Daughter was ‘brainwashed’ by convict husband: mother

“We realize that what she has allegedly done is terrible, but we feel the horrible man she got involved with is truly to blame for this whole situation,” Sally Lambson said, reading from a statement while surrounded by her family outside her home in this Salt Lake City suburb. “We also feel that he had her brainwashed from the first time they met. Without him, this never would have happened.”

Police say Jennifer Forsyth Hyatte on Tuesday ambushed a pair of guards with a shotgun as they led her husband, George Hyatte, from a court hearing. One guard was fatally shot before the couple fled. They were captured Wednesday night at a motel in Columbus, Ohio.

Lambson first learned her daughter was a fugitive about noon Tuesday while searching the Internet for interest rates for her job at a title company.

“Their pictures just popped up and I totally freaked out,” she said. “My whole life has changed.”

The eldest of Lambson’s two daughters, Jennifer was a “good” kid who never got in trouble, her mother said. She married young, had three children — now ages 9, 11 and 12 — then divorced their father, Eli Gourdin, after his drug problems landed him in the Utah State Prison in 2000 for operating a meth lab.

State officials temporarily took custody of the three kids, putting them in Lambson’s care, but eventually gave Jennifer Hyatte sole custody. She moved to Tennessee to start her life over, her mother said.

“She was doing fantastic,” Lambson said.

Jennifer’s fault was her “gullibility with men,” said her mother’s written statement. She was often subservient to men and “when told to do something, she just did it without thinking about the consequences,” the statement said.

Gourdin, who lives in Smithfield, Utah, about 75 miles north of Salt Lake City, doesn’t seem as sure. Gourdin said that in his limited telephone contact with the incarcerated George Hyatte, he seemed sincere, adding that when Jennifer was wounded in the flurry of gunfire at the Tennessee courthouse Tuesday, Hyatte could have left her behind.

“His chances were better getting away on his own, so there is some kind of connection,” Gourdin said in a telephone interview. “He seemed like a pretty believable person. From what I can tell, Jennifer loved him dearly.”

Gourdin has nothing but praise for his former wife, despite the court documents that paint their nine years together as unstable and troubled by his addiction to methamphetamine.

In court papers filed amid a dispute over Gourdin’s visitation rights, Jennifer Hyatte accuses him of exposing their children to drugs and outbursts of violence.

Gourdin acknowledged the couple’s problems but said he’s a changed man. Lambson agrees and said she will support a petition for custody of the children, which Gourdin filed Tuesday.

Also that day, he filed papers seeking a restraining order against Jennifer, after learning from Tennessee police that they considered her “dangerous and a fugitive from justice and they have reason to believe she was headed for Utah,” the documents say.

“I wasn’t concerned for Jennifer to come and take the children or to hurt me,” Gourdin said. “My only concern was making sure that my kids were stable.”

Gourdin and Lambson both said they spoke with Jennifer on Monday, neither getting any sense that anything was going to happen. Lambson said Jennifer was excited and said she anticipated that Tuesday’s court hearing would result in a plea agreement and George’s release from prison.

Now the family is struggling to make sense of things — and explain it all to Jennifer’s three children.

Gourdin said he broke the news to his kids only after the Hyattes were apprehended and prefaced it by reminding them that they are loved.

“They asked questions and I filled them in as best I could,” he said. “I’m sure the one question they have is ‘Why, Dad? Why did Mom do that?’ and if they ask I’d say, ‘If I knew kids I would tell you, because I want to know.'”