Double Homicide
On February 28, 2005, Lefkow returned home to find the bodies of both her husband and mother in the basement of her North Side home. According to an anonymous federal source, both Michael F. Lefkow, 64, and Donna Humphrey, 89, had been shot multiple times. The Cook County medical examiner's office stated that the victims were killed with .22 caliber shots to the head. No weapon was found at the scene, but two .22-caliber casings were recovered; evidence of a break-in was found as well. Initial suspicions focused on the possibility that hate groups were involved. On March 4, the FBI announced a $50,000 reward for information leading to the identification of anyone involved in the slayings. On March 8, investigators announced that DNA samples were obtained from a cigarette butt found inside the kitchen sink. Further evidence was recovered in and around the home, including a fingerprint, a bloody footprint, and a soda can.
Lefkow and her children were again placed under the protection of the United States Marshals Service.
On May 18, 2005, Judge Lefkow testified before the U.S. Congress on the problem of providing security for judges, placing some of the blame for the attack on her family on rhetoric against judges issued by persons such as Pat Robertson. Neo-Nazi radio host and FBI informant Hal Turner asserted (proudly) that comments of his (which called for Lefkow's death) may have inspired the murders; however, this was never verified.
Read more about this topic: Joan Lefkow
Famous quotes containing the words double and/or homicide:
“Even in harmonious families there is this double life: the group life, which is the one we can observe in our neighbour’s household, and, underneath, another—secret and passionate and intense—which is the real life that stamps the faces and gives character to the voices of our friends. Always in his mind each member of these social units is escaping, running away, trying to break the net which circumstances and his own affections have woven about him.”
—Willa Cather (1873–1947)
“Life and language are alike sacred. Homicide and verbicide—that is, violent treatment of a word with fatal results to its legitimate meaning, which is its life—are alike forbidden.”
—Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809–1894)