A husband and wife who both used to work as CNN journalists survived a shootout in their New Mexico motel room that left an armed intruder dead on Tuesday night, police say.
Ex-reporter Chuck de Caro killed the alleged gunman after he accosted de Caro's wife, Lynne Russell, in the parking lot of an Albuquerque motel and forced his way inside their room, Russell told local outlet KOB-TV.
Russell, a retired CNN Headline News anchor, said she slipped a handgun into her purse and passed the bag to her husband as if it contained cash or something else valuable they could offer the intruder.
"'Is there anything in here we can give him?'" Russell said she hinted as she passed the purse. "Chuck said, 'Oh, yes, there is.'"
The intruder allegedly fired first, and a shootout ensued in the room. De Caro was hit three times, but is expected to survive, police said. Police found the gunman in the parking lot and he died at a hospital with multiple gunshot wounds, according to an Albuquerque Police Department statement. Russell was unharmed.
The intruder clearly targeted the wrong couple.
The husband and wife have licenses to carry concealed weapons, Russell said. She's a former Georgia sheriff's deputy and a licensed private investigator with two martial arts black belts, NBC News reported. De Caro was in the Green Berets and is currently a consultant with the Pentagon, a friend of the couple told KOB-TV.
Charges probably won't be filed over the shooting, because it was self-defense, Albuquerque police spokesman Tanner Tixier told The Huffington Post.
The medical examiner's office hasn't identified the gunman yet, Tixier said.
Russell posted a photo taken with her husband at a CNN anniversary event in June.