Almost from the outset, reports about the involvement of a former Utah woman in a Tennessee shootout that left a law officer dead and another wounded have made comparisons to the 1930s exploits of "Bonnie and Clyde."

There are, in fact, some parallels — but also some gaping differences — between the couples involved in Tuesday's shooting in Kingston, Tenn., and the 1930s crime career of Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker.

Jennifer Forsyth Hyatte, who had earlier lived what appeared to be an ordinary married life in Utah, is now in custody in Ohio after the shootout in Tennessee where authorities say she aided the escape of George Hyatte, a man with a long history of criminal activity. She met and married him in the Kingston prison, where she was an employee.

He was being escorted by law officers from a Kingston courthouse when authorities say she shot the officers and then escaped with him, only to be arrested in Columbus, Ohio, Friday.

Bonnie Parker also began life mundanely, one of many children born to an average family in Rowena, Texas. She, too, had been married before she became acquainted with Clyde Barrow. He was one of a long list of children born to an impoverished Texas family and spent most of his childhood shuffling among relatives while his parents tried to keep body and soul together.

Jennifer met George Hyatte while she was working in the prison where he was incarcerated. Bonnie met Clyde just out of jail as he and his brother, Buck, began a long career as petty gangsters. Clyde was being sought for a car theft when he first came calling on Bonnie and, in fact, was arrested while sleeping on her mother's sofa and ultimately sent to prison. Clyde wasn't a model prisoner. He hated the "hard labor" part of the deal and cut off two of his toes to disable himself enough to avoid the work.

Bonnie kept up a stream of soggy love letters while she waited for him. She moved to Waco to be near him. On one occasion, she sneaked a gun into the prison for Clyde and a friend. When the 14-year sentence began to pall, she bailed. But when he was released, she told her current boyfriend to take a hike and became Clyde's partner in continuing crime.

The two, with assorted kin and friends, rampaged through the southern Midwest states robbing and shooting. In all, they were accused of nine murders.

Hounded by law enforcement officials in several states, Bonnie and Clyde met their end on May 23, 1934, in an ambush about eight miles south of Gibsland, La., at the crest of a low hill. A man pretending to fix a flat was the decoy to get Clyde, who was driving in his socks, to stop. He had a sawed-off automatic shotgun on the seat beside him. Bonnie cradled a Browning automatic rifle in her lap and was eating a bacon and tomato sandwich.

As they slowed to offer help to the "stranded motorist," five officers rose out of the underbrush and began to shoot. Some 160 bullet holes in Clyde's car wrote the finale. In seconds, Bonnie and Clyde were dead, hunched over the weapons they never had a chance to raise. In 1973, their bullet-riddled car was sold to a Nevada casino operator for $175,000.

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E-mail: tvanleer@desnews.com