Cops Find Judge Family Slay Clues

Phone calls and a mysterious car. Those are some of the clues authorities are reportedly pursuing as they try to solve the shooting deaths of a federal judge's husband and mother.

The Chicago Sun-Times says investigators are looking into the source of several phone calls Judge Joan Lefkow and her family received Sunday night. It says the calls may have come from a correctional facility.

The paper also cites a police report that says a car was parked in a no-parking zone Monday morning outside a church on the Lefkows' street. The church administrator asked the two men in the car to leave and they did.

Late Tuesday, a federal source speaking on condition of anonymity said physical evidence found at the house where the murders occurred includes a broken window that authorities hoped would produce fingerprints.

Judge Lefkow had been threatened by white supremacists since she ruled against them in a trademark case. Last year, white supremacist Matthew Hale was convicted of soliciting Judge Lefkow's murder. Hale talked about it to an undercover agent who was wearing a wire, reports Mike Parker of CBS Station WBBM-TV.

Local officials investigating the shooting deaths of Michael Lefkow, 64, and Donna Humphrey, 89, were careful to that they haven't ruled out anything, from revenge to burglary, reports CBS News Correspondent Cynthia Bowers.

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."

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, a Chicago 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."

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 cases involving Hale and others.

Lefkow has presided over a variety of cases since she 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."