ALBUQUERQUE, N.M.
Former CNN Headline News anchor Lynne Russell, whose speech at the 2001 MPI PEC in New Orleans caused an uproar among the audience and forced MPI to issue a formal apology, helped her husband shoot and kill an alleged armed intruder in an Albuquerque hotel June 30.
According to news reports, the suspect accosted Russell in the parking lot of an Albuquerque hotel and then forced his way into the hotel room she shared with her husband, Chuck de Caro, also a former CNN reporter.
Russell told local news outlet KOB-TV that she slipped a handgun into her purse, and then handed it to her husband, asking aloud if there was anything in it they could give the intruder. De Caro answered in the affirmative and then drew the gun from the handbag.
The assailant was fatally shot during a brief shootout in the room, in which De Caro was hit three times.
De Caro, a former Green Beret, is expected to survive. Russell, a former Georgia sheriff’s deputy and a licensed private investigator and martial arts expert, was unharmed. Both have permits to carry a concealed weapon.
Russell caused a stir during the 2001 MPI event by giving a speech many meeting planners thought was loaded with negative female stereotypes, such as advising women who are under stress to just go shopping at Victoria’s Secret and to indulge in ice cream. The speech caused such an uproar that MPI was forced to issue a formal apology the next day.
