Columbus (Ohio), Aug. 11 (AP): A fugitive inmate and his wife, wanted in a brazen courthouse escape and shooting in Tennessee, were captured last night at an Ohio motel, the authorities said.

The fugitive, George Hyatte, and his wife, Jennifer, were in a room at an America’s Best Value Inn in Columbus and were arrested without a struggle, said Mark Gwyn, director of the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation.

The Hyattes case is similar to the exploits of one of America’s most colourful criminal companions, Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow. Bonnie and Clyde were bank robbers who were shot dead by the police after a car chase across America’s southwest.

On Tuesday, the authorities say, Jennifer Hyatte, 31, ambushed two guards as they were leading her 34-year-old husband from a courthouse hearing in Kingston, Tennessee. One guard, Wayne Morgan, was fatally shot in the escape.

Gwyn said the Hyattes would be brought back to Tennessee on warrants for first-degree murder. Jennifer Hyatte had some injuries, he said, but he declined to elaborate.

“We have found weapons,” Gwyn said. “We don’t know if it’s the murder weapon, but we’re processing those as we speak.”

A cab driver who had driven the Hyattes to the Columbus motel from Erlanger, Kentucky, called the police around 9 pm and told them the couple were at the motel, a US marshal, John Schickel, said.

Schickel declined to give any additional information or to identify the cab driver.

After the tip, the authorities surrounded the motel, said John Bolen, a supervisor for the US Marshals Service in Columbus.

The authorities called the Hyattes’ room and told them they were surrounded, and the couple came out and surrendered around 10 pm, Bolen said. They did not say anything during the arrest, he said. Earlier in the day, the authorities had tracked down a van the couple was believed to have used outside a motel in Erlanger. The couple were gone, but the authorities knew then that they were getting close, Gwyn said.

Blood had been found in the motel room, and an employee at a nearby restaurant told federal agents that she had given directions that day to a couple she later recognised as the Hyattes.

Before the escape, George Hyatte had been in court on a robbery charge.