FUGITIVE COUPLE CAUGHT

IgnoranceIsBliss · #1 08-11-2005

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COLUMBUS, Ohio (Reuters) - An escaped convict and his wife who shot a guard to death outside a Tennessee courtroom were apprehended at a motel in Columbus, Ohio, on Wednesday.

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George Hyatte and Jennifer Hyatte surrendered on Wednesday evening after about 20 law-enforcement officers surrounded their motel room, John Bolen of the U.S. Marshals Service told CNN.

After evacuating motel guests from nearby rooms, an officer phoned the couple's room and told Jennifer Hyatte "that the room was surrounded and that essentially they had no hope of escape," Bolen said.

"We gave them an opportunity to self-surrender, at which time they did so," he added.

Jennifer Hyatte, a former prison nurse, was carried from the room and taken to a hospital. She had apparently been wounded in the Tennessee shootout that broke out on Tuesday when she opened fire on guards escorting her shackled husband from a Tennessee courthouse.

Three bullets struck Tennessee Department of Corrections guard Wayne "Cotton" Morgan, 56, who died at a hospital.

The officers swooped on the Columbus motel after a cab driver contacted them and said he believed he had driven the couple from Kentucky to the north side of the city.

Earlier on Wednesday, the two apparently escaped capture by minutes in northern Kentucky after their second getaway vehicle was found at a motel in Erlanger, Kentucky.

"We feel the couple had been there and left minutes earlier," said Mark Gwyn, director of the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation. Acting on a tip, U.S. marshals and local officers went to the motel in Erlanger, south of Cincinnati, and discovered the van.

The motel was evacuated and armed officers entered a motel room but found it empty.

(Additional reporting by Jim Balloch in Knoxville, Tennessee)