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Judge targeted by plot finds 2 bodies at home

Indianapolis Star, USA
Mar. 1, 2005
www.indystar.com

ReligionNewsBlog.com • Tuesday March 1, 2005

CHICAGO — A federal judge threatened by white supremacist Matthew Hale found two bodies in her home Monday night, and authorities were investigating the deaths, police said. The bodies were her husband’s and mother’s, a newspaper reported Monday.

U.S. District Judge Joan Humphrey Lefkow found the bodies about 6 p.m., when she returned home from work, police spokesman Pat Camden said.

The judge was uninjured.

The Chicago Tribune, citing unnamed police sources, reported on its Web site Monday night that the bodies were Lefkow’s family members.

Authorities did not disclose the cause of their deaths.

Chicago police were investigating, along with FBI agents and federal marshals.

Authorities gave no indication whether the two deaths were related to Lefkow’s involvement in the case of an Illinois white supremacist who was convicted last year of soliciting an undercover FBI informant to kill her.

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 because another organization had a copyright on that name.

Hale, 33, is currently awaiting sentencing.

In July 1999, former World Church of the Creator member Benjamin Smith went on a shooting spree directed at racial minorities, killing two — including an Indiana University student in Bloomington — and wounding nine.