GUILTY TN - Correctional officer Wayne Morgan, 56, shot dead by escapee's wife, 9 Aug 2005

Police: Inmates wife shoots officer at courthouse

Kingston, Tenn. - A state inmate escaped Tuesday after his wife shot and wounded a correctional officer accompanying the man to the courthouse, authorities said.

Authorities launched an extensive search for George and Jennifer Hyatte, Dept. of Correction spokeswoman Amanda Sluss said from her office in Nashville.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/08/09/courthouse.shooting.ap/index.html

Officer Wayne Morgan has since died. Prayers for his family!!!

All you guys that live in Tennessee and the surrounding border states be careful. Manhunt is on and I am sure they are quite desperate by now.

http://www.cnn.com/

That's horrible. Prayers indeed for the officer's family and co-workers. This man was probably being brought to the courthouse for some bogus motion. I wish more courts would use video conferencing for this purpose. There's no need for these inmates to ever leave the prisons during their sentence.

Dan is covering this now....wow

An inmate considered to be "extremely violent" escaped Tuesday after his wife gunned down and killed a guard who was escorting the shackled prisoner outside a courthouse, authorities said.

The bloody escape set off an extensive search for George and Jennifer Hyatte. Helicopters circled over this eastern Tennessee town and schools — open for student registration — were locked down.

The Ford Explorer in which the couple fled was later found abandoned with blood on the driver's side, and officers think the wife may have been wounded during the attack, Police Chief Jim Washam said. Authorities believe the pair later switched from the SUV to a van.

http://ap.ardmoreite.com/pstories/us/20050809/3213010.shtml

Jennifer Hyatte is one of the many women who've been wooed and won over by inmates. In August 2004, she was fired from her job as a licensed nurse practitioner at Tennessee's Northwest Correctional Complex in Tiptonville for having an inappropriate relationship with inmate George Hyatte, then serving a 35-year sentence on several robbery and assault convictions.

Details of their courtship are unclear, but the couple has since married and both are now fugitives. Jennifer Hyatte helped her husband to freedom Tuesday after allegedly shooting and killing a corrections officer outside a Tennessee courthouse.

Stories of women entering romantic relationships with male prisoners are common, but McDonald is a member of a very lonely demographic.

In a recent posting on PrisonTalk.com, a Web site where nearly 50,000 members seek and share comfort and advice about their relationships with inmates, McDonald asked, "How many men marry women in prison? And more to my case, how many marry women they met after incarceration? I've not encountered any others so far."

About one in every 138 Americans spent time in prison in 2004, with the number of female prisoners increasing by 2.9 percent over the previous year to 103,310, according to the latest data released by the Justice Department's Bureau of Justice Statistics. But it's an extraordinarily lopsided population. Men were 11 times more likely to be incarcerated than women.

Most often, prison officials say, inmates become seriously involved with someone they knew before their incarceration or with someone who regularly visits the prison. There are, however, a growing number of programs organized by anti-death penalty groups, and religious and community organizations that encourage letter-writing with inmates.
http://abcnews.go.com/US/US/story?id=889903&page=1&CMP=OTC-RSSFeeds0312

I wanted to post the front page of cnn.com because of the photos of the perps that are there. BOLO.....

http://www.cnn.com/

According to local news:
The car has been recovered in Erlanger, Ky at an Econo- lodge. LE is searching there and say there is evidence they had been there, but were not there when LE arrived. It is not known if they are still in the area, or if they might have stolen a car and gone on the run again.
Evidently there is some indications they had help with this escape plan. Nothing concrete is being said about who was helping at this point.

Because of blood found in that getaway car, officials think that bullet hit Jennifer Hyatte. Authorities think she may try to treat herself because she was a prison nurse. George Hyatte was serving a 35 year sentence for robbery and assault charges. US Marshalls and local law enforcement officers have recovered the gold Chevy Venture van with a black stripe. SWAT teams stormed several rooms at the Econo Lodge in Erlanger, but have not found the suspects.
http://wkrc.com/breaking/story.aspx?content_id=59F32181-DDDB-4796-86E2-501B0D94F406

more info:
http://www.channelcincinnati.com/news/4835149/detail.html

The couple was apparently seen sometime Wednesday afternoon. Police got a tip around 4 p.m. and made entry to the room.

Police wouldn't say what they found inside the room but they say it was clear that "they [the couple] or someone" had been in the room within the past four or five hours.

http://www.wcpo.com/news/2005/local/08/10/couple.html

mysteriew said:

The couple was apparently seen sometime Wednesday afternoon. Police got a tip around 4 p.m. and made entry to the room.

Police wouldn't say what they found inside the room but they say it was clear that "they [the couple] or someone" had been in the room within the past four or five hours.

http://www.wcpo.com/news/2005/local/08/10/couple.html

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Still running, I guess.But I do worry that they will prey upon other innocents in their quest for freedom. More than likely a rural situation. Please notify anyone you know in the area to be on the lookout.This isn't going to be a happy ending for anyone, especially the officer's family.

concernedperson said:

Still running, I guess.But I do worry that they will prey upon other innocents in their quest for freedom. More than likely a rural situation. Please notify anyone you know in the area to be on the lookout.This isn't going to be a happy ending for anyone, especially the officer's family.

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I either read or heard somewhere that LE may be thinking that they could possibly be headed for Chicago. That doesn't really mean much as they could be headed anywhere.

US Marshall's office indicates they don't know what vehicle they are in, and they are denying that there is any indication of any others being involved.

The WKRC reporter says there may be a witness to their escape. That the escape may have occurred just minutes before LE arrived. When they left they left belongings in the room as well as blood, so one or both is wounded.

mysteriew said:

US Marshall's office indicates they don't know what vehicle they are in, and they are denying that there is any indication of any others being involved.

The WKRC reporter says there may be a witness to their escape. That the escape may have occurred just minutes before LE arrived. When they left they left belongings in the room as well as blood, so one or both is wounded.

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This is really desperate folks. Please be careful. They know it isn't going to be a happy ending and your personal regard doesn't play into it.

Local news breaking: This couple has been arrested in Columbus, Ohio without incident. No details yet. Tenn. authorities will be having a press conference any minute now.


This article was before the capture but contains a lot of info on the family, and what was found in the motel.
http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/08/10/courthouse.shooting/index.html

The wife is injured, not known what extent. He will be in Columbus court tomorrow morn. and extradition proceedings will begin. She will go to court as soon as she is medically able. Info/ news conference by Tenn. authorities.

11 news state that Cotton Morgan's ( the guard's) family met with Hyatte's family tonight. The son says that he doesn't blame the family, and he just wants justice to be done for his father's death.

Cotton Morgan's family talks about him. Decorated war vet, Sun. School teacher, he really sounds like a special guy.
http://www.volunteertv.com/Global/story.asp?S=3703412&nav=4QcHd9io

They took a taxi from Erlanger to Columbus. Now how smart is that? I guess it is as smart though as thinking they could ever get away with something like this. What WERE they thinking? Or were they thinking? What happens to women who fall for criminals like this and give up everything for them?

George Hyatte, 34, and his wife, Jennifer, 31, were captured by U.S. marshals, FBI agents and Columbus police officers at about 10 p.m. EDT "without incident" at the Best Value Inn in Columbus, said Mark Gwyn, director of the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation.

The pair then took a cab from Erlanger, located outside of Cincinnati, to Columbus, according to U.S. Marshals.

Investigators said the cab driver called police and gave a description of the pair, WCMH-TV in Columbus reported. An undercover marshal searched the motel and found the Hyattes' room, on the motel's second floor.

Investigators said they called the motel room and Jennifer Hyatte answered the phone. Then they said they told her and her husband to surrender peacefully, WCMH reported.

Police officers and a SWAT team were outside the room when they surrendered, WCMH reported.

Gwyn said Jennifer Hyatte was injured, but said he didn't know the extent of her injuries.

Two Met In Prison
A former prison nurse from Utah, Jennifer Hyatte -- formerly Jennifer Forsythe -- had never been in trouble with the law and was working as a nurse in a Tennessee prison when she met George Hyatte.

Prison authorities say she was fired last year for sneaking food to Hyatte. She later got permission from the state corrections department to marry him.

Officials say Hyatte is a career criminal with a history of escape. One of his former lawyers said he's "kind of a ladies' man."

Meanwhile, on NBC this morning, Michael Hyatte, George's brother, offered his condolences to the family of the dead man, Wayne Morgan.

He also said his brother told him a couple of months ago that he didn't want to spend the rest of his life in prison.
http://www.newsnet5.com/news/4832542/detail.html

I couldn't help but laugh a little when the Taxi driver said he knew something was wrong when they said they were going to an Amway convention and yet they weren't being pushy as all the other Amway people he had driven trying to recruit him or sell him anything. Such a sad case, but of all things to make them suspicious, Amway! So glad they were caught. And how lucky the cab driver was, because they had nothing to lose by killing him so he couldn't tell.

lookieloo said:

I couldn't help but laugh a little when the Taxi driver said he knew something was wrong when they said they were going to an Amway convention and yet they weren't being pushy as all the other Amway people he had driven trying to recruit him or sell him anything. Such a sad case, but of all things to make them suspicious, Amway! So glad they were caught. And how lucky the cab driver was, because they had nothing to lose by killing him so he couldn't tell.

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It was his being innocuous that saved him.The Amway thing was hysterical to me and all the reporters interviewing him. Remember Ashlee Smith and her talking down Brian Nichols. It is what we can pull from our brains that could help sometimes not always. I am just glad that this husband and wife didn't go to a farm community and murder someone's grandma and grandpa for their car. That would have been really hard. I am glad they are behind bars and neither one will see the light of day again. However, the correctional officer's family is in my thoughts and prayers. Bless you, Wayne "Cotton" Morgan.