Fingerprints, phone calls may aid murder probe
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7048415/

Man, this isn't freaking me out or anything, but it sure has left me head shaking my head in disgust - especially if this was a retaliatory thing.

article.....


CHICAGO - The husband and elderly mother of a federal judge were shot in the head in the basement of the family home, and authorities hope a broken window will produce fingerprints to identify a suspect, sources told The Associated Press.

A federal source who spoke on condition of anonymity confirmed that a broken window at the judge’s home is among the key pieces of physical evidence but would not discuss a possible motive.

Investigators believe the two victims were forced to lie on the basement floor and then were shot multiple times, the Chicago Tribune reported Wednesday, citing unnamed sources.

Authorities also were looking into the source of several phone calls Judge Joan Humphrey Lefkow and her family received Sunday night that might have come from a correctional facility, the Chicago Sun-Times reported Wednesday, citing a police report.

Police also were investigating reports that a mysterious car was parked near the home Monday morning, the Sun-Times and Tribune reported.

White supremacists
Authorities said Tuesday they were investigating whether the killings were the work of white supremacists out for revenge. The killings came a month before white supremacist Matthew Hale was scheduled to be sentenced for trying to have Lefkow killed over her handling of a trademark case involving the name of his group.

Police said the possibility that the slayings of Michael Lefkow, 64, and Donna Humphrey, 89, were carried out by hate groups was “but one facet of our investigation.”

The judge found the bodies when she returned from work Monday. Both had been shot multiple times, according to the Cook County Medical Examiner’s office.

A source told The Associated Press that police found two .22 caliber casings at the scene.

As recently as last year, federal authorities took the murder plot that Hale hatched seriously enough that they provided Judge Lefkow protection for at least a few weeks and Chicago police stepped up patrolling her neighborhood. The Lefkows took their own security measures, installing cameras on their front porch, said Mike Miner, a senior editor at the Chicago Reader and longtime friend of the couple.

Chicago’s chief of detectives, James Molloy, said, “We are looking in many, many directions, but it would be far too early to draw any definitive links.”

Hate groups eyed?
But from the federal courthouse to the Lefkows’ North Side neighborhood, speculation was about a hate group out for revenge.

“After everybody expresses how terrible they feel, that’s the next topic of conversation,” said Thomas Breen, an attorney who has argued cases before Lefkow, a district judge. “Everybody is talking about white supremacist groups and how efficient they may be at what they do.”

By Tuesday morning, articles of the killings had been posted on white supremacist Web sites, along with “RAHOWA!”, meaning “racial holy war.”

In a discussion on a white nationalist Web site in 2003, members had talked about the case against Hale and posted the Lefkows’ home address. Anti-Defamation League official Mark Pitcavage said another white supremacist’s short wave radio show last April had discussed killing the judge.

Hale’s father, retired East Peoria policeman Russell Hale, dismissed the notion that his son was involved in the slayings, saying he is under constant surveillance and the FBI closely monitors his phone calls and visits with family members.

“There would be no way he could order anything,” said Hale. “It’s ridiculous.”

Shot in the head
Hale’s mother, Evelyn Hutcheson, told the Chicago Tribune in Wednesday’s editions that FBI agents had come to her East Peoria home to ask where another Hale relative had been Monday. Hutcheson said the relative was at an area business Monday that had a security camera.

Molloy would not provide many details about the killings, but one federal source who spoke only on condition of anonymity said both victims had been shot in the head. Another source said that police found two .22 caliber casings and that a window at the house had been broken.

As they looked into a possible motive, more than two dozen members of the Chicago Police, FBI and U.S. Marshals Service were searching for clues in Lefkow’s professional life, including her role presiding over other cases.

Lefkow was nominated to the District Court bench by President Clinton in 2000. She has sentenced defendants in the political corruption case involving former Gov. George Ryan, decided the mental fitness of a man suspected of shooting a police officer and ordered the makers of Beanie Babies to pay $700,000 in a trademark case.

The judge was questioned for hours after discovering the bodies. She and her family were placed under the protection of the U.S. Marshals Service, said Charles P. Kocoras, chief federal judge for the Northern District of Illinois.

During Hale’s trial, prosecutors contended that Hale was furious when Lefkow ordered him to stop using the name World Church of the Creator because it had been trademarked by an Oregon-based religious group with no ties to Hale.

Friends of the Lefkows were stunned that anyone would want to harm Michael Lefkow, an attorney, who with his wife was active in the Episcopal Church.

“He was a delightful person,” said Eleanor Lukens, one of about 30 people who gathered Tuesday night at the family’s church, St. Luke’s in Evanston. “This is a terrible tragedy, a shock to the entire congregation.”

i agree, that is disgusting