An attempted armed robbery at a Nassau Street bank early Thursday night left one suspect dead and two still at large. A five- hour manhunt through Princeton involving several helicopters and police ground forces ensued for the suspects who escaped and are believed to be dangerous.

     Only an elderly Princeton resident whose car the fleeing suspects stole was injured.

     Though police never searched the University for the suspects, e-mails and flyers were posted to alert students of the potential danger and urged them to stay inside.

     As of Friday afternoon, no arrests had been made, though a multi-jurisdictional investigation involving the FBI, the New Jersey State Police and the Mercer County Prosecutor’s Office continues.

     Police did not release the names of hostages or of the dead suspect.

     Borough Police Chief Thomas Michaud identified one of the at-large suspects as a 5-foot-7-inch tall 20- year-old male with light skin wearing a green hood and ski mask.

     At 6:23 p.m., an ATM repairman called 911 from the Sovereign Bank after reportedly seeing a female employee inside the bank with her hands bound.

     Within minutes, twelve Borough Police officers responded to the call at 188 Nassau St., across from the visual arts department and Thomas Sweets, but found the front door unlocked and no initial danger in the branch, which had closed around 4 p.m.

     As the officers searched the first floor, they heard a moving elevator. As a male in his 20s wearing a black ski mask and latex gloves emerged from the elevator holding a .44 caliber revolver to a bank employee’s head, three armed officers -- two firearms instructors and a sniper --confronted him and the female hostage.

     “He started screaming he was going to kill the woman,” Michaud said, adding he did not know how the suspects initially entered the bank.

     The man first pointed his weapon at the officers, but then aimed at the woman again. While he was changing his aim, the officers opened fire, killing him and leaving the hostage and themselves uninjured.

     In the meantime, a backup police officer observed another man -- armed with an automatic weapon -- escaping out the back with another female employee held hostage.

     The suspect rushed into his getaway car parked behind the bank, waited for a third and last accomplice to get in, and both sped off with the second hostage, averting patrol cars on the chase, police said.

     But after crashing into a wall on Jefferson Road, the two suspects hijacked a white Ford Taurus with handicapped plates, throwing out one of its elderly owners and forcing the other to drive, police said. The second bank employee was freed.

     Eventually the suspects threw out the 91-year-old Princeton resident, Lucius Wilmerding, who was later admitted to the Medical Center at Princeton.

     Soon thereafter, the two suspects abandoned the station wagon on the corner of Witherspoon and Hulfish streets, where they were last seen by witnesses. They left a large sum of stolen money behind, but the police declined to divulge how much or whether it was the entire amount stolen from the bank.

     A third bank employee was working on the branch’s second floor, but was unaware of the robbery.

     Both hostages were shaken, but not injured.

     Once on the scene, police from Trenton, West Windsor and Princeton townships and Princeton Borough blocked off Hulfish Street.      Shortly thereafter authorities apprehended a Latino clad in jeans and a black jacket who police said “fit the description” of one of the suspects. The young male, who appeared to be in his late teens, was released an hour after being detained.

     Aided by State Police SWAT teams, the FBI, at least one helicopter and three search dogs, teams of police -- mainly State -- headed north through Princeton, searching the cemetery, Community Park, residential areas and abandoned warehouses.

     Police plan to evaluate surveillance tapes of the Hulfish parking garage, where witnesses reported possible suspects’ fleeing. The search was called off shortly after 11 p.m. yesterday, though a helicopter hovered over Princeton Friday morning.

     The Mercer County Medical Examiner removed the suspect’s body from the crime scene at 1:45 a.m.

     The last robbery to involve a shooting and death in Princeton occurred 18 years ago, when a bank teller was shot at the now-defunct Princeton Bank of Trust.

     Witnesses went into more detail on last night’s circumstances. Jim O’Brien said he observed parts of a scuffle in the bank’s back parking lot.

     “I heard a gunshot, a woman screaming really bad -- like a fight,” O’Brien said.

     (Staff writers Ian Shapira, Griff Witte, Stephen Fuzesi, Jed Seltzer and Heather Swanson contributed to this story.)