Note might link man with murder of judge's family

CHICAGO -- Two letters and a witness description appear to connect a man who committed suicide in Wisconsin to the killing of a federal judge's husband and mother nine days earlier, Chicago police said Thursday.\nChicago Police Superintendent Phil Cline identified the man as Bart Ross, 57, of Chicago, who had filed a civil lawsuit last year that the judge dismissed. He said authorities believe Ross was the man a witness had described seeing near U.S. District Judge Joan Lefkow's home the day of the killings.\nRoss shot himself to death during a routine traffic stop Wednesday evening in suburban Milwaukee. Cline said police and federal agents found a note at the scene.\n"In processing the crime scene, we came upon a note, written presumably by the victim, where he implicated himself in the murders of Michael Lefkow and Donna Humphrey," Cline said. "In the note, the offender outlined in some detail the events of Monday, Feb. 28."\nWMAQ-TV in Chicago said it also received a hand-written letter signed by a Bart Ross Thursday in which the writer describes breaking into the house of Judge Joan Humphrey Lefkow around dawn that day with the intent to kill her, the station reported.\nCline cautioned that authorities were still comparing evidence from the crime to Ross and were searching his Chicago home. Authorities have said they found a fingerprint on a window and DNA on a cigarette butt in the Lefkow home that didn't match anyone in the Lefkow family or any felons in the FBI database.\n"We are not prepared at this time to definitely say that any one person in responsible for these homicides," Cline said.\nUp until now, investigators had suspected the two slayings may have been the work of white supremacists angry over another of Lefkow's orders.\nBut Ross had no immediately known connections to extremist groups. He had emigrated from Poland in 1982 as Bartlomiej Ciszewski, changed his name and became a U.S. citizen in 1988, according to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service.\nLefkow came into contact with Ross last year as he continued a decade-long legal fight over cancer treatment that left his face disfigured. He had already lost one lawsuit, and Lefkow dismissed another he filed in 2004 over the same issue.\nIn that lawsuit, Ross blamed the justice system for his problems and demanded Congress impeach four judges for failing to reform the justice system and denying his petition to move his case to a higher court.\nCline said Thursday that the letters linked to Ross also listed other names and that those people were being contacted. One federal judge who upheld Lefkow's 2004 ruling in January and who lives in the Milwaukee area said he was called at 3 a.m. by U.S. Marshals.\nCourt records show Ross was also being evicted from his North Side home and a had court date set for Thursday in housing court.\nOn the night of Feb. 28, Lefkow returned home and found her husband, attorney Michael Lefkow, 64, and mother, Donna Humphrey, 89, shot to death in the basement.\nIn the letter to WMAQ, the writer said he planned to wait in a utility room in the Lefkow basement all day, but the judge's husband discovered him around 9 a.m., so he shot him, the station reported. The writer said he shot Lefkow's mother after she heard the gunshot and called out to her son-in-law.\n"After I shot husband and 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 on about 1:15 p.m. on Feb. 28, 2005, and left Judge Lefkow's house," the station quoted the letter as saying.\nRoss shot himself around 5 p.m. Wednesday after a police officer in West Allis, Wis., noticed his van parked in front of a school and then pulled him over for a broken taillight. West Allis Police said Ross fired the shot before the officer reached the driver's window.