FBI offers reward in slayings of judge's kin
CHICAGO -- The FBI announced a $50,000 reward yesterday for information leading to the identification of anyone involved in the slayings of a federal judge's husband and mother, and the judge thanked supporters for their ''goodness and decency" in the face of ''evil deeds."
No one has been declared a suspect in the slayings of US District Judge Joan Lefkow's relatives. FBI agent Robert Grant said, ''We don't know at this time who did this murder."
He said investigators were looking at all angles, and white supremacists were one logical direction. White supremacist Matthew Hale is scheduled to be sentenced next month for soliciting an FBI informant to kill Lefkow.
''Obviously, Matt Hale and his prior conviction for threats to Judge Lefkow is an avenue of investigation that we're going to explore," Grant said.
Hale, who been questioned in jail, denies involvement, his parents said.
''There is no way that any supporter of mine could commit such a heinous crime," Hale said in statement released Thursday through his mother. ''I totally condemn it."
The judge arrived home after work Monday and found her husband, attorney Michael Lefkow, 64, and her mother, Donna Humphrey, 89, slain in the basement.
Both had been shot multiple times, according to the Cook County Medical Examiner's Office.
Lefkow thanked the thousands of people who offered condolences. ''Expressions of your own grief and sympathy have allowed us to endure these dark days and to face the future without two people that we loved so much," she said in a statement. ''We will never allow evil deeds to overcome the goodness and decency which inspired you to . . . help sustain us in our hour of need."
Lefkow also said she planned to return to her job and would not be intimidated by the killings. In the Hale case, she had ordered him to change the name of his extremist group as part of a lawsuit over a trademark.
Police released sketches of two ''persons of interest" seen near Lefkow's house on the day of the killings.
