to explain himself. Tony is found not guilty by reason of insanity and committed to a psychiatric institution.

The finale then winds down in four short scenes:

• Fred drives to the institution to show Tony what he's found about the case, including evidence of illegal wiretapping. Tony refuses to see him, so Fred leaves the file with the receptionist.
• Fred destroys his recording of a private conversation between Tony and Dick.
• At a bar, Dick tells Fred he resents how much of his attention Tony got. He was the one with the shotgun at his head.
• Tony gets a fantasy: a steakhouse dinner and the life he thought he was owed.

A closing card says Meridian Mortgage bought Tony's land at a sheriff's sale on December 1, 1978, for $180,000, just as he'd predicted. The series ends on footage of the real Tony Kiritsis.

What really happened

The show sticks close to the record on the big beats. According to a lawyer involved, Hall signed a document during the standoff admitting he'd mistreated Kiritsis, agreeing to pay him $5 million and promising he wouldn't be prosecuted. Kiritsis walked Hall out and held a live press conference that ran more than half an hour, in which he called himself "a goddamned national hero." He released Hall, fired the shotgun into the air to show it had been loaded, and was arrested.

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The immunity didn't hold. He was charged with kidnapping, armed robbery and armed extortion, and pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. Under Indiana law at the time, once a defendant raised insanity, the prosecution had to prove he was sane beyond a reasonable doubt.

"All we had to do was raise a reasonable doubt in the jury's mind," Kiritsis's co-counsel Richard Kiefer told The Indiana Lawyer.

On October 21, 1977, the jury found him not guilty by reason of insanity.

How Indiana changed its laws

The Indiana General Assembly answered at its very next session. In 1978, it flipped the burden: a defendant pleading insanity now has to prove it, by a preponderance of the evidence.

Three years later, in 1981, Indiana also added a new verdict, "guilty but mentally ill," becoming the second state after Michigan to have one. That change is usually tied to a different Indiana case, the trial of Steven Judy. The rest of the country caught up after John Hinckley Jr. was found not guilty by reason of insanity in 1982 for shooting President Reagan, and in 1984 Congress put the burden of proving insanity on the defendant in federal cases.

Kiritsis spent 11 years in state institutions. He was released in January 1988, after the state couldn't show he was still dangerous, and died in Indianapolis in 2005. Dick Hall published his own account of the 63 hours, Kiritsis & Me, in 2017, and died in 2022.

Previously we wrote: Why does R.J. Decker season 2 have only 7 episodes? The finale has aired, and ABC still hasn't announced season 3