Judge's slain mother remembered at funeral

DNA match
Authorities on Friday were convinced that a DNA match from a cigarette butt proves that a man frustrated over a failed lawsuit, not a white supremacist as had earlier been believed, was the killer of the judge’s husband and mother.

The cigarette butt found in Lefkow’s house was matched to Bart A. Ross, a Chicago electrician who killed himself Wednesday during a traffic stop in Wisconsin, 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 and in letters sent to NBC Chicago affiliate WMAQ-TV.

“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.

Judge relieved it wasn't supremacist
She described Ross as “a very pathetic, tragic person,” in an interview with The New York Times published in Friday’s editions.

“I guess on one level I’m relieved that it didn’t have anything to do with the white supremacy movement, because I feel my children are going to be safer,” the judge said. “It’s heartbreaking that my husband and mother had to die over something like this.”

The judge and her five daughters have been in protective custody since the slayings.

Authorities initially focused on associates of white supremacist Matt Hale, who was convicted last year of soliciting Judge Lefkow’s murder. But the letter found Wednesday night after Ross’s suicide instead tied him to the killings, police Superintendent Phil Cline said.

Hale’s father, Russell, said he felt terrible for the Lefkow family but “great relief” for his own family when he learned of Ross’ link to the slayings.

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