Chuck de Caro, a former CNN reporter, was shot three times during an attempted robbery in an Albuquerque motel room on Tuesday, but he shot back, killing his attacker and defending his wife, Lynne Russell, a former CNN anchor.
“I am very, very proud of my husband. He is my hero,” Russell told Albuquerque’s KOB Channel 4. “He saved my life.”
The incident occurred shortly before midnight at a Motel 6. The couple stopped there on a cross-country trip from Washington D.C. to California. Russell told KOB that she went out to her car while de Caro was in the shower. When she got back to the room, an armed man was waiting for her. The man forced Russell back into the room at gunpoint just as de Caro emerged from the shower.
But de Caro and Russell were prepared. They are both legal concealed carriers. De Caro served as a Green Beret before transitioning into a journalism career, which included investigative work for CNN. Russell worked as an anchor on CNN and CNN Headline News from 1983 to 2001. According to NBC News, she is also a licensed private investigator and once worked as a sheriff’s deputy in Georgia.
Russell said she and de Caro tried to calm the assailant by offering him items in her purse.
“He wound up taking my husband’s briefcase, and instead of just taking it and leaving, he took it and went over and started firing at my husband,” Russell told KOB-4. She said the man had “a 40-caliber big shiny silver handgun.”
“And Chuck fired back and it was a shootout,” Russell said. “The guy went down, and he was history.”
Three bullets struck de Caro. He underwent surgery and is expected to survive. The assailant was found in the Motel 6 parking lot and later died at the hospital.
Albuqerque police say that the incident appears to be a random robbery attempt.
“They weren’t targeted for who they were,” police spokesman Tanner Tixier said, according to The Guardian. “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.”
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