Break In Judge Murder Case?

A man who filed bizarre, rambling lawsuits over his cancer treatment shot himself to death during a traffic stop outside Milwaukee and left a suicide note claiming he killed the husband and mother of a federal judge who ruled against him, police said Thursday.

Bart Ross, a 57-year-old electrician from Chicago, committed suicide Wednesday in West Allis, Wis., after a police officer pulled him over because of a broken taillight on his van.

Chicago Police Superintendent Phil Cline stopped short of declaring the slayings of U.S. District Judge Joan Lefkow's relatives solved. But he said: "We're satisfied that there's information in the letter that would point us to Ross being in Lefkow's house."

Cline also said authorities believe Ross is the same person seen by a witness near the Lefkow home on Feb. 28, the day Lefkow came home to find her 64-year-old husband and 89-year-old mother shot to death in the basement.

Until now, investigators had suspected the slayings may have been the work of white supremacists angry over another of Lefkow's rulings. But Ross had no known connections to extremist groups.

CBS News Correspondent Cynthia Bowers reports that the note appears to confirm Lefkow's worst fear — that her work cost her husband and mother their lives. In the note, the Chicago man says Lefkow's ruling against him in a medical malpractice case, "cost him, his family, his job, and his home." Police also found bullets in his van -- the same 22. calibre used in last week's murders.

Along with the note, Chicago police are testing Ross' DNA with genetic material from the scene, which they hope will be the definitive link in the crime, Bowers reports.

Last fall, the judge had dismissed a lawsuit in which Ross accused doctors of disfiguring him when they treated him for cancer in the early 1990s. Among other things, he claimed doctors committed a "terrorist act" by giving him radiation without his consent.

The police superintendent would not speculate on what Ross was doing in the Milwaukee area. But at least one other judge who ruled against him lived there. And a source close to the investigation told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity that the suicide note, found in Ross' van, contained the names of judges.

Cline said that after Ross killed himself, police and federal agents found a note in which he implicated himself in the murders of Michael Lefkow and Donna Humphrey and recounted the details.

WMAQ-TV in Chicago said it also received a hand-written letter signed by a Bart Ross on Thursday in which the writer describes breaking into the Lefkow house around dawn. The writer said he planned to wait in the basement all day for the judge, and kill her.

But he said the judge's husband discovered him around 9 a.m., so he shot him, then killed Lefkow's mother after she heard the gun and called out to her son-in-law, the TV station reported.

"After I shot husband and mother of Judge Lefkow, I had a lot of time to think about life and death. Killing is no fun, even though I knew I was already dead. I gave up further killings on about 1:15 p.m. on Feb. 28, 2005, and left Judge Lefkow's house," the station quoted the letter as saying.

Ross emigrated from Poland in 1982 as Bartlomiej Ciszewski, changed his name and became a U.S. citizen in 1988, according to the government.

Ross had waged a decade-long legal fight over his cancer treatment, which left his face disfigured. He battled with doctors, lawyers and judges, likening his treatment to the ghastly medical experiments done by the Nazis.

In a lawsuit dismissed by Lefkow last September, Ross claimed doctors at the University of Illinois-Chicago Hospital and its clinic had damaged his mouth and caused him to lose his teeth when they treated him for cancer from 1992 into 1995. He also blamed the justice system for his problems and demanded Congress impeach four judges.

Court records show Ross was also being evicted from his North Side home and was due Thursday in housing court.

The police superintendent cautioned that authorities were still analyzing evidence from the crime and searching his home. "We are not prepared at this time to definitely say that any one person in responsible for these homicides," Cline said.

After the slayings, suspicion immediately turned to white supremacist Matthew Hale, who was in prison for trying to have Lefkow killed for ruling against him in a trademark dispute. Hale denied having anything to do with the killings.

Investigators were also going through Lefkow's other cases for clues. Cline said Ross' name had been on the list, but the task force had not yet interviewed him because of the sheer volume — more than 600 leads and hundreds of names.

A police officer in West Allis pulled Ross over after noticing his van parked in front of a school. Police said Ross fired the deadly shot before the officer reached the driver's window.

Terence Evans, who lives in the Milwaukee area and was on a federal appeals court that ruled against Ross in January, said U.S. marshals called him before dawn Thursday to alert him about the suicide note.

In Chicago, officers cordoned off the street outside Ross' last known address, a two-story home across from a high school on a tree-lined street.

Jinky Jackson, 34, a neighbor, said Ross was wearing a neck brace a month ago. She said she would greet Ross when she saw him, but he would not say hello back to her.

"He doesn't mingle with other neighbors," Jackson said. "He'd come home late and stay inside."