Kaufman County District Attorney Mike McLelland and his wife, Cynthia were found with fatal gunshot wounds at their home near the town of Forey Texas on Saturday, CNN reported. The fatalities do not appear random, as the killings occurred in the same county where an assistant prosecutor was also shot dead outside a courthouse in January. Two months ago, Assistant District Attorney Mark Hasse, DA McLelland's colleague was gunned down.
"In my view it appears that it was not random. It was a targeted attack," Forney Mayor Darren Rozell told CNN. "We're obviously sad and shocked but there's some outrage too."
He did not elaborate on a possible motive for the double murder, but neither he nor Kaufman County Sheriff David Byrnes ruled out a link between the killings.
Hasse was shot and killed on January 31 on the same day the as the U.S. Department of Justice had released a statement saying the Kaufman County District Attorney's Office was involved in a racketeering case against the Aryan Brotherhood, a white supremacist group. The Texas arm of the Aryan Brotherhood was described in an indictment unsealed in November as a gang responsible for murders, arson, assault and other crimes and prone to "extreme violence and threats of violence to maintain internal discipline and retaliate against those believed to be cooperating with law enforcement."
"It's unnerving to the law enforcement community, it's unnerving to the community at large," Byrnes told a news conference. "And that's why we're striving to assure the community that we are still providing public safety and will be able to do that."
Kaufman County Judge Bruce Wood McLelland as a friend as well as a colleague. He said he and McLelland had spoken regularly about Hasse's investigation before he was killed..
"I can't fathom someone doing this," Wood said. "It is completely senseless, and completely out of the blue. Perhaps it is retaliation, but we won't know that until someone is caught."
Authorities have made no arrests in Hasse's killing and it was McLelland who took charge to find Hasse's killer.
McLelland was a 23-year U.S. Army veteran who served in Operation Desert Storm, and had five children.
