The case of the judge involved in a case with a white supremecist who founder her husband and mother has taken on a totally different twist: reality has trumped logic.
It now turns out that from all indication it truly was not a white supremecist who killed — but a man who committed suicide…and left a letter confessing the crime in detail. And his DNA matches:
A DNA match from a cigarette butt convinced police that a Chicago electrician was the killer of a federal judge’s husband and mother, authorities said.
The cigarette butt found in Judge Joan Humphrey Lefkow’s house was matched to the electrician, Bart Ross, who killed himself during a traffic stop in Wisconsin this week, and the evidence points to him as the lone killer, police spokesman David Bayless said.
Ross, whose rambling lawsuit over his cancer treatment was dismissed by Lefkow, had claimed responsibility for the killings in a suicide note found in his minivan.
“The DNA match, with all the other evidence, certainly convinces us that Ross is the offender in the Lefkow family homicide,” Bayless said Thursday night.
The judge had returned home from work on Feb. 28 to find her husband and 89-year-old mother fatally shot in the basement. She described Ross as “a very pathetic, tragic person,” in an interview with The New York Times published in Friday’s editions.
This is a classic case where logic pointed one way, but the reality was in another. It reminds all of us (including TMV) that “‘Assume’ makes an ‘ass’ of u and me…” It also underscores that in our increasingly violent society a judge’s job is particularly risky. The dead suspect’s letter is definitive, dramatic and is worth a read since it shows you how little doubt remains:
I regret killing husband and mother of Judge Lefkow as much as I regret that I have to die — for the simple reason that they personally did me to no wrong. They are as much victims as I am for over 12 and a half years.
I broke into utility room to Judge Lefkow’s house at 4:30am. to spend all day there, and in the evening “to get� Judge Lefkow and then others, whoever I could get. But Mr. Lefkow discovered me in the utility room about 9:00am. He had an office next to the utility room in the basement. I had no choice … but to shoot him. Then I heard voice “Michael, Michael� so I looked to the hallway … and saw an older woman. I had to shoot her too. I followed with a 2nd shot to the head in both cases to minimize their suffering.
For years I was warning about depriving me justice to no effect. After 12 and a half years Nazi style (unintelligible) I still procrastinated with putting into effect “getting my justice,� although I considered myself “dead�… Feb. 14, 2005, I lived in my car moving around, and when I got numb enough to care about nothing, I finally did it on Feb. 28, 2005. … “I am already dead� because the listed (expletive) doesn’t know how to let live.
After I shot husband & mother of Judge Lefkow, I had a lot of time to think about “life and death� — killing is no fun, even though I knew I was already dead. I gave up further killings about 1:15pm. on Feb. 28, 2005, and left Judge Lefkow’s house. …�
Judge Lefkow was my No. 1 to kill because she finished me off and deprived me to live my life through outrageous abuse of judicial power. …
I had 22 with a noise reducer relatively quiet and effective. … And I had 9 mm as backup of a greater force.
I was not Mother Teresa and never tried to be, but, as I said, in my life I benefited from people’s good will and sacrifice, and, I hope, that letting them live (at least a few) will be more beneficial than killing them. …
Bart A. Ross
May we use the word ‘scumbag’?
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.