Columbus, Ohio – A fugitive inmate and his wife, wanted in a brazen courthouse escape and fatal shooting in Tennessee, were captured Wednesday night at an Ohio motel after a tip from a cabdriver who had dropped them off, authorities said.
George Hyatte and Jennifer Forsyth Hyatte were arrested without a struggle at an America’s Best Value Inn in Columbus, 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 say, Jennifer Hyatte, 31, ambushed two guards as they were leading her 34-year-old husband from a courthouse hearing in Kingston, Tenn., about 300 miles south of Columbus. Guard Wayne “Cotton” Morgan was killed in the escape.
Jennifer Hyatte had some injuries, Gwyn said, but he declined to elaborate.
He said the couple would be returned to Tennessee on warrants for charges of first-degree murder.
Authorities had tracked the Hyattes to the Cincinnati area when they got a tip about 9 p.m. that the couple were at the Columbus motel. A cabdriver who had apparently driven them to Columbus from Erlanger, Ky., just south of Cincinnati, called Erlanger police, said U.S. Marshal John Schickel.
He declined to give any additional information or identify the cabdriver.
After the tip, authorities surrounded the motel, said John Bolen, a supervisor for the U.S. Marshals Service in Columbus.
Authorities called the motel room where the couple were staying and told them they were surrounded, and the couple came out of their room and surrendered about 10 p.m., Bolen said. They didn’t say anything during the arrest, he said.
Jennifer Hyatte had been a prison nurse when she met her husband 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.
