Ex-CNN Anchor Survives Wild Motel Shootout
By Shawn Cohen. A road trip down old Route 66 led to a Wild West-style motel shootout for a pioneering CNN anchor and her former-soldier hubby.
Lynne Russell — the first woman to ever solo-anchor a primetime network news show — and Chuck de Caro, 65, had stopped at a Motel 6 for the night in Albuquerque when an intruder slipped into their room as Russell went to grab something from the car around 11:30 p.m. Tuesday.
“I opened the door and he materialized out of nowhere; he was inside,” she told The Post. “And he pushed me into the room and onto the bed and closed the door.”
De Caro, who was in the shower, emerged completely naked and tried talking to the gunman, who was demanding the couple fork over their money and valuables.
“We tried to calm the man, ask him not to point the gun because we really couldn’t think what we could give him,” Russell said. “It felt to me he was used to doing this, that whatever happened wouldn’t bother him.” (Read more from “Ex-CNN Anchor Survives Wild Motel Shootout” HERE)
______________________________________________________
Former CNNers Survive New Mexico Motel Gunfight
Here’s how CNN belatedly described the incident:
The gunman wanted money and other valuables, [the ex-CNN anchor] said.
She told the gunman she would look in her purse to see what they had. She reached down and put one of the two handguns the couple had in a side table into the purse. She gave the handbag to her husband.
Russell said the guns were legal, something police are still investigating.
The man’s behavior was increasingly erratic, Russell said. He told them to get a briefcase he saw.
The couple explained there was nothing of value in the bag, but the man lunged at them and “went around the bed and then opened fire on Chuck. There was a firefight inside the room.”
De Caro was shot once in the leg and twice in the abdomen.
He fired all the rounds in the first handgun then picked up the other and shot the man. The man, who police identified in a news release as the “offender in the altercation,” was found in the parking lot. He died at a hospital, CNN affiliate KOAT reported.
(Read more from this story HERE)
Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.
