Woman saves her husband from 34 years in jail, shooting armed guards in Tennessee

The police are searching for George C. Hyatte, 34, and his wife, Jennifer Lyn Hyatte, 31

The Tennessee police are searching for an escaped prisoner and his wife, a former prison nurse. The man's wife opened fire on the armed escort near the court building in Kingston and helped her husband escape with her. One guard was killed in the gunfire, CNN reports.

The police are searching for George C. Hyatte, 34, and his wife, Jennifer Lyn Hyatte, 31. The incident occurred at about 10 a.m. as guards were escorting Hyatte in handcuffs and leg irons from the courthouse to prison. Police officers were about to put Hyatte into a van, when a dark-colored vehicle drove up to them. George Hyatte screamed out “Shoot them!” and the woman in the vehicle fired her gun on the guards, wounding one of them in the abdomen. The other officer tried to fire back, but the woman stopped only to pick up Hyatte and they both escaped from the scene at high speed.

A helicopter took the wounded guard, Wayne Morgan, 56, to a medical center in Knoxville, where he died of wounds an hour later. Morgan was married and was a father of two.

Police found the abandoned blue Ford Explorer with blood stains on the driver's seat about a quarter mile from the courthouse. Police officers believe that the two escapees took another car.

Jennifer Hyatte was fired in August 2004 from her job as a contract licensed practical nurse at Northwest Correctional Complex in Tiptonville for having an inappropriate relationship with Hyatte, CNN reports with reference to Tennessee authorities. The woman was caught smuggling food from a restaurant into the prison, which, as she acknowledged, was meant for Hyatte. The two were not married at the time when it happened.

George Hyatte escaped from jail twice before in 1998 and 2002. He was convicted of aggravated assault, aggravated burglary and burglary in the third degree.  He was sentenced in 1998 to 36 months for the first of his prior escapes, and was to have been released in 2036.

On the CNN photo: George Hyatte