August 10, 2005
A fugitive inmate and his wife, wanted in a brazen courthouse escape and shooting in Tennessee, were captured Wednesday night at an Ohio motel, authorities said.
"George Hyatte and Jennifer Forsyth Hyatte were in a room at an America's Best Value Inn in Columbus and were arrested without a struggle," said Mark Gwyn, director of the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation.
"We have found weapons," he said. "We don't know if it's the murder weapon, but we're processing those as we speak."
On Tuesday, authorities said Jennifer Hyatte, 31, ambushed two guards as they were leading her 34-year-old husband from a courthouse hearing in Kingston, Tenn. Guard Wayne 'Cotton' Morgan was fatally shot in the escape.
Gwyn said the Hyattes would be brought back to Tennessee on warrants for first degree murder. They were arrested nearly 300 miles north of Kingston. "Jennifer Hyatte had some injuries," he said, but he declined to elaborate.
A tip had led authorities earlier in the day to a van outside a Kentucky motel just south of Cincinnati that was believed to have been used by the couple. U.S. marshals burst into a room there, but the couple was gone, said U.S. Marshal John Schickel.
Gwyn said 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.
