Former CNN Anchor Lynne Russell, Husband Involved In Motel 6 Shootout

Lynne Russell, a former CNN anchor, and her husband Chuck De Caro were involved in a fatal shootout at an Albuquerque, New Mexico Motel 6 Tuesday night.

Former CNN Anchor Involved In Shootout

One-time Headline News anchor Russell and De Caro, a former CNN correspondent, were grabbing some rest at an Albuquerque Motel 6 after an exhausting day of traveling on a cross-country road trip Tuesday. While De Caro was in the shower, Russell went out to the car to fetch something and was accosted by a man wielding a gun on her return to the room.

“I opened the door and he materialized out of nowhere; he was inside, and he pushed me into the room and onto the bed and closed the door,” Russell told the New York Post.

“He pushed me into the room and that’s when my husband came out of the shower and saw what was happening,” Russell told Albuquerque station KOB-TV. “We tried to calm him, confuse him and do everything we could do to just come out of it in one piece.”

De Caro managed to grab ahold of his own gun, and, after getting shot by the attacker, fired back. De Caro, who killed the robber, suffered three gunshot wounds but is expected to survive.

It is not believed that the couple was attacked for who they are, but rather because the offender had thought that he had found an easy target in Russell, not knowing that her husband was inside the room.

“They weren’t targeted for who they were,” Officer Tanner Tixie said. “We believe the offender didn’t realize the victim’s husband was in the motel [room]. He believed he had an easy target. That turned out not to be the case obviously.”

Russell served as a CNN Headline News anchor from 1982 to 2001. Since leaving CNN, she has anchored and hosted TV news and radio news programs in Canada.