The ITERATE (International Terrorism: Attributes of Terrorist Events) data set compiled by Mickolus et al., indicates that governments basically respond to terrorist hostage incidents in three ways: negotiation, shootout, and other responses such as massive nationwide searches for terrorists, especially when kidnapping occurs. This empirical study by using logit models, tries to estimate the probability of hostages being killed because of these response options. It focuses on characteristics of negotiators and tries to estimate the probability of hostages being killed when the number of negotiators increases, controlling for: the duration and the size of the incident, the number of governments and entities involved, terrorists' demands and behaviors, and the effect of having non-governmental targets when ransom is demanded by terrorists. It offers policy implications regarding how to handle hostage-taking terrorism incidents and the appropriate number of negotiators in a negotiation process.