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| Fugitive couple surrenders peacefully Tennessee inmate, wife captured at Ohio |
| By Associated Press |
| Published: 08/11/2005 |
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COLUMBUS, Ohio - When police called the motel room to tell the couple they were surrounded, the husband and wife a convicted robber and former prison nurse surrendered peacefully. The scene Wednesday night was nothing like what happened a day earlier outside a courthouse in Kingston, Tenn., where authorities say the woman ambushed two prison guards as they were leading her husband from a hearing, fatally shooting one before the couple sped away. With at least 25 officers on the motel balcony and in the parking lot, Jennifer Forsyth Hyatte, 31, and George Hyatte, 34, came out of their second-floor room at the America's Best Value Inn and were arrested without a struggle, ending a 300-mile manhunt, authorities said. It started with a call to the room from Deputy U.S. Marshal Nikki Ralston between 9:30 and 10 p.m. “A female answered the phone,” Ralston said. “And I said, Hey Jennifer.' She said, 'Yes,' and I knew it was her.” Ralston identified herself and told Jennifer Hyatte that the room was surrounded by U.S. Marshals and Columbus SWAT members. “I said you need to get George, both of you need to exit the hotel room and follow the directions of the officers who will be to your immediate right,” Ralston said. George Hyatte didn't initially believe who was on the phone. “He said, They wouldn't call, they'd kick the door in,”' Ralston said Jennifer Hyatte told her. Motel guest Robin Penn, who was watching from her first-floor window across the parking lot, said Jennifer Hyatte was limping as she left the room with her hands up. George Hyatte then came out of the room with his shirt pulled over his head, walked backward toward the stairwell, got on his knees and was handcuffed. “They really didn't show any emotion at all,” Penn said. Jennifer Hyatte was taken to Grant Medical Center where she was treated for a bullet wound to her leg, Ralston said. Authorities believe it was the result of return gunfire from one of the two guards who were escorting Hyatte Tuesday. A nursing supervisor at the hospital would not release any information. George Hyatte was taken to the Franklin County jail, and Jennifer was expected to go there after being treated, said John Bolen, a supervisor for the U.S. Marshals Service in Columbus. Authorities said the couple would be brought back to Tennessee on warrants for first-degree murder in the death of Wayne “Cotton” Morgan, 56. Authorities had already tracked the Hyattes to the Cincinnati area when they received a tip around 9 p.m. that the couple was at the Columbus motel. A cab driver who had apparently driven them to Columbus from Erlanger, Ky., just south of Cincinnati, called Erlanger police, U.S. Marshal John Schickel said. A supervisor at Community Yellow Cab, based in Newport, Ky., confirmed that one of the company's drivers took the couple to Columbus. Supervisor Danny Cooper said the driver, whom he wouldn't name, didn't want to talk to the media. Inside the couple's room, cans of Mountain Dew and Hawaiian Punch littered the night table, and bags of takeout food wrappers were on a desk. The bed covers sat in a pile, mostly on the floor, and one of the two mattresses was pushed halfway off the box spring. “We have found weapons,” said Mark Gwyn, director of the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation. “We don't know if it's the murder weapon, but we're processing those as we speak.” Earlier in the day, outside a motel in Erlanger, authorities had tracked down a van the couple was believed to have used. The couple was gone, but authorities knew then that they were getting close. Blood had been found in the motel room, and an employee at a nearby restaurant told federal agents she had given directions that day to a couple she later recognized as the fugitives. Before the escape Tuesday, George Hyatte had been in court to plead guilty to a robbery charge. He was two years into a 35-year sentence for robbery and assault. The escape was at least the fifth time he had gotten away from law enforcement officials. The other escapes were from local authorities in east Tennessee in 1990, 1991, 1998 and 2002. Jennifer Hyatte met her husband as a prison nurse and was fired last year for sneaking food to him. A few months later, she got permission from the warden to marry George Hyatte, a man with a long and violent criminal record. Her ex-husband, Eli Gourdin, told the Deseret Morning News of Salt Lake City that he last spoke with Jennifer Hyatte Monday when she told him how excited she was that George was going to be released. “We don't know George, we can't judge George,” Gourdin's current wife, Katie, told the paper for Thursday's editions. “You know, we've never met him. We only know what Jennifer's told us. She's very much in love with him.” Eli Gourdin said Jennifer Hyatte had custody of their three children, the oldest of which is 12 years old. The children have been staying with him for the summer, he said. |
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