Posted on 08/10/2005 5:11:58 PM PDT by Indy Pendance
KINGSTON, Tenn. - Prison nurse Jennifer Forsyth got fired last year for sneaking food to an inmate. A few months later, she got permission from the warden to marry that inmate, George Hyatte, a man with a long and violent criminal record.
Now the 31-year-old woman from Utah who had never been in trouble with the law is charged with gunning down a correctional officer Tuesday in a brazen attempt to help her new husband escape.
Both are now being sought in a nationwide manhunt for their role in what one law enforcement official called a "Bonnie and Clyde-style shootout."
Federal authorities on Wednesday found a van the couple had used parked outside an Econo Lodge motel in Erlanger, Ky., about 200 miles north of the Tennessee courthouse where the inmate escaped.
The couple had been in the motel, but were gone when a SWAT team arrived, said Rich Knighten, spokesman for the U.S. Marshal for the Western District of Kentucky. Another car had been reported stolen in the area, but officials wouldn't immediately say if there was a connection.
Tennessee Bureau of Investigation Director Mark Gwyn said he believed the couple was still in the Cincinnati area and authorities were getting closer to capturing them.
"You are left grappling for answers and trying to figure it out. What was she thinking?" Tennessee Bureau of Investigation spokeswoman Jennifer Johnson said Wednesday.
"I guess it is anyone's guess," Johnson said. "She married the guy, so you have to assume there is some sort of love connection."
Police believe Jennifer Forsyth Hyatte came to this town of 5,500 on Monday with two getaway cars — a Ford Explorer in her name that was later dumped and a gold Chevrolet van stolen from one of her home-nursing clients near Nashville.
She is believed to have ambushed two guards as they were leading George Hyatte from a courthouse hearing, fatally shooting one of them — veteran Wayne "Cotton" Morgan, 56 — and then speeding away with her husband.
Authorities found large amounts of blood in the abandoned vehicle and believe she was wounded.
Frank Harvey, the prosecutor who secured a guilty plea from George Hyatte on Tuesday to a robbery charge and may be prosecuting him again if he is caught, said: "Well, it's like Willie Nelson's song, 'Ladies love outlaws like babies love stray dogs' ... or something like that."
By Wednesday, 35 to 45 leads an hour were coming in as part of a manhunt.
"We're getting information from all kinds of places, and we're running every lead. We've got state and federal agencies assisting in the manhunt," Gwyn said. "I don't recall in my 20 years ever being in this type of escape."
Early last year, Jennifer Forsyth, 31, earned a diploma as a licensed practical nurse and got a job with a state contractor that took her into Northwest Correctional Complex to provide health care to state inmates.
She was fired five months later after sneaking food into the prison for Hyatte, a 34-year-old inmate with a record of robberies and escapes stretching back more than a decade. He was transferred the next month to Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville.
But that didn't end the relationship.
Forsyth and Hyatte applied on Nov. 30, 2004, to the chaplain at the prison for permission to marry. The two were wed May 20.
George Hyatte's escape Tuesday was at least the fifth time has gotten way from law enforcement officials. The other escapes were from local authorities in east Tennessee in 1990, 1991, 1998 and 2002.
During the escape three years ago, Hyatte and another prisoner escaped from a county jail after threatening guards with a homemade knife made out of toothbrushes and a razor blade.
When one guard turned over keys to the armed inmates, they then used them to beat another officer until he was unconscious. The escape ended a few days later when the two were captured in Florida.
Danny Wright, head of the Tennessee Highway Patrol's criminal investigation division, recalled assisting in a search for Hyatte a few years ago after he escaped from a patrol car, with another woman's help, after a convenience store robbery. Hyatte was found the next day at a home outside town, buried under a pile of clothes.
"He's pretty good at hiding," Wright said.
Hyatte's parents divorced when he was young, and he moved between the homes of relatives and state custody for years. He first entered the court system when he was 9 for school truancy and unruly behavior. By the time he was 17 he had already been through a treatment program for alcohol and drug abuse.
After dropping out of school, he racked up charges for burglary, theft, armed robbery and striking an officer. He was acquitted of aggravated rape. A presentencing report from 1993, when Hyatte was 21, described him as a repeat offender with little work history and "a tendency toward violence."
James Polk, who previously represented Hyatte as a public defender, described him as a smooth talker.
"In court he is 'Yes sir,' 'no sir' and 'please.' He always had this look about him of `Who me?' — as if he was wrongly accused," Polk said.
The lawyer also recalled that Hyatte had a previous relationship with another nurse.
"He is kind of a ladies man, too," he said.
There's a movie in here somewhere.
FNC just announced that they were minutes away from capturing the pair but they escaped. Probably when they heard on the news that the cops knew where they were!
When we heard that announced during dinnertime, we both said they'd hit the road.
I'd prefer if they loved them like the churchgoing ladies of Ft. Smith loved them at the turn of the century-- a nice turnout to sing hymns for them before Justice Parker had the trap door sprung.
It turned one of the most wild outlaw towns on the frontier into one of the safest within ten short years of regular and predictable hangings for outlaws.
And so the media's defense of these rabid animals begins.
Top notch thinkin', there.
Yep - we printed out the wanted poster at work yesterday - a lot of people there live in that area.
My husband and I stood infront of those legendary gallows last week.
Those Ft. Smith law dudes really ment business. Very impressive, altho primitive. It got the job done, and that's what it's all about.
She is now. Can they break Bonnie & Clyde's record of two years on the run?
"She's crazy as a $#!+house rat."
I guess no one's gonna look good in a mug shot... but I gotta say she's sorta 'manly' looking
Not that there's anything wrong with that.
And if there's any justice, These 2 A$$h*les won't see a dime of it, the majority of the money going to the families of the injured officers, and the state for restitution. My home state has a victims rights act that would confiscate a majority of the proceeds of any book or movie deal as profits of a crime. wonder if Tenn. has anything similar.
CC
ERLANGER, Ky. -- News 5 has learned that a van used by an escaped Tennessee prison inmate and his wife has been found at a local hotel.
A SWAT team surrounded the Econo Lodge in Erlanger after investigators spotted a gold van used by the couple, News 5's Sheree Paolello reported. The van was spotted Wednesday at about 4:30 p.m. at the hotel at 633 Donaldson Road.
According to a U.S. marshal, the couple had been staying in room 111 at the hotel. Blood was found in the room, but the fugitives have not been found, Paolello reported.
"When we made entry into the room, we had negative contact. We didn't find anyone there, but we have reason to believe that they were there," said John Schickel, U.S. marshal. "We did not find any weapons, but the room looked like it had been recently occupied. We also recovered a vehicle in the area. We have no reason to believe they are in the immediate vicinity."
Authorities said Wednesday Jennifer Hyatte shot and killed a correctional officer who was escorting her shackled and handcuffed husband, George.
Sheriff David Haggard said the two then made a getaway in a Ford Explorer that was later found abandoned. He said one of the fugitives might have been shot, because blood was found in the vehicle.
An attorney who was at the courthouse when the shooting took place says George Hyatte was there to plead guilty in a plea deal involving an armed robbery.
A hospital spokeswoman told the Knoxville News Sentinel that the officer -- Wayne Morgan -- was shot in the stomach, and died after he was airlifted to the hospital in Knoxville.
You may be correct but where does that 2 yr number come from?
I don't know the exact number, but they were on the run for about two years.
I believe Catherine and an FBI profiler agreed, said not to look just for a woman.
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She reminds me of the outlaw wannabe in Dusk 'til Dawn 3, the Hangman's Daughter.
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