Judge Finds Slain Husband, Mom

A federal judge who was once the target of a failed murder plot by a white supremacist discovered two bodies in her Chicago home Monday night, reportedly those of her husband and mother.

Although police have not officially identified the victims, Mike Parker of CBS Station WBBM-TV has learned the man and woman are the husband and mother of U.S. District Judge Joan Lefkow.

Lefkow stumbled across the bodies of her husband, attorney Michael F. Lefkow, and her mother, Donna Humphrey, 89, when she returned home from work on Monday. They had both been shot in the head.

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 Parker.

"If you're charged with attacking a Jew you want good representation, and I feel you should have it. In fact I feel you should be exonerated and you should serve no jail time," Hale said.

Hale is currently awaiting sentencing.

Police confirmed the judge found two people were dead in the home around 6 p.m. but would not identify the victims. They gave no indication whether the two deaths were related to the Hale case.

Michael Lefkow, 64, and Humphrey were each shot in the head, according to the Chicago Tribune, which cited unidentified sources. No weapon was found but authorities did recover two .22-caliber casings, the newspaper reported.

Lefkow received police protection after Hale was arrested in 2003. Prosecutors alleged that he was angry after Lefkow ruled that he could no longer use the name World Church of the Creator for his group because another organization had a copyright on that name.

Hale, 33, became notorious in 1999 when a follower, Benjamin Smith, went on a deadly shooting rampage in Illinois and Indiana. Targeting minorities, Smith killed two people, including former Northwestern University basketball coach Ricky Birdsong, and wounded nine others before killing himself as police closed in.

Hale's reaction to Smith's three-day shooting spree — Hale laughed about it and imitated gunfire in secretly recorded tapes played for the jury — was part of the prosecution's case last year.

Members of a Chicago police forensics team could be seen inside the two-story Lefkow home on the city's North Side late Monday evening wearing white clothing and surgical-style headgear.

FBI spokesman Ross Rice confirmed that agents had been called in to help with the investigation but provided no further details. Randall Samborn, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office, said he would have no comment.

The Lefkows were active in the Episcopal church.

"This is a real shock. I'm really saddened and outraged. I hope the people responsible will be apprehended soon," said William Persell, bishop of the Chicago Diocese of the Episcopal Church.

Neighbors described the Lefkows as a model family. "This is someone who adored his daughters," Nan Sullivan said. "They were the kind of family everyone aspires to be, very close-knit, very supportive."

Hale never testified during his two-week trial. His defense attorney, Thomas Anthony Durkin, called no witnesses, saying the prosecution's evidence was the weakest he had seen in a major case.

A key witness, Anthony Evola, testified he secretly taped Hale for the FBI while posing as a follower. Among the conversations were ones in which they discussed the judge.

"Are we gonna exterminate the rat?" Evola can be heard asking Hale, who responds a short time later: "I'm going to fight within the law and, but, ... if you wish to, ah, do anything, yourself, you can."

The defense argued that Hale never asked anyone to kill the judge and that the FBI used Evola to draw him into a murder plot.

Lefkow, 61, served as a federal magistrate and a U.S. Bankruptcy Court judge before President Clinton nominated her for the District Court bench in 2000.

Michael Lefkow was a graduate of North Central College in Naperville and earned a law degree from Northwestern University. The two married in 1975, and he ran unsuccessfully for Cook County judge in 2002, according the Tribune.