Police ID suspect killed in shootout with former CNN reporter as Memphis fugitive

UPDATE: Thursday night, Albuquerque police identified the man killed in a shootout at a west side Motel 6 with former CNN reporter Chuck de Caro as 27-year-old Tomorio Walton, who APD says is an absconder out of Memphis, Tennessee.

APD spokesperson Tanner Tixier said it is unknown how long Walton had been in the Albuquerque area.

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Albuquerque police say they believe they’ll have a positive identification Thursday night on the alleged robber who was shot and killed at a local Motel 6 late Tuesday in a gunfight with a former CNN investigative reporter.

Lynne Russell, also a former CNN anchor, told KOB she and her husband, Chuck de Caro, decided to stop at the motel for the night because they were tired after a long day of traveling and had their dog with them. When she went out to the car to get something and returned to the room, she said an armed man was at the door with a handgun.

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

When it became clear to Russell that the man may shoot them, she told him they would look in her purse for something. Russell said she and her husband have concealed carry licenses, and she had a gun inside 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. And Chuck fired back and it was a shootout,” she said.

Thursday, police said de Caro had three or four gunshot wounds, and have “no reason” to doubt Russell’s story.

Police are looking at video from a security camera on an adjacent hotel that points directly at the room in which the shootout took place in hopes it could provide more clues.

The suspect died in the gunfire exchange.

“I am very, very proud of my husband. He is my hero,” Russell told KOB Wednesday. “He saved my life.”

De Caro is a former CNN investigative reporter and a consultant for the Pentagon.

Russell was an anchor for CNN Headline News and retired about 10 years ago. She was not hurt in the incident.

Originally published at KOB.com