March 10, 2005
By DON BABWIN
News My Way
Photo: Investigators wearing protective gloves and booties remove bags of evidence from the Chicago home of U.S. District Judge Joan Lefkow Wednesday, March 9, 2005. The federal judge found her husband and mother shot execution-style in the basement of her home when she returned from work Feb. 28. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)
CHICAGO (AP) - Police investigating a man who killed himself during a traffic stop in Wisconsin found "some material" that pointed toward the slayings of a a federal judge's husband and mother last week, Wisconsin police said Thursday.
A suicide note indicated U.S. District Judge Joan Humphrey Lefkow had ruled against the man in a civil case, costing him "his house, his job and family," the Chicago Tribune reported, citing unidentified sources. The legal dispute involved the man's treatment for cancer.
Bart Ross was stopped in West Allis, Wis., Wednesday, the Tribune reported on its Web site. The car was stopped about 5 p.m. because his van had a faulty tail light, West Allis police said at a news conference. As officers approached the car, the man inside killed himself with a gunshot to the head, police officials said.
At a news conference Thursday, West Allis Police Chief Dean Puschnig confirmed that materials found in the car indicated a link to the killings in Chicago, but did not give details or identify the suicide victim.
"We towed the vehicle back to the police garage and while conducting a standard inventory search, our investigators discovered some material that led us to believe that this man could be involved or have some vital information to the Lefkow homicide investigation," Puschnig said. Authorities said they didn't know why the man was in West Allis.
Lefkow found the bodies of her husband, attorney Michael Lefkow, 64, and her mother, Donna Humphrey, 89, on the basement floor of the Lefkow home the evening of Feb. 28.
Chicago police confirmed that detectives had been sent to Wisconsin to investigate a suicide. Police Department spokesman David Bayless identified the man who died in Wisconsin as Ross.
Photo: This undated family photo provided by CBS TV, shows Donna Humphrey, 89, of Denver, the mother of U.S. District Judge Joan Humphrey Lefkow, who was found shot to death along with her son-in-law, Michael F. Lefkow, 65. in the Lefkow's Chicago home Monday, Feb. 28, 2005. The Chicago Tribune reported that a man who shot himself in the head during a traffic stop Wednesday March 9, 2005 in West Allis, Wis., left a suicide note claiming responsibility for the slayings. Judge Lefkow, 61, found the bodies of her husband and her mother when she returned home from work Feb. 28. (AP Photo/Family photo via CBS TV)
Officers cordoned off the street outside Ross' last known address Thursday morning, a two-story home across from a high school on a tree-lined street on Chicago's North Side. The Lefkow home also is on the North Side, but in another neighborhood.
There was speculation the slayings could have been related to a white supremacist who is jailed awaiting sentencing for plotting to kill the judge. But the Tribune said there was no immediately known link between Ross and any hate groups.
Last September, Lefkow dismissed a civil rights lawsuit in which Ross claimed doctors at the University of Illinois-Chicago Hospital had disfigured him, damaged his mouth and caused him to lose his teeth when they treated him for cancer from July 1992 through March 1995. A federal appeals court affirmed Lefkow's decision Jan. 21.
Among other claims, Ross alleged doctors committed a "terrorist act" against him by giving him radiation treatment without his consent. He represented himself in the lawsuit.
Defendants in the lawsuit included the federal government, the State of Illinois, five doctors and four attorneys who had taken part in an earlier Ross lawsuit that was dismissed by another judge.
Photo: A police official with a dog searches for evidence at the Chicago home of U.S. District Judge Joan Lefkow Wednesday, March 9, 2005. The federal judge found her husband and mother shot execution-style in the basement of her home when she returned from work on Feb. 28. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)
The suicide note found in the van in Wisconsin included details in the case that were not released to the public, including the specific location where the body of Michael Lefkow was found, Tribune Deputy Managing Editor James Warren said in an interview on CNN.
About 300 .22-caliber shells were found in the vehicle, the newspaper reported. Investigators have found three casings of the same caliber in the Lefkow home. They also found a list in the van of people who Ross thought had mistreated him, including judges, the newspaper said.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation office in Chicago declined to comment early Thursday.
After the slayings, suspicion immediately turned to white supremacist Matthew Hale, who had been convicted of soliciting Lefkow's murder after she ruled against him in a trademark dispute. Investigators insisted, however, that Hale's followers and other hate groups were just one focus of the investigation.
Hale, 33, is to be sentenced next month. He gained notoriety in 1999 when a follower, Benjamin Smith, went on a shooting rampage. Targeting minorities, Smith killed two people, including former Northwestern University basketball coach Ricky Byrdsong, and wounded nine before killing himself as police closed in.
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