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CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown
Tennessee Fugitives Jessica, George Hyatte Captured; Critics Argue National Highway Bill Is Mere Pork
Aired August 10, 2005 - 22:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
AARON BROWN, HOST: Good evening. Again, a prisoner and his wife are still on the run, tonight, after a deadly getaway in Tennessee. Their escape, yesterday, outside a county courthouse, as brazen as the worst exploits of Bonnie and Clyde. What began as a routine court appearance turned into an ambush that left one jail guard dead.
Today, police found a gold van they said the couple used as part of their escape plan. It was found outside a motel in northern Kentucky. Police had received a tip the couple was inside the hotel. They were not when police arrived. Police believe one fugitive has been shot, and hospitals have been alerted, now. A couple of reports on all of this, starting with a question. Should anyone have seen this ambush coming? In Tennessee tonight, CNN's David Mattingly.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DAVID MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: In the minutes leading up to the deadly ambush and getaway, prisoner George Hyatte and his wife, Jennifer, according to a local attorney, were face-to-face in the Roane County Courthouse.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Reflecting on it now, they were probably making the last-second plans of how they were going to do this.
MATTINGLY (on-camera): How does he get out of here?
DAVID HAGGARD, SHERIFF, ROANE COUNTY: OK, the officers would take him from here.
MATTINGLY (voice-over): Sheriff David Haggard says Hyatte's exit from the courthouse seemed to go like clockwork.
HAGGARD: Down this hallway, here.
MATTINGLY: Taking us where the public is normally not allowed, we learned there is a mandatory stop to make sure Hyatte's restraints are secure.
HAGGARD: Leg shackles, hand cuffs, to make sure everything's...
MATTINGLY (on-camera): Secure them. Make sure that everything was working the way it was supposed to.
HAGGARD: The way everything's was locked down.
MATTINGLY (voice-over): Then, there's the slow walk down the stairs to the main floor.
(on-camera): So if he's in shackles, going down these steps is a very slow process.
HAGGARD: It is. Just one step at a time.
MATTINGLY (voice-over): At the foot of the stairs, Hyatt and his two armed guards take just 30 steps to reach the door. So far, so good.
(on-camera): At this point, there's no reason to think he's expecting to do anything?
HAGGARD: No. The officers were without knowledge anything would have happened. There are normally taken (ph) precautions.
MATTINGLY (voice-over): But the precautions in place were already daunting. These Tennessee corrections officers demonstrate how it takes just two minutes to immobilize an inmate's hands and completely control his movements. The real challenge would be getting out of it without a key.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE OFFICER: It would take some work.
MATTINGLY: Corrections officers may have felt confident as they took the last 30 steps with Hyatte to their waiting van in an unsecured public parking lot. Confronted with an ambush, Sheriff Haggard says there was little the officers could do.
(on-camera): Anybody who wants to can ride in here and do anything they want to. It's not secured.
HAGGARD: Wide open.
MATTINGLY: Was this something that was just waiting to happen?
HAGGARD: Well, I thought for a long time that it was a possibility.
MATTINGLY (voice-over): Haggard says the openness and the lack of cover have been discussed in the past. But without a secure entrance in the outdated courthouse, there were few alternatives.
(on-camera): When they're surprised in an ambush, is there anything they can do to protect themselves?
HAGGARD: Not that I know of. I mean, it's a total surprise to you. I mean, when somebody opens fire and you survive, you fire back.
MATTINGLY (voice-over): But in this case, only one officer survived. Veteran officer Wayne Morgan was not wearing a bulletproof vest. Corrections officials are at a loss to explain why. This required and critical piece of security was not used.
(END VIDEOTAPE) MATTINGLY (on-camera): The Hyattes are believed to be on the run, still in a northern Kentucky area, perhaps not far from where their van was discovered. The discovery of this van has focused this manhunt, tonight, and given authorities new hope that this may soon be over -- Aaron?
BROWN: David, let's try, perhaps, three or four quick ones. How far is the northern Kentucky motel from where you are at the courthouse?
MATTINGLY: About 200 miles. It's a drive they could have made by the end of the day if they were -- without any trouble at all, actually. They probably had plans to go straight up there, since this entire thing seemed to be very well planned out from the very beginning. So, about 200 miles.
BROWN: OK. David, is it fair to say that while police have lots of conjecture here, they don't really have a clue whether these two are on foot, in a car, on an airplane, on a train. They don't know.
MATTINGLY: They don't know. In fact, they've asked that police at the airport, there, in northern Kentucky to be on alert, to be watching for them. One officer, here, said just -- made an offhanded comment, it's possible they left on foot. So they really don't know where they went or how. But they do believe they are still in that northern Kentucky area.
BROWN: That airport in northern Kentucky, tell me if I'm wrong here, is the greater Cincinnati airport?
MATTINGLY: That is correct. It's just across the Ohio River from Cincinnati.
BROWN: And finally. You did a terrific job of walking us through the escorting him out of the courthouse. Do you believe that you understand what happened when they got to the parking lot?
MATTINGLY: When they got to the parking lot, it was exactly that; an open and public parking lot. They went to the van to put him in the van as they were supposed to. But right there, at the van, was the SUV where his wife was waiting. She rolled down the window. He told her to shoot them. She opened fire and they made their getaway.
BROWN: David, thank you. David Mattingly, who's been on the scene, there. Thank you, David.
The story, when you think about it, has elements of a Hollywood movie, maybe a B-movie, but a Hollywood movie. It's hard to know precisely where the next chapter is. But we do know that this whole thing started with a case of forbidden love. Here's CNN's Alina Cho.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ALINA CHO, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It was prison that brought them together. He was said to be a smooth-taking inmate and a ladies' man. She was a nurse at the prison. They met last year. And before long, they were in love.
MICHAEL HYATTE, BROTHER OF GEORGE HYATTE: The thing is, he's a nice, loving, easy-going guy.
CHO: The courts saw things a bit differently. George Hyatte is a violent career criminal, a career that began at age 9. His wife of three months, Jennifer, has never been in trouble with the law, until now.
(on-camera): Why they came together is still a mystery. Yet, this much is known. Shortly after Jennifer began working at the prison, and the two met, she smuggled in food, considered contraband. She later admitted it was for George. And because of that, and for what the prison called her inappropriate relationship with him, she was fired.
(voice-over): That was August of last year. The very next month, George Hyatte was transferred to another Tennessee prison. Jennifer followed him, moving to Nashville. Two months later, the couple applied for a marriage license. When the warden granted them the license, they married in prison, in May.
Fast forward to earlier this week. Jennifer Hyatte, police say, is determined to set her husband free. Regina Bishop is George Hyatte's sister.
REGINA HYATTE, SISTER OF GEORGE HYATTE: The escape thing, both of them's fault. Murder, her fault. And I'm putting it that way because she pulled the trigger.
CHO (on-camera): But either way, you want them back safely.
R. HYATTE: Either way, I want them both back here safely. I want justice done.
CHO (voice-over): We may not know much about Jennifer, about what makes her tick. We do know that, for whatever reason, she was desperate enough, apparently, to do anything to be with the man she loved.
Alina Cho, CNN, Dayton, Tennessee.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Jennifer Hyatte is not the first woman to fall in love with a criminal. Not by a long stretch. It's something we've seen before and it always brings up the same question. Is love, as the cliche goes, really that blind? And if not, how, then, do these women look beyond what most of us cannot? Here's CNN's Adaora Udoji.
ADAORA UDOJI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: They are killers, like Scott Peterson. Serial murderers and pedophiles like John Wayne Gacy. But women still flock to them. Richard Ramirez terrorized San Francisco in the '80s, torturing and murdering 13 people. In prison, though, he was nicknamed the Death Row Romeo.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I just wanted to see what he looked like. I think he's cute.
UDOJI: Why? Because women fought over him. In 1996, freelance journalist, Doreen Lioy married him in a San Quentin prison waiting room.
DOREEN LIOY, WIFE OF RICHARD RAMIREZ: I'm ecstatically happy today and very, very proud to have married Richard and to be his wife.
UDOJI: Lyle Menendez, convicted of brutally murdering his wealthy parents in Los Angeles, got a letter from former model Anna Erickson. He is in prison for life. She married him anyway and reportedly divorced him after finding out he was writing to another woman. How could anyone choose a convicted felon, who's committed such heinous crimes?
SANDRA BROWN, AUTHOR: Women have had a long fascination with bad boys. But the problem is that pathological men that are that dangerous and that pathological, by nature, do not change.
UDOJI: Still, prison romances blossom all the time, say California prison officials. And today, the Internet has made those connections easier, with Web sites like Prisonpenpals.com. Because most inmates get out of prison, relationships to look forward to can be a good thing, those officials say.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: For better, for worse?
UDOJI: Author Asha Bendele met her husband, a convicted murderer, while taking a class working in prisons. They married five years later, nearly 15 years after his crime.
ASHA BENDELE, AUTHOR: The person I met, the value systems, the things I saw him do in the facility, the way other people spoke about him, said to me, whoever he was as a boy of 17 1/2, he's not now.
UDOJI: She says the stories are complicated. Often, the women knew the men before they were in prison, have seen another side of them. Though she doesn't doubt some women suffer from a classic rescue syndrome and seek out men they don't know to try and reform them.
Also, psychologists say, the men can be charming. Ted Bundy, a law student, had many fooled until he confessed to bludgeoning to death more than 30 women and girls. Carol Boone sent letters, they married, and had a son before his execution. These kind of stories people remember, of women chasing men who have committed terrible crimes. And many simply don't understand.
Adaora Udoji, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: In a moment, how much are you getting for all that tax money that goes to building highways and bridges? The politics and the economic support, tonight. But first, at about a quarter past the hour, time for some of the other news of the day. Erica Hill joins us, tonight, from Atlanta -- Ms. Hill?
ERICA HILL, HEADLINE NEWS: Mr. Brown. We start off, actually, in the Senate where Democrats are accusing the White House of delaying the release, now, of documents from John Roberts' past. They say there's still too many gaps in the Supreme Court nominee's record for them to assess his views. Tomorrow, another volume of documents is expected to be released by the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and the National Archives.
The U.S. Navy saying today it identification card and weapon that appear in a purported Al Qaeda video do belong to one of the Navy SEALS killed in late June in Afghanistan. That video aired on an Arab news network. It shows an I.D. card with a picture and the name of petty officer 2nd class Danny Dietz.
Here's another treat for travelers. Airports in Arizona, California, Florida, and Nevada, recently coming within just days, sometimes even hours, of running out of gas, literally. Why? Supply bottlenecks. In fact, airlines say they were forced to fly in extra jet fuel from other markets. And by the way, it's not the end of it. Experts say it could happen again.
Finally for you, tonight, Houston we have a big reason to celebrate. The space shuttle astronauts getting a hero's welcome, today, in Space City, USA. The crowd waving American flags and the rising sun for Japanese crew member Soichi Noguchi. And that's going to do it for now. Nice to have a celebration.
BROWN: Thank you. It was nice down there today. We'll check back with you in about a half an hour.
Much more, ahead, on the program tonight. Beginning with pork.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
(voice-over): Not pigs. Get your head out of the barnyard. More than a quarter-trillion in your money, for bridges and barges and bike paths. And critics say, for pork.
DONALD RUMSFELD, U.S. SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: And I understand that our folks are trying to look into it.
BROWN: He's talking about allegations that military intelligence had a bead on Mohammed Atta and company long before 9/11.
REP. CURT WELDON (R), FLORIDA: They even put stickies over top of the face of Mohammed Atta, saying they're here legally.
BROWN: Also, tonight, two Iraqi women with two very different visions for Iraq. A very personal look at the politics of nation- building.
And no, Virginia, there isn't a Santa Clause. But there is a candy man. Something like that.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is our body shake. It's a milk bubble bath chocolate.
BROWN: A sweet deal, desserts included, because this is NEWSNIGHT.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN (on-camera): A basic tenet of medicine is "Do no harm." This is a story about unintended harm. More than 600,000 women will have a hysterectomy this year. About half will have their ovaries removed along with their uterus. The reasoning has been that removing a woman's ovaries is the only sure way to prevent ovarian cancer, a cancer notoriously difficult to detect early. But at trying to save women from one deadly disease, are doctors putting women at even greater risk of death? Here's CNN's Carol Lin.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BONNIE BLOOMFIELD, EMORY HYSTERECTOMY PATIENT: I don't know.
CAROL LIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Bonnie Bloomfield is in the prime of her life, 55 years old and working in the medical field. She was told by two doctors to have a hysterectomy to relieve menstrual cramping. Both also recommended that she have her ovaries taken out, the only sure way to prevent ovarian cancer.
My only thought, really, was I wanted, if they weren't of any use anymore, that I might as well have them removed because I didn't really want the possibility of developing ovarian cancer later on.
LIN: Bonnie doesn't have cancer. But today, her decision might be different. A new study now suggests that it's worth the small risk for women who have no family history of ovarian cancer to keep their ovaries, even past menopause.
DR. WILLIAM PARKER, UCLA SCHOOL OF MEDICINE: Ovaries in, ovaries out...
LIN: Dr. William Parker wrote the controversial report.
PARKER: Bottom line, up until age 65, you save more women's lives in the long term if you leave the ovaries in.
LIN: Fewer than 2 percent of women are diagnosed with ovarian cancer. But women, in general, are 25-times more likely to die from heart disease or bone fractures than ovarian cancer. Ovaries play a part in keeping the heart and bones healthy. Even past menopause, ovaries still produce small amounts of estrogen and testosterone the heart and bones need to stay strong.
Surgically removing them triggers an immediate dramatic decline in these protective hormones. And heart disease, not ovarian cancer, is the number-one killer of women. Bonnie Bloomfield doesn't have a family history of ovarian cancer, but her mother developed heart disease at a relatively young age.
BLOOMFIELD: I would have chosen anything that can help me prevent this happening to me, also. I would have decided to keep the ovaries.
LIN: Dr. Michael Randell disagrees with the new study.
DR. MICHAEL RANDELL, GYNECOLOGIST: We're going to now see more women develop ovarian cancer because their ovaries have been left in place. Once again, we can't prevent ovarian cancer. The only way to prevent it is by taking out the ovaries.
LIN: As for Bonnie Bloomfield, there's no going back, now. She checks her blood pressure every day and plans to eat better and exercise more. And by doing so, hopes she will live a longer, healthier life.
Carol Lin, CNN, Atlanta.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: One quick follow-up, just about the only good to come from a thoroughly bad story. The American Cancer Society reports its calls to its smoking quit line have gone up about 50 percent since the death of Peter Jennings on Sunday night. Quitting smoking is never easy. Cancer Society will give you lots of help. Their numbers to call, nationwide, 1-877-937-7848. Or 1-877-YES-QUIT. That's 1-877- YES-QUIT.
Kansas, now, and the culture wars. The Kansas Board of Education voting, today, to diminish the role of evolution in the state's science curriculum. The ballot in preliminary, the board expected to make its final decision in the next couple of months. This is round two for the state of Kansas and about round 102 for the country.
But unlike prior battles, strict biblical creationism barely gets a mention. Instead, even though critics call it a way of dressing God up in a lab coat, opponents of evolution say they're fighting science with science. Here's CNN's Ed Lavendera.
ED LAVENDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The battle over how to teach science is erupting in Kansas.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Leave the room, sir.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm not going to leave the room.
LAVENDERA: It's the latest fight to bring the theory of intelligent design to a classroom near you. The Kansas State Board of Education is considering new science curriculum standards that offer a more critical view of evolution. Supporters don't understand why many scientists aren't open to this debate.
JOHN CALVERT, INTELLIGENT DESIGN SUPPORTER: They also are favoring a set of standards that do not allow or comprehend criticisms of evolution. LAVENDERA: Many teachers are angry to see what they call bad science make it into the classroom.
STEVEN CASE, INTELLIGENT DESIGN OPPONENT: Those are inappropriate changes. Some for educational reasons, some for scientific reasons.
LAVENDERA: Intelligent design, or I.D., as it's often called, is the idea that the universe is so complicated that some things cannot be explained by science alone, that there must be some intelligent source behind the world's creation.
Intelligent design theory does not say God is responsible, that's where it differs from creationism. But skeptics say intelligent design simply disguises religion in a shroud of science. Critics often call it science fiction.
STEPHEN MEYER, DISCOVERY INSTITUTE: If we put intelligent design into our biology textbooks, based on the misrepresentation of real scientific fact and the conjecture that its proponents rely on, then we may as well add the study of flying saucers and aliens from outer space to our biology and physics books.
LAVENDERA: A recent Harris Interactive poll found 64 percent of Americans believe in creationism, that human beings were created directly by God. 22 percent believe in the theory of evolution. And 10 percent support intelligent design. But when it comes to the question facing hundreds of school districts around the country, 55 percent of Americans believe all three ideas should be taught in school together.
Intelligent design even has President Bush's support. He says it should be taught in schools along with evolution. Supporters argue intelligent design is a legitimate science worthy of debate as an alternative to what they see as the flawed theory of evolution.
JOHN COURAGE, HIGH SCHOOL SCIENCE TEACHER: We've had 150 years of one dogma ruling biology. What we're asking for is that Darwinian evolution be taught to students, but also the current scientific criticisms of the theory.
LAVENDERA: Like the proverbial elephant in the room, intelligent design is roaming through classrooms and school board meetings around the country. Everyone knows it's there, but many scientists still don't want to talk to it, for fear of giving it too much credibility. But it appears intelligent design may might already be gaining in the war of acceptance.
Ed Lavendera, CNN, Dallas.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Coming up on the program, tonight, if a military intelligence unit had identified some of the 9/11 hijackers before, why didn't they tell the FBI? And afterwards, why didn't anyone tell the 9/11 Commission? And the politics of the pork, tonight. How the highway bill the president signed is a road to re-election for incumbent members of Congress. We'll take a break, first. Around the world, this is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: There are questions large and small surrounding the attacks of 9/11. But somehow, most if not all, boil down to "What if?" And again, tonight, the what-if concerns potentially vital intelligence gathered but perhaps not shared.
Was the lead hijacker, Mohammed Atta, flagged by secret military intelligence unit as a threat an entire year before he crashed a plane in the World Trade Center. The former 9/11 commissioners want to know if that's true and if it is, why the Pentagon didn't mention it. Here's CNN's David Ensor.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DAVID ENSOR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: More than a year before the 9/11 attacks, a military intelligence unit working for the Special Operations Command in Florida, identified Mohammed Atta and three other future hijackers living in the United States as potential terrorist threats, according to a former defense official and a member of Congress.
This chart, made last year, shows the connections identified by the unit, the two sources say, after conducting a data-mining program, codenamed Able Danger, that looked at unclassified information. The unit determined that Atta and the others could be Al Qaeda terrorists.
Republican Congressman Curt Weldon says Clinton administration lawyers told the unit not to give the information to the FBI because in the pre-Patriot Act world, intelligence officials could not, legally, share their suspicions with law enforcement.
REP. CURT WELDON (R), FLORIDA: Lawyers within the administration told the special forces folks three times, "You cannot share this information with the FBI." They even put stickies over top of the faces of Mohammed Atta, saying they're here legally.
ENSOR: Members and staff of the now-disbanded 9/11 Commission, are complaining they were not told about the military unit's finding back when they were investigating what went wrong before the attacks.
"I think this is a big deal," former commissioner John Lehman told "The New York Times." "The issue is whether there was, in fact, surveillance before 9/11 of Atta, and if so, why we weren't told about it."
But one of the sources for this story, a man vouched for by Congressman Weldon, who declines to give his name, but says he is a CIA-trained case officer and a former defense intelligence official, insists to CNN that he personally told the 9/11 Commission staff director and others about the evidence on Atta during a briefing in October of 2003. At the Pentagon, they are scrambling to find out more.
DONALD RUMSFELD, U.S. SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: And I understand that our folks are trying to look into it and see what they can find out for you.
ENSOR (on-camera): Officials point out that even if the assertions are true, the rules have changed since 9/11. These days, if a Pentagon intelligence unit knew something about possible terrorists who might be in the United States, that information should go straight to the FBI.
David Ensor, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: You can make a pretty good case that no matter what happens to the country, the country finds a way of carrying on. Carrying on, though, covers a lot of ground. Getting back to business and getting back to business as usual.
It barely takes a cynic, let alone a critic to wonder where the signing, today, of the massive highway bill belongs. More than a quarter of a trillion dollars of your money, including a $200 million bridge, almost literally to nowhere, except, perhaps, the state of a very powerful senator. And that's not all. It never is. Here's CNN's Joe Johns.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
REP. DENNIS HASTERT (R-IL), SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: Mr. President, it is a privilege to have you here in the state of Illinois.
JOE JOHNS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: House Speaker Dennis Hastert has a lot to be happy about.
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: One of the key projects that he's been talking to me about is what they call the Prairie Parkway. I thought that might be in Texas, but no, it's right here in Illinois.
JOHNS: And amazingly enough, it's right in Hastert's home district. In all, the most powerful Republican in the House pulled in a whopping $499 million in transportation projects.
HASTERT: That is leadership. And that is what we have come to expect from this president.
JOHNS: It's hardly new that powerful politicians bring home the bacon. But this time around, the transportation bill is setting records. Over 6,300 pet projects, over $24 billion, according to the watchdog group, Taxpayers for Common Sense.
KEITH ASHDOWN, TAXPAYERS FOR COMMON SENSE: There's this extravagant, complex pork pecking order that was created in the legislation, that if you're the head of the committee that wrote the bill, you're getting hundreds of millions of dollars. And if you're an average lawmaker, you're getting the crumbs.
JOHNS: Rank-and-file members of Congress generally get about $12 million for projects in their districts if they want them. But compare that to Hastert's haul, add in the district totals for two committee chairmen, Don Young of Transportation and Bill Thomas, who runs the tax writing committee, and the projects for just three members of Congress come to over $2 billion.
That's more than the gross domestic product of 42 nations. If Hastert, Young and Thomas were a country, they'd rank right between Tajikistan and Togo. Don Young along got over $200 million for a bridge that would serve an island with about 50 residents.
And it's not just Republicans. The top Democrat on the Transportation Committee, Jim Oberstar, got over $100 million, $30 million just for bike paths. Members of Congress who support the projects say they're needed to reduce traffic congestion and they'll create jobs.
The few opponents are pretty much ignored. The silence was deafening when Congressman Jeff Flake, who didn't request any road projects, called for a presidential veto.
REP. JEFF FLAKE (R), ARIZONA: ... feeling a little like a skunk at a wedding, or probably, more accurately, road kill.
JOHNS: And indeed, it was all smiles at today's signing, with both parties well-represented.
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I want to thank the members of the Illinois delegation that are here today, Senator Dick Durbin, Senator Barack Obama.
JOHNS: House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi wasn't there, but she did OK: $129 million earmarked for projects in her district of San Francisco.
Joe Johns, CNN, Capitol Hill.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ANNOUNCER: This is CNN Breaking News.
BROWN: We're getting two reports now from television news departments in Columbus, Ohio, WBNS-TV and WSYX-TV in Columbus, that George and Jennifer Hyatte, the couple that broke out of a Tennessee jail yesterday -- she allegedly ambushing two prison guards to aid his escape -- have been captured in the Columbus, Ohio, area.
They have been on the run since yesterday. A van they were apparently using was spotted in northern Kentucky. That would be the southern-most part, just across the border, from Ohio. Somehow, if all of this proves out, they made their way to the central part of Ohio, into Columbus, Ohio.
Where they were headed, we do not know. But we're getting reports now from two TV stations, WBNS, WSYX-TV, in the Columbus area, that they have been -- and the police department now in Columbus, Ohio, is reporting that they have captured two people. They are not yet saying that the two people are George Hyatte and Jennifer Hyatte.
We are waiting for a news conference to come out of the Columbus area. But this story, which started in Tennessee and made its way up through Kentucky, and now, apparently, according to two reports that we are getting, has ended tonight in Columbus, Ohio. As we get more detail, and we are expecting more detail, we'll take you to it.
On to other matters. Back to politics now, and music, as it turns out.
It used to be simple. Young people wrote angry songs about old people and old people complained. Now, it's the other way around, which is one way of introducing a piece on the controversy over a song in the latest Rolling Stones' album. It's also a gentle way of breaking it to their fans: The Stones are old.
Here's CNN's Jeff Greenfield.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JEFF GREENFIELD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hold the presses. Tear out the front page. A genuinely defining moment. A geopolitical tidal wave has swept across the debate on Iraq and the campaign against terror.
Yes, the Rolling Stones have taken a clear stand against the Bush administration's policy. Their new disc, "A Bigger Bang," includes a song called "My Sweet Neocon," which includes these lines: "How come you're so wrong, my sweet neocon? You call yourself Christian; I call you a hypocrite. You call yourself patriot; I think you're full of" -- but is the song really about President Bush?
MICK JAGGER, LEAD SINGER, ROLLING STONES: It's not an attack on President Bush. It wouldn't be called "Sweet Neocon" if it was President Bush. No, I mean, it certainly criticizes policies he espouses, I'm sure.
GREENFIELD: Of course, the entire Western world is agog with the political implications of this. The Stones, unlike Dylan, and the Beatles, and countless other groups, never really ventured into the world of politics, unless you count "Street Fighting Man."
So this tectonic shift in the popular culture will almost certainly lead to just about nothing.
Call it a time warp lock. The link between music, the counterculture, and political protest was a reality in the mid- to late-'60s. That's almost 40 years ago.
BOB DYLAN, SINGER: And don't think twice, it's all right.
GREENFIELD: And it's also true that Jimmy Carter's 1976 bid for the presidential nomination was saved by money raised during concerts by the Allman Brothers' Band. But lately, when the Dixie Chicks declared their shame at the Bush foreign policy, it led to some record burnings and to a mostly ineffectual ban on their music on some stations.
But as far as any political impact, Bush handily carried every southern state and border state by comfortable margins. Maybe audiences figured out that they could listen to music by people they disagreed with.
Or consider what happened when rock legend Bruce Springsteen led other stars on a Vote for Change tour, on behalf of John Kerry. It drew huge crowds, as here in Madison, Wisconsin. But Kerry barely carried Wisconsin, just as Al Gore had done four years later. And Kerry narrowly lost Ohio, just as Gore had done four years before.
And what may be the most dramatic example of the limits of pop culture is the case of Howard Stern. The radio personality, who draws millions of overwhelmingly male listeners every day, switched his support from Bush to Kerry and regularly hectored his listeners to throw Bush out. On Election Day, Bush carried the white working-class by 28 points.
(on-screen): It's clear why Democrats would love a silver bullet that would change the minds of a lot of voters. A new survey by a Democratic polling team shows that disaffected Bush voters are deeply suspicious of Democrats on cultural grounds.
But it just may be that, if the Democrats want to change the minds of these people, they're going to have to figure out what to say on their own. Otherwise, they won't get no -- no, we're not going there.
Jeff Greenfield, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Getting a few more pieces of information out of Columbus, Ohio, and the area on the apparent capture, now, of George and Jennifer Hyatte, who escaped -- he escaped, she helped him -- from a Tennessee county courthouse yesterday.
Apparently, U.S. marshals were involved in the capture. So now we have reporting that says U.S. marshals were involved. The Columbus police have said that, yes, they have taken two people into custody. But they haven't said, yet -- well, let me rephrase that.
Columbus police say they have two people in custody. It may be that the U.S. marshals made the arrests, turned them over to Columbus police. We don't really know that yet.
In any case, the police in Columbus are not saying specifically that they have the Hyattes, but that would seem to be the case based on now three independent pieces of a puzzle that we've put together, the reporting of two television news departments in the Columbus area, the announcement out of Columbus by the police department, and this late word that U.S. marshals were involved in the operation. Again, the Hyattes, if you haven't followed this story -- she was a prison nurse and, as the story goes, fell in love with him while he was in prison. She lost her prison job over that. That was about a year or so ago. They married in August a year ago.
She goes yesterday to a routine court appearance that he was making. These are live pictures out of Columbus, as we're waiting -- you're looking at microphones. We're waiting for someone to step up to them and hear what they have to say.
In any case, while you look at that, they were at a routine court appearance in Tennessee yesterday. They briefly spoke, as we've heard the story, at that court appearance. And then, as he is then shackled and taken out of the courthouse, mostly through secure areas, but they come out of the courthouse into an open parking lot.
And she, as the story goes, is waiting in a black SUV. As the two prison guards are putting him in the van, she opens fire, killing one. There is some exchange of gunfire, and they drive off.
It's believed that one of the two of them is hit in this exchange of gunfire. There was quite a bit of blood in the first of two cars that we know of that were involved in this. So there almost certainly was a third car involved.
In any case, the reporting out of Columbus, Ohio, tonight is that they have been captured, as you knew they would eventually. It was just a question of how long it would take. It's very hard to run like this, as they found out.
Still to come on the program, the role of women in the new Iraq. We'll also just keep on eye on what's going on in Columbus. Two women, two views.
And back home, a rough day on the highways. That and other headlines. We'll take a break. Around the world, this is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ANNOUNCER: This is CNN Breaking News.
BROWN: Well, if you've been with us for the last few minutes, you know we're waiting now for police officials, law enforcement agencies, in Columbus, Ohio, to make a formal announcement that they have, in fact, captured Jennifer Hyatte and her husband, George Hyatte, who, in a kind of Bonnie and Clyde moment, broke out of a jail, or a county courthouse.
He was in jail in Tennessee yesterday, and have been on the run ever since. One prison guard was killed and, perhaps, one of the two of the Hyattes was wounded. We're not certain of that, but we believe that to be the case.
About 20 minutes or so ago, we received word that they had captured in Columbus, Ohio, which is in the central part of the state of Ohio. David Mattingly is in Tennessee where this all began. David, are you hearing anything about how it went down?
MATTINGLY: So far, there has been no official word here of exactly what's happened. All of the spokespeople, all of the authorities, have sequestered themselves inside of a mobile command center.
There are people outside who are telling us that they will be out probably in the next 15 to 20 minutes to have something to say about what's happened. There is a great deal of excitement and anticipation here. A lot of cameras are set-up in anticipation of a news conference.
But, at this point, no official word or confirmation of what has happened or may have happened in Columbus, Ohio, according to those affiliate reports.
BROWN: Did you see...
MATTINGLY: If it is true, that this couple has been apprehended, it will be the end of a manhunt that's gone well over 24 hours. It was entering its second night. There was a great deal of energizing going on when they found the car earlier this evening, because they felt like finally they were able to focus their search on one particular part of the country.
And now that this couple, if it's true that they have been apprehended in Columbus, Ohio, would be the end of a very, very emotional time for the authorities here in Tennessee.
BROWN: We'll do a little back and fill here, if we can go back to the picture of the SUV in the parking lot. This is, in fact, we believe, the second car that was used in the escape. The first car was an SUV that they left the courthouse in.
And then, as police tell the story -- and David, you correct me or jump in if I mess this up -- but as police tell the story, she had the second car also lined up and waiting. They get out of the first car, which they knew was hot -- the police had a pretty good line on that -- jumping to the second car, which, at least according to one report, David, I heard was stolen, perhaps, from her employer?
MATTINGLY: It was reported stolen by a family that the wife had been working for as a nurse. That's what was told to us by the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation. The car was officially reported stolen and belonged to this family that she knew.
Now, there's been a great deal of speculation about how this one woman was able to get two automobiles to this small town in Tennessee in preparation for this ambush that they carried out in order to free her husband. There's been speculation -- a lot of questions, at least, about possible accomplices.
But, again, the authorities have not come out saying that they have anything definite that they want to discuss about that. But, again, the fact that she was able to have two cars here and have this plan in place does raise questions about the possibility of the couple getting some kind of aid somewhere along this process.
BROWN: It raises questions. But it doesn't supply a single fact in that regard, does it?
MATTINGLY: Absolutely not. The authorities right now have not been willing to say anything about any evidence they've collected in regards to any sort of accomplices.
They will acknowledge that it appears that this couple was planning this for some time. But, again, those lingering questions: How was she able to get two cars here? Someone had to help do something, whether it was innocently or not. They believe that she was not able to drive two cars here, the way that they had everything set-up.
BROWN: How far did she live from the courthouse where the escape took place?
MATTINGLY: She lives in a town outside of Nashville, which is right in the center of the state. And we're in the far-eastern corner of the state here in Kingston.
So it wasn't something you would just wake up and decide to go do on a lark. I mean, it was something that required some planning. Authorities have discovered that she was staying at a hotel here, prior to the hearing, earlier this week. And she was in the hearing.
And we spoke to one attorney today who said that he witnessed the wife and the husband together, in the courtroom, actually conversing before his hearing. And he said, looking back on it, he feels that they were probably discussing the last-minute preparations for his break.
BROWN: Maybe yes, maybe no. To get into the courthouse, do you have to go through a metal detector?
MATTINGLY: Yes, you do. Inside the courthouse, it has all the standard security set up here. You go through a metal detector. There are guards here to check your bags.
It's outside is where the security problem existed. This is an old courthouse. There is no secure entrance, in order to take these inmates in and out of the courthouse. So they just literally walk right out into the public parking lot, out in front of the courthouse, just like you would, say, if you were walking out of a grocery store.
I mean, it's just cars parked in a very accessible public parking lot. And that's where this attack took place. That's where this ambush occurred. And that's where they were able to carry this out.
The van was waiting in a parking space. The wife pulled up behind it in her SUV, according to authorities, rolled down the window. And after her husband said "Shoot them," she opened fire on the two guards who were taking her husband back to prison.
BROWN: Let me stop you there. And we'll pick up the story there in a second and just throw out a new piece of information.
We have reporting now that the couple was captured at the Best Value Inn in Columbus, Ohio. We can make some conjecture about the kind of motel it was, and the lay of the land, and so on. But it doesn't tell us much about how police traced them there, what the circumstances of the capture was, whether it went peacefully, whether it was complicated.
That's the kind of detail we're waiting for in Columbus, as you look at the microphone stands and we wait for law enforcement people, whether they are Columbus police, U.S. marshals, whoever. Everybody certainly was involved in this.
Once the officer was shot, or the jail guard was shot, you can imagine that everybody, all the police agencies, the Texas bureau -- or the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation -- here's the news conference in Columbus.
MARK GWYN, DIRECTOR, TENNESSEE BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION: We're very pleased to announce tonight that George and Jennifer Hyatte have been apprehended in Columbus, Ohio. They were at a Best Value Inn there in Columbus. Agents with the U.S. Marshal Serve, the FBI, and the locale Columbia police apprehended George and Jennifer Hyatte without incident.
We are processing the motel there now for evidence. We have found weapons. We don't know if it's the murder weapon, but we have found weapons. And we're processing those as we speak.
Obviously, we're still -- we have agents on the ground. There's probably not a lot I can tell you. But I'll try to answer any questions that you have.
RITA COSBY, MSNBC HOST: Did he say anything? Did he say anything when he was taken into custody?
GWYN: I can't comment on that.
QUESTION: Can you tell us about their injuries, Jennifer and George?
GWYN: I can tell you that Jennifer is injured, but we don't know to what extent yet. I'll let the marshal speak to bringing them down.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm sorry, the next question, please?
QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He will make an appearance -- should make an appearance tomorrow in federal court in Columbus, Ohio, at which time the (INAUDIBLE) warrant, which has been issued out of this district, will be dismissed. And he'll be turned over to local authorities for extradition back to Tennessee.
QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE) UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Depending upon her medical situation, she will eventually -- the same thing will happen to her, and she will also eventually be extradited back by the state.
QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I cannot give you the time frame though.
QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: For this evening, I guess around 8:00 or so, started getting some information that the suspects were in the Ohio area. Our deputies were able to get some information, along with the FBI and the local authorities here, and started following up on some leads, which led them to the hotel, where they eventually were arrested.
COSBY: Were they in the hotel room when they actually were (INAUDIBLE)
GWYN: Yes, they were. They were in the hotel room. And they were apprehended without incident.
COSBY: What was their reaction?
GWYN: I can't say, but it was without incident.
QUESTION: Was Jennifer brought to the local hospital?
GWYN: I don't have that information right now. I just would like to say that this is a classic example of when law enforcement cooperates what can happen. And we had total cooperation between local, state and federal law enforcement. And if nothing else, we can give the Morgan family some closure to this tragic incident.
QUESTION: How did you learn that they were in the (OFF-MIKE)
GWYN: We started receiving intelligence that they were in the area, basically started conducting interviews, gathering more intelligence. And through that, the U.S. Marshal Service, the FBI was able to determine they were there at the hotel.
COSBY: Was it local tips, or...
GWYN: I'm sorry.
QUESTION: Was there any indication how they got from Erlanger to Columbus? Did they steal another vehicle? Do we know at this point?
GWYN: We can't give out that information at this time. It's an ongoing investigation. We don't want to give out anything that's going to damage the integrity of the investigation.
QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE)
GWYN: There are warrants for first-degree murder for both George and Jennifer Hyatte.
QUESTION: Will they be brought back here when they're extradited?
GWYN: At some point, they will be brought back to Roane County to face charges.
COSBY: Was he in shackles?
GWYN: No, he was not.
Thank you.
BROWN: That's Mark Gwyn of the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation.
And we have a -- David Mattingly, you're with us -- we have a fairly decent sketch now. I wouldn't call it a picture, but a fairly decent sketch of what went on in the last two hours, almost three hours now. And we'll go through all of this.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: David, are you there?
BROWN: You heard the marshal refer to giving the Morgan family some closure. The Morgan family, that would be the family of the prison guard, or the jail guard, who was shot yesterday in Tennessee.
So here is how they laid it out: At about 8:00 Eastern time, police in the Columbus area, U.S. marshals in the Columbus area, got information that the two suspects were there. They started to check it out, talk to people, narrowed it down to a motel there, the Best Value Inn in Columbus. And the arrests were made without incident.
Jennifer Hyatte was injured, as suspected. We don't know the extent of her injuries. David Mattingly is still with us. David's down in Tennessee, and he's been covering all of this.
David, did you hear anything in that that might need some explanation that I might have missed? You've been covering this from the beginning.
MATTINGLY: Well, it certainly raises questions about how the husband was able to get out of his shackles. We were told it requires some fairly substantial types of equipment to cut all of those restraints. Was he wife able?
And the other question of, how extensive were the injuries to his wife? They've specifically mentioned that they were going to do a medical evaluation of her before making any judgments about bringing her back here to Tennessee to face charges.
So it will be very interesting to find out how this couple was able to continue their run, first of all, with him being able to get out of his restraints, and for her to be able to go on with whatever injury she might have had.
BROWN: Just to clarify that point, they believe she was shot, in this exchange of gunfire that started this all yesterday, correct?
MATTINGLY: When they recovered the first automobile, that first -- that SUV that she was driving at the time, that he was freed from custody during the ambush, they recovered that automobile, found blood. They said a substantial amount of blood on the driver's side, leaving them to believe she had been either injured or wounded in some sort of exchange of gunfire while that was going on.
BROWN: Sometimes we're better at pointing out questions, to be honest, than having any answers. One of the questions I've had from the beginning in all of this -- and you may have some idea of an answer, but I suspect not, honestly -- is what they intended to do once they got away, where they were headed.
You can't spend your life just driving around the country and not expect to be caught. She certainly didn't have tremendous financial resources, did she?
MATTINGLY: Not that we know of. And this is one of the great mysteries about this man. We've confirmed two prior escape attempts. One, he was apprehended in Indiana. Another time he was apprehended in Florida.
Both times he required accomplices to do this and to pull this off. And the time, in fact, that he was apprehended in Florida, it was actually at a DUI stop. So, without that, who knows if they would have been able to get him so quickly at that time?
He's shown a remarkable ability to cover a lot of territory very quickly, suggesting that these breaks are very well-planned out. Where exactly he planned to end up, though, is one of those mysteries at this time.
BROWN: David, we're just getting little bits of information. And we'll just pass them along to you and to the audience as we go.
We've got a report that the initial tip that the U.S. marshals got from someone, and perhaps we know more. And if we do, just tell me now. But in any case, that they were dropped off at the motel in a taxi.
Now, as we kind of piece the story together, the police find this second car, the gold SUV, in northern Kentucky, right on -- basically right on the Kentucky-Ohio border. And so that's sort of the last time we know with any certainty that they have a vehicle.
How they got from that point -- that was at a motel parking lot -- how they got from that point, in roughly the Cincinnati area -- this is the motel in the Columbus, Ohio, area where the couple was captured -- how they got from the motel in northern Kentucky to this motel in Columbus, Ohio, we don't yet know.
That's the second SUV that was found late this afternoon. It seemed to me I first saw it around 5:00 Eastern time, give or take, this afternoon. And there was a lot of activity for a lot of reasons. Where it was found is not far from the airport, the greater Cincinnati airport, a major airport, which is, in fact, in Kentucky. And so there was concern -- I'm not sure how great or small the concern was -- but concern that they might try and get on an airplane somewhere.
So that triggered an alert in the airport area around Cincinnati and the Kentucky border there. In any case, somehow they made their way from Cincinnati, roughly, to Columbus, Ohio, where they were captured -- and they didn't really put a time on it -- but sometime in the last hour, it seems like, Jennifer and George Hyatte, both captured, she hurt, he out of shackles.
He'll be in court tomorrow. Both face first-degree murder charges in the state of Tennessee. And an incident which started horribly and in gunfire and death in Tennessee more than 24 hours ago, David, has come to a peaceful end tonight in Columbus.
MATTINGLY: That was emphasized over and over, when authorities finally went before the cameras here, that this was conducted without incident. Everyone had anticipated, because of the violent beginning with this, there might be some sort of violent end, as well. That did not happen.
Again, they're saying that this ended completely without incident. And you can hear some of the relief as they announce that this couple had been captured.
BROWN: Well, they absolutely were relieved. And we don't blame them. I think you've got two pretty desperate people out there, or were out there. They're not out there anymore.
One person is dead. And I think we can all be grateful that nobody else has died. These things, in truth, have a way of ending worse than this one did. People who have place to go, who are trapped, who, perhaps, are realizing the desperation of their situation, will sometimes take their own lives or take other lives in a last grandstand. And we can be thankful that, for whatever else happened here, that did not.
Our coverage of this will continue in just a moment.
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