CNN news 2013-04-06 加文本

cnn news 2013-04-06

We begin with the breaking news in the murder of Mike McLelland and his wife Cynthia. That and fears that his killing could be part of a wider plot. Mr. McLelland was district attorney for Kaufman County, Texas, that's just southeast of Eastern Dallas.

Gary Tuchman is there with the very latest on what a search warrant reveals and who might have been involved in this including possibly, possibly, a brutal white supremacist gang.

What are you learning, Gary?

Well, Wolf, we've just looked at that search warrant that was used for investigators to go into the McLelland's house. And what they say is that both victims were shot several times and many rifle casings were found by their bodies.

They also say the bodies were found Saturday night, two nights ago at 6:45 p.m. but it appears they were killed before then because friends were trying to call them on Friday night and were worried that nobody was answering so they could have been killed up to 24 hours before their bodies were found.

What has happened here has terrified and mystified this community.

FBI investigators march into the district attorney's office space in Texas' Kaufman County courthouse. Another ominous scene in a nightmare that has occurred in this small county. The murders of District Attorney Mike McLelland and his wife Cynthia this weekend and the killing of one of McLelland's assistant district attorneys two months earlier is causing grave concern here and throughout the state of Texas.

I suggest everyone should be careful about what goes on, whether they're public officials or otherwise, but the, this I think is a clear concern to individuals who are in public life, particularly those who deal with some very mean and vicious individuals whether they are white supremacy groups or whether they're drug cartels that we have.

As of now it's not known who's responsible for the killings, but it is certainly assumed they are related. In December, the state of Texas issued a warning. High-ranking leaders of the Aryan Brotherhood have deliberate orders to inflict mass casualties of death on Texas law enforcement officials involved in indicting 34 of their members a month earlier.

On January 31st of this year, just about a month after that warning a hardworking, respected prosecutor here in Kaufman County, Texas, parked his car in this lot. Mark Hasse was going to work at the courthouse about a block away. After he stepped out of his car, one or two masked gunmen stepped out of another vehicle. Mark Hasse was shot and killed.

The county's chief public defender, Andrew Jordan, ran to the parking lot minutes after the gunshots.

I got there roughly at the same time I believe of the infamous deed.

But he didn't know who the victim was yet. Then he found out it was Mark Hasse, who he was supposed to see in court only minutes later.

He and I had a case that we had spoken about the day before that we haven't agreed resolution on, and we were going to meet in court at 9:00 in the morning to finalize the plea.

That same day Hasse's now deceased boss, Mike McLelland, issued these forceful words.

I hope that the people that did that this are watching because we are very confident that we are going to find you. We are going to pull you out of whatever hole you're in, we're going to bring you back, and let the people of Kaufman County prosecute you to the full extent of the law.

Although the Kaufman County district attorney's office was involved in the Aryan Brotherhood case, Mark Hasse was involved minimally if at all. Less than two months after Hasse's murder, the director of prisons for the state of Colorado was killed. Tom Clements was shot at his home. But Colorado prison parolee(假释犯), white supremacist, Evan Ebel, was killed in a shootout about an hour and a half away from Kaufman County, Texas. Authorities say the shootout led to an investigation into whether the two killings were related.

And then just over a week later, Mark Hasse's boss, Mike McLelland, the man who deplored the killing of his assistant DA, is shot and killed along with his wife inside their house in Kaufman County.

A law enforcement source said the scene inside was awful with rifle casings littering the scene. The casings from a 223 caliber rifle.