Latest / Crime and Horror / One beer was missing at the scene of this double murder - MrBallen

Transcript

One beer was missing at the scene of this double murder - MrBallen · Crime and Horror

0:00
Speaker 1: On a cold February night in 2005, a woman in
0:03
Speaker 1: Chicago was sitting down for dinner when her phone rang.
0:05
Speaker 1: She looked over and saw it was her mom, so
0:07
Speaker 1: she answered it. And her mom, who lived only a
0:10
Speaker 1: few blocks away, she seemed really upset about something. And
0:13
Speaker 1: she told her daughter that she needed to come to
0:16
Speaker 1: her mother's house right now. And the daughter was like, why?
0:20
Speaker 1: What's going on? But her mom cut her off and said, no,
0:22
Speaker 1: you need to come here like right now. You need
0:25
Speaker 1: to run. That's when the woman realized that the very
0:28
Speaker 1: thing her whole family had been so afraid of for
0:31
Speaker 1: so long might have finally happened. But before we get
0:34
Speaker 1: into today's story, if you're a fan of the Strange, Dark,
0:37
Speaker 1: and Mysterious delivered in story format, then you've come to
0:40
Speaker 1: the right place because that's all we do and we
0:43
Speaker 1: upload two, three, even four times every week. So if
0:46
Speaker 1: that's of interest to you, please tell the like button
0:48
Speaker 1: that you'd love to take them out to a really
0:50
Speaker 1: fancy dinner to, you know, get all dressed up. It's
0:52
Speaker 1: going to be a great night out. But then stand
0:55
Speaker 1: them up. Also, please subscribe to our channel and turn
0:58
Speaker 1: on all notifications so you don't miss any of our
1:01
Speaker 1: weekly uploads. Okay, let's get into today's story. On the
1:26
Speaker 1: morning of February 28, 2005, a 64-year-old man named Michael
1:30
Speaker 1: Lefkow limped down the stairs inside of his home in Chicago, Illinois.
1:34
Speaker 1: He'd injured his Achilles tendon playing tennis the week before,
1:37
Speaker 1: so now he had a cast on his leg and
1:39
Speaker 1: he had to get around on crutches. When Michael got
1:42
Speaker 1: into the kitchen, he saw his wife Joan making breakfast
1:44
Speaker 1: for the whole household, which included Michael, their teenage daughter Meg,
1:48
Speaker 1: and Joan's elderly mother Donna, who had been living with
1:51
Speaker 1: them for the past four or five months. Michael said
1:53
Speaker 1: good morning to his wife, and then he hobbled his
1:55
Speaker 1: way through the kitchen over to the dining room where
1:58
Speaker 1: Meg was finishing up her eggs. And they chatted for
2:01
Speaker 1: a few minutes, and then the school bus honked outside,
2:03
Speaker 1: and Meg grabbed her backpack and raced past her dad
2:06
Speaker 1: on her way out the front door. A few moments later,
2:09
Speaker 1: Joan walked into the dining room as well with a
2:11
Speaker 1: plate of food for Michael and a cup of orange juice.
2:14
Speaker 1: And Michael thanked her, and then he asked her, what's
2:17
Speaker 1: on the docket for you today? And he meant that
2:19
Speaker 1: literally because Joan was a federal judge. And, you know,
2:23
Speaker 1: she had like a very heavy burden on her shoulders.
2:25
Speaker 1: She was routinely thrust into these cases where it was
2:28
Speaker 1: her job to make these just really difficult decisions. Decisions that,
2:32
Speaker 1: you know, sometimes were sort of in that gray area between,
2:35
Speaker 1: you know, is this the right moral decision or is
2:37
Speaker 1: this the right legal decision? And it was really her
2:40
Speaker 1: job to decide. air on the side of legal. And,
2:42
Speaker 1: I mean, the reality was is she was a great judge,
2:45
Speaker 1: but sometimes her decisions would, you know, put her in danger.
2:49
Speaker 1: I mean, this was, again, a very heavy burden, and
2:52
Speaker 1: it was something that Michael, being an attorney himself, definitely understood.
2:56
Speaker 1: He knew what it meant to be a judge. But,
2:59
Speaker 1: you know, on this particular day, when Michael asked her
3:01
Speaker 1: what she was up to in court, it just sounded
3:03
Speaker 1: an awful lot like today was going to be very typical,
3:07
Speaker 1: sort of a run-of-the-mill day for her, nothing too crazy,
3:09
Speaker 1: no Big decisions looming. And so pretty soon, the two
3:13
Speaker 1: of them were just having their breakfast. And it was
3:15
Speaker 1: just a very relaxed morning. And at some point, Michael
3:17
Speaker 1: told Joan that because of his injury, he actually was
3:20
Speaker 1: not going into the office today. He was going to
3:22
Speaker 1: be working from home. And so pretty soon, they wrapped
3:25
Speaker 1: up their breakfast. They cleaned up. And then before long,
3:28
Speaker 1: Joan was ready to go. She grabbed her stuff. And
3:31
Speaker 1: she said goodbye to her husband. And then out the
3:33
Speaker 1: door she went, hopped in her car, and drove off
3:35
Speaker 1: to court. About half an hour later, around 9 a.m.,
3:39
Speaker 1: Michael was getting ready to start a stay at the
3:41
Speaker 1: house when he saw Joan's mother, Donna, coming down the stairs.
3:45
Speaker 1: Donna was 89 years old and needed two canes just
3:48
Speaker 1: to walk. And she'd been hospitalized for sepsis the previous year.
3:52
Speaker 1: So since Joan and Michael had extra space in their home,
3:55
Speaker 1: they had offered to let her stay with them so
3:57
Speaker 1: she wouldn't be alone and they could help her if
3:59
Speaker 1: they needed to. And so Michael, despite being hurt himself,
4:02
Speaker 1: he immediately got up and hobbled over and helped Donna
4:05
Speaker 1: get down the last few steps. And then he led
4:07
Speaker 1: her back over to the dining room and helped her
4:09
Speaker 1: sit in her favorite chair. And then after she was situated,
4:12
Speaker 1: and she said that she didn't need anything else, Michael thought, okay,
4:15
Speaker 1: now I'm going to start my day. And so he
4:17
Speaker 1: gathered up his things, and he headed downstairs into the
4:20
Speaker 1: basement where his home office was. When Michael reached the
4:23
Speaker 1: bottom of the basement steps, he hobbled his way down
4:25
Speaker 1: this hallway that led to a door. He opened the
4:27
Speaker 1: door up, and inside was his home office. In he went,
4:31
Speaker 1: and he sat down at his desk, and there was
4:33
Speaker 1: already some files on the desk that he needed to
4:35
Speaker 1: sift through, and so he picked them up and began...
4:37
Speaker 1: looking through the files, figuring out where he was going
4:39
Speaker 1: to start for the day. And as he was sitting there,
4:42
Speaker 1: he thought he heard something in the closet, the utility
4:45
Speaker 1: closet that was in the home office that he was in.
4:48
Speaker 1: And the door to the utility closet was shut. And
4:51
Speaker 1: he just sat there and he listened. And again, he
4:53
Speaker 1: heard what sounded like rustling or something inside of this closet.
4:57
Speaker 1: And so he thought, you know, maybe it's the furnace that's,
4:59
Speaker 1: you know, working extra hard right now. Maybe it's making
5:02
Speaker 1: some weird sounds or something. But You know, for whatever reason,
5:05
Speaker 1: he's thinking there's something happening in this closet. I want
5:07
Speaker 1: to see what it is. And so he gets up
5:09
Speaker 1: and he hobbles his way over to the closet. And
5:11
Speaker 1: then right as he's hearing more rustling inside, he turns
5:14
Speaker 1: the doorknob and he opens up this closet. At 5 p.m.
5:21
Speaker 1: that night, Michael's wife, Joan, walked through the parking garage
5:24
Speaker 1: at the federal courthouse and got into her car. She
5:27
Speaker 1: was feeling a bit unsettled because she had called Michael
5:30
Speaker 1: a couple of times that afternoon, but there had been
5:32
Speaker 1: no answer. And this was just really unlike him. In fact,
5:35
Speaker 1: this was so unusual that Joan had actually gotten in
5:38
Speaker 1: touch with her daughter, Meg, after the school day ended
5:41
Speaker 1: and asked her, you know, have you been in touch
5:43
Speaker 1: with dad? And Meg said that she hadn't, but she
5:46
Speaker 1: had gone home after school and she had grabbed some
5:49
Speaker 1: workout clothes in the house before leaving again. And she
5:51
Speaker 1: said when she was in the house, she had not
5:53
Speaker 1: seen her dad or, you know, Joan's mom. So her grandmother, Donna,
5:57
Speaker 1: she said the house was quiet. And I just assumed
5:59
Speaker 1: that dad and grandma were asleep upstairs or something. It
6:03
Speaker 1: took Joan about half an hour to drive home. And
6:05
Speaker 1: when she pulled into the driveway around 530 that night,
6:08
Speaker 1: it was getting dark. And so she pulls into her driveway.
6:11
Speaker 1: She gets out. She she's still pretty anxious because she
6:13
Speaker 1: just hasn't heard from Michael or her mom at this point.
6:16
Speaker 1: And she she goes up to the front door. She
6:18
Speaker 1: unlocks it. She steps inside and right away she calls
6:21
Speaker 1: out for Michael. There's no answer. She calls out for
6:24
Speaker 1: her mom. There's no answer. So she walks around the
6:26
Speaker 1: first floor. Again, no sign of any issues here. Her
6:30
Speaker 1: husband and her mom are not around. She eventually makes
6:33
Speaker 1: her way upstairs, hoping to find them asleep in their beds.
6:36
Speaker 1: But she gets up there and she checks the bedrooms
6:39
Speaker 1: and all the rooms upstairs and there's no one up there.
6:42
Speaker 1: And so the only place left to look in the
6:44
Speaker 1: house was the basement. But at this hour, it just
6:48
Speaker 1: made no sense that Michael or her mom would be
6:51
Speaker 1: in the basement. And so eventually, you know, even though
6:53
Speaker 1: she felt really uneasy... She went back to the first floor.
6:56
Speaker 1: She went to the doorway that led down to the
6:58
Speaker 1: stairs into the basement, and she took a deep breath.
7:02
Speaker 1: She turned on the lights inside of the stairwell down
7:04
Speaker 1: to the basement, and she called out for Michael and
7:06
Speaker 1: her mom, but still no answer. And then down the
7:09
Speaker 1: stairs she went. When she got to the base of
7:12
Speaker 1: the stairs, she looked down that hallway that led to
7:15
Speaker 1: Michael's office, and she saw at first there was nothing.
7:18
Speaker 1: She didn't see anything, but on the floor right outside
7:21
Speaker 1: of Michael's office, she saw what looked like blood on
7:23
Speaker 1: the ground. And so at this point, she panicked. She
7:26
Speaker 1: ran down the hallway. She's screaming for Michael. She grabs
7:29
Speaker 1: the door handle. She opens it up. And it's like
7:32
Speaker 1: everything she saw in there was so shocking. It was
7:34
Speaker 1: like her brain couldn't process it. And she just shut
7:37
Speaker 1: the door right away. Like she couldn't handle what she
7:39
Speaker 1: had just seen. And then a moment later, she had
7:42
Speaker 1: bolted back upstairs and called 911. In the late evening
7:47
Speaker 1: of February 28, 2005, Special Agent Douglas Seacombe of the
7:51
Speaker 1: Chicago FBI office ducked under the crime scene tape around
7:55
Speaker 1: the Lefkow family's home. So about 30 minutes earlier, the
7:59
Speaker 1: 911 call had come out of this home from Joan
8:02
Speaker 1: about what appeared to be a murder at this address.
8:05
Speaker 1: And since the caller, Joan, had identified herself as a
8:08
Speaker 1: federal judge, the Chicago police had immediately called the FBI
8:12
Speaker 1: to take part in this investigation. And so now Special
8:16
Speaker 1: Agent Seacombe flashed his badge to one of the uniformed
8:18
Speaker 1: officers who was standing outside right near the edge of
8:21
Speaker 1: the crime scene tape. And he asked them, where is
8:24
Speaker 1: Judge Joan Lefkow? And the officer said that Judge Joan,
8:28
Speaker 1: along with her daughters, so not just Meg, her teenage daughter,
8:31
Speaker 1: but also Joan's three adult daughters who no longer lived
8:34
Speaker 1: at home, they had all been taken together to a
8:37
Speaker 1: safe house by the U.S. Marshals. And so Seacombe, after
8:39
Speaker 1: hearing this, stepped inside the house. And he found a
8:43
Speaker 1: whole bunch of forensic teams already hard at work sweeping
8:46
Speaker 1: every room for evidence. And as he walked through the
8:48
Speaker 1: living room and the kitchen on the main floor, he
8:51
Speaker 1: didn't see any signs of blood or a struggle of
8:53
Speaker 1: any kind. And he also saw that, you know, TV
8:56
Speaker 1: and other expensive looking electronics were still in place. And
9:00
Speaker 1: so he didn't think this was a robbery gone wrong.
9:02
Speaker 1: Seacombe eventually found his way to the stairs that led
9:05
Speaker 1: down into the basement, and so down he went, and
9:08
Speaker 1: he found there were a few officers and a crime
9:10
Speaker 1: scene photographer that were down there, gathered around a door
9:13
Speaker 1: that was at the end of the hallway. And so
9:15
Speaker 1: Seacombe made his way down the hallway, he pushed past
9:17
Speaker 1: the group of people, and there inside of this home
9:20
Speaker 1: office he saw two dead bodies. There was a man
9:24
Speaker 1: who was lying face down, and then right next to
9:26
Speaker 1: him was also an elderly woman who was lying face up,
9:29
Speaker 1: and there was just a big pool of blood underneath
9:32
Speaker 1: both of them. Seacombe immediately noticed that both the victims
9:36
Speaker 1: had fairly obvious gunshot wounds to their heads. And then
9:39
Speaker 1: when he knelt down to get a better look, he
9:41
Speaker 1: also found shell casings scattered around on the floor. So
9:45
Speaker 1: he figured that very likely these two clearly have been shot,
9:49
Speaker 1: but more specifically, they've been shot and killed in this room.
9:53
Speaker 1: On the other side of this office, Seacombe saw there
9:55
Speaker 1: was a closet and its doors were open and it
9:58
Speaker 1: appeared to be a utility closet. And so Seacombe, he
10:00
Speaker 1: walked over and he, he stepped inside and inside of
10:04
Speaker 1: it was this big furnace. And then next to it
10:06
Speaker 1: on the ground, he found there was a 12 pack
10:09
Speaker 1: of beer bottles, except one of the bottles was missing.
10:12
Speaker 1: And so Seacombe looked around inside the closet. He didn't
10:14
Speaker 1: see the 12th bottle and And then he turned around
10:18
Speaker 1: and looked back into the office. And as he's looking
10:21
Speaker 1: back into the office, he notices there's this window high
10:24
Speaker 1: up inside of the office. And it actually was out
10:26
Speaker 1: to the ground floor because this is a basement, right?
10:29
Speaker 1: This is a window that leads to the first floor
10:31
Speaker 1: of the house, if you will. And there's like a
10:33
Speaker 1: cutout inside of the office, like a windowsill, almost like
10:36
Speaker 1: a ledge that is part of this window, right? So
10:39
Speaker 1: you could actually place things on this windowsill if you
10:42
Speaker 1: wanted to. And he looked up into this window and
10:45
Speaker 1: he saw there was a single beer bottle sitting on
10:48
Speaker 1: that windowsill, on that ledge. And also he saw the
10:51
Speaker 1: window itself was shattered. And so right away, Seacombe's thinking like, okay,
10:56
Speaker 1: did the killer leave behind this beer? And if so, why? Like,
11:01
Speaker 1: is this a message? Are they leaving the bottle here
11:03
Speaker 1: on purpose for us to find it? Or is this
11:05
Speaker 1: a mistake? And so Seacombe, he called for a forensics
11:08
Speaker 1: officer to come over and bag this additional bottle, the
11:11
Speaker 1: 12th bottle, and swab it for DNA and fingerprints in case,
11:15
Speaker 1: you know, this was left by the killer. And so
11:17
Speaker 1: the forensics officer, he placed this bottle inside of a
11:20
Speaker 1: plastic bag, and then he asked Seacom to leave the
11:23
Speaker 1: office and head upstairs for a minute so that he
11:25
Speaker 1: and his team could spray the entire basement with a
11:28
Speaker 1: chemical called leukocrystal violet, which can illuminate traces of blood
11:32
Speaker 1: that are not necessarily visible to the naked eye. And
11:35
Speaker 1: so as Seacom left the office and began making his
11:37
Speaker 1: way upstairs, he began thinking about what he had just learned.
11:41
Speaker 1: So you have a broken window leading into the home
11:44
Speaker 1: office where it appears the shooting took place. And the
11:47
Speaker 1: fact that the window was broken does suggest that's how
11:50
Speaker 1: the killer or killers got in. And if that's the case,
11:53
Speaker 1: it likely means the killer or killers did not know
11:57
Speaker 1: the victims personally. They didn't have a key to the house,
12:00
Speaker 1: for example, or they weren't going to be let in
12:02
Speaker 1: if they showed up at the front door. But then
12:04
Speaker 1: you have this weird beer bottle thing. Like if the
12:07
Speaker 1: killer left behind beer in that utility closet and this
12:11
Speaker 1: extra beer bottle up on the ledge of the window,
12:15
Speaker 1: that feels really sloppy. And so that's sort of at
12:18
Speaker 1: odds with the idea that this was like an intentional,
12:20
Speaker 1: you know, outsider coming to do this hit. And then
12:23
Speaker 1: he's also thinking like, you know, the elephant in the
12:25
Speaker 1: room here is that Joan, you know, Judge Joan Lefkow,
12:30
Speaker 1: this is her husband and her mother. You know, was
12:32
Speaker 1: that intentional? Were they trying to sort of indirectly hurt
12:36
Speaker 1: Judge Joan? Or was Judge Joan the target? Or was
12:39
Speaker 1: this coincidence? When you're refreshing your space, choosing a paint
12:50
Speaker 1: color can feel weirdly high stakes. Will that seafoam green
12:54
Speaker 1: that you loved online look more like split pea soup
12:57
Speaker 1: on your walls? Luckily, Sherwin-Williams takes the guesswork out of
13:02
Speaker 1: finding the perfect paint color. With three easy ways to sample,
13:05
Speaker 1: you can choose color with confidence. testing shades in your
13:08
Speaker 1: actual space before making the final call. Order color chips,
13:12
Speaker 1: peel and stick, or color to go paint samples at swsamples.com
13:16
Speaker 1: or visit your neighborhood Sherwin-Williams store to get started today.
13:23
Speaker 1: An hour later, while forensics teams were still searching the
13:26
Speaker 1: crime scene, Seacom went out to canvass the neighborhood. The
13:29
Speaker 1: chemical spray that the forensics team had sprayed in the
13:32
Speaker 1: basement after Seacom had left was had in fact revealed
13:35
Speaker 1: additional traces of blood all over the basement hallway. So
13:39
Speaker 1: it looked like at least one of the victims had
13:41
Speaker 1: actually been shot in the hallway and then moved into
13:44
Speaker 1: the office. And then the killer apparently had cleaned the
13:47
Speaker 1: hallway afterwards, but obviously this chemical had still revealed the
13:50
Speaker 1: blood traces. And so Seacombe thought to himself that if
13:54
Speaker 1: the killer or killers stuck around to clean up after themselves,
13:59
Speaker 1: It suggests that they went into this home with the
14:02
Speaker 1: intention of committing murder. It was just a matter of why.
14:07
Speaker 1: Was it Joan the target? Was it her loved ones?
14:09
Speaker 1: Why did that happen? Who would want to harm the Lefkows?
14:13
Speaker 1: And so Seacom went down the street, knocking on doors
14:16
Speaker 1: and speaking to various neighbors, trying to get a feel for,
14:20
Speaker 1: you know, what the Lefkows were like. But, you know,
14:22
Speaker 1: after speaking to many people on the block who tried
14:25
Speaker 1: to be very helpful... You know, Seacombe really hadn't learned
14:28
Speaker 1: much of anything. Like, no one really had all that
14:30
Speaker 1: much to say. But eventually, Seacombe found his way to
14:34
Speaker 1: a church that was in the neighborhood and he knocked
14:36
Speaker 1: on the door. And a moment later, the pastor opened
14:38
Speaker 1: the door and Seacombe explained that, you know, unfortunately, a
14:42
Speaker 1: double murder had taken place down the block and they
14:44
Speaker 1: were here investigating. And have you seen or heard anything
14:48
Speaker 1: unusual in the past, you know, several hours? And the
14:51
Speaker 1: pastor at first is just totally taken aback by what
14:54
Speaker 1: he's been told. He can't believe it. Then he's like,
14:58
Speaker 1: you know what? Actually, yeah, something strange did happen earlier today.
15:02
Speaker 1: The pastor said he had seen this red car just
15:05
Speaker 1: loitering nearby that had two men inside of it. And
15:08
Speaker 1: they were apparently smoking and drinking cans of what appeared
15:11
Speaker 1: to be Coca-Cola. But they just sort of didn't fit
15:14
Speaker 1: in with the neighborhood. Like the pastor didn't know who
15:16
Speaker 1: they were. And it just seems sort of odd that
15:19
Speaker 1: they were here. And so just considering what he's been
15:22
Speaker 1: told about this double murder, he basically said, you know,
15:25
Speaker 1: you might want to look into who those guys were.
15:27
Speaker 1: And so Seacombe asked the pastor if he'd gotten a
15:29
Speaker 1: good enough look at these two men to maybe be
15:32
Speaker 1: able to help their sketch artist come up with a
15:34
Speaker 1: composite sketch. And the pastor said, yeah, I think so.
15:37
Speaker 1: And so Seacombe's like, okay, great. We're going to do that.
15:39
Speaker 1: But also, can you specifically point out where this car was,
15:43
Speaker 1: like outside, so I can go look at the area?
15:45
Speaker 1: And the pastor, he pointed across the street and he said,
15:48
Speaker 1: you know, right over there. And so Seacombe, he looks
15:50
Speaker 1: where the pastor is pointing. And sure enough, he could
15:53
Speaker 1: see on the ground, there were all these cigarette butts
15:55
Speaker 1: and clearly an empty Coke can. And so Seacombe called
15:58
Speaker 1: over a forensics team, and they scooped the stuff up,
16:01
Speaker 1: and they sent it off to be tested. Later that
16:05
Speaker 1: same night, Seacombe sat down at a table at the
16:07
Speaker 1: safe house where Joan and her daughters were all staying.
16:10
Speaker 1: And Joan, she walked over and set a glass of
16:12
Speaker 1: water in front of him, and then she sat down
16:15
Speaker 1: across from him. And Seacombe thought Joan seemed surprisingly calm
16:18
Speaker 1: and composed, considering her husband and her mother have just
16:22
Speaker 1: been brutally murdered. But he also could sense that underneath
16:25
Speaker 1: the surface of Joan's sort of calm affect, she seemed furious.
16:30
Speaker 1: And so Seacombe and Joan, they spoke a little bit about,
16:33
Speaker 1: you know, this great tragedy and how awful this was. However,
16:37
Speaker 1: pretty quickly, Seacombe just sort of got into asking pointed
16:40
Speaker 1: questions of Joan. And Joan answered them. Seacombe asked Joan
16:44
Speaker 1: about the 12-pack of beer that was in the utility
16:46
Speaker 1: closet in the basement. And she told him it was
16:48
Speaker 1: left over from a party that they had thrown earlier
16:50
Speaker 1: that same week. And she said she was the one
16:53
Speaker 1: who actually put those beers in the closet. And when
16:56
Speaker 1: she did, she said they were all unopened. And this
17:00
Speaker 1: was great news for Seacombe and the investigation because that
17:03
Speaker 1: meant that the beer up on that windowsill in the
17:05
Speaker 1: basement almost certainly was handled by the killer or killers.
17:09
Speaker 1: But still, the idea of somebody breaking into this house
17:13
Speaker 1: and stumbling across some beer in the closet and stopping
17:16
Speaker 1: to actually have a drink right in the middle of
17:19
Speaker 1: committing a double murder and then leaving the beer bottle behind,
17:23
Speaker 1: it just felt like a really weird decision to make.
17:27
Speaker 1: And so Seacombe wondered if maybe there was something at
17:29
Speaker 1: play here that literally prevented the killer from thinking clearly
17:33
Speaker 1: in the moment, like mental illness or maybe drug use.
17:36
Speaker 1: So at this point, Seacombe had already come to the
17:39
Speaker 1: conclusion that very likely Donna, Joan's elderly mother, was not
17:43
Speaker 1: the intended target. She's 89. She doesn't have any known enemies.
17:47
Speaker 1: She's not hurting anyone. She's not a target here. But
17:50
Speaker 1: perhaps Michael, Joan's husband, could have been the target. After all,
17:55
Speaker 1: at one point, he'd actually run for Cook County judge
17:57
Speaker 1: a few years ago. And even though he had lost,
18:00
Speaker 1: entering politics was a surefire way to make enemies. So
18:03
Speaker 1: it was possible he could have been the target and
18:06
Speaker 1: Donna was collateral damage, but most likely of all still
18:10
Speaker 1: was that Joan was the one being targeted. Seacombe knew
18:14
Speaker 1: that as a federal judge, there could be literally hundreds
18:17
Speaker 1: of people holding very serious grudges against her. And so
18:21
Speaker 1: Seacombe told Joan that back at the command post, there
18:24
Speaker 1: was a team of detectives going through her entire docket
18:27
Speaker 1: and making a list of everyone who might've had a
18:29
Speaker 1: ruling that they were not happy with in the past
18:31
Speaker 1: few years. But maybe to help speed things along, He
18:36
Speaker 1: asked Joan if she could think of anybody off the
18:38
Speaker 1: top of her head who might have been responsible for this.
18:42
Speaker 1: And Joan, sort of without hesitation, said, yeah. In fact,
18:45
Speaker 1: there were three cases that came to mind. The first
18:47
Speaker 1: case was about a guy named Sean Peters, who was
18:50
Speaker 1: the leader of a local gang. And Joan had given
18:53
Speaker 1: him a very lengthy prison sentence. And so she said
18:56
Speaker 1: any of his fellow gang members, in theory, could have
18:58
Speaker 1: come after her in retaliation. The second case she brought
19:01
Speaker 1: up was about this armed robber whose name was Richard Young.
19:05
Speaker 1: And she said he just really scared her in the courtroom.
19:08
Speaker 1: Like he himself was just a very intimidating and sort
19:11
Speaker 1: of threatening person. And so he seemed capable of doing
19:14
Speaker 1: something like this. And she said the third case was
19:17
Speaker 1: about Matthew Hale. And before she even got into the explanation,
19:20
Speaker 1: Seacombe recognized the name. Because at the time, Hale was
19:24
Speaker 1: one of the most notorious white supremacists in all of Illinois.
19:28
Speaker 1: Six years earlier, one of his followers had committed this
19:31
Speaker 1: horrible shooting spree that left two people dead and nine
19:34
Speaker 1: others injured. Joan said that Hale had actually targeted her
19:38
Speaker 1: a couple of years ago in the wake of this
19:40
Speaker 1: trademark dispute. A church in Oregon with the same name
19:43
Speaker 1: as Hale's group had sued them, and Joan had actually
19:47
Speaker 1: enforced a ruling that forced Hale to change his group's name.
19:51
Speaker 1: Joan said that just the year before, Hale had actually
19:55
Speaker 1: been convicted of plotting to kill her over this issue.
19:59
Speaker 1: Joan said he was still in prison for those charges,
20:02
Speaker 1: so Seacon realized he could not have pulled the trigger himself,
20:05
Speaker 1: but clearly he had many followers who were willing to
20:08
Speaker 1: do things like this for him. The next day, so
20:15
Speaker 1: March 1st, Seacombe sat down from notorious white supremacist Matthew
20:19
Speaker 1: Hale in a visiting room at the prison in Chicago
20:22
Speaker 1: where he was incarcerated. Hale was this very clean-cut, very
20:25
Speaker 1: stern-looking man in his mid-30s, and he didn't seem remotely
20:29
Speaker 1: rattled to be sitting across from an FBI agent who
20:32
Speaker 1: basically was insinuating that Hale was a potential suspect in
20:35
Speaker 1: a double homicide. And so Seacombe told Hale about how
20:39
Speaker 1: Joan Lefkow's husband and her elderly mother had been brutally
20:42
Speaker 1: murdered inside of her home. And in response, Hale just laughed.
20:47
Speaker 1: He said that he and his followers had nothing to
20:50
Speaker 1: do with those murders. But, you know, this was more
20:52
Speaker 1: or less what Seacombe had expected Hale to say, because
20:55
Speaker 1: Hale was actually still awaiting sentencing for having tried to
21:00
Speaker 1: kill Joan. So, of course, he's not going to admit
21:03
Speaker 1: here to arranging another murder. He's going to say, no,
21:06
Speaker 1: I had nothing to do with it. Seacombe told him
21:07
Speaker 1: that it really didn't matter if he denied this, because
21:10
Speaker 1: at this very moment, agents were seizing his phone and
21:13
Speaker 1: computer records. And if he had said anything at all
21:16
Speaker 1: about Joan Lefkow and her family to any of his followers,
21:20
Speaker 1: they would find out. But Hale, he just sat back
21:22
Speaker 1: and smiled and continued to insist that he's like, look,
21:25
Speaker 1: I really had nothing to do with this one. Like,
21:28
Speaker 1: nothing at all. You will find nothing. And Seacombe couldn't
21:31
Speaker 1: help but think that Hale seemed so calm and so
21:34
Speaker 1: confident that really deep down he thought to himself, maybe
21:38
Speaker 1: he's telling the truth. Later that same afternoon... Seacombe hunched
21:42
Speaker 1: over a desk in the corner of the Chicago Police
21:45
Speaker 1: command post. At this point, the police, the FBI, and
21:48
Speaker 1: the U.S. Marshals were all working on this case as
21:50
Speaker 1: part of a joint task force, and all the officers
21:53
Speaker 1: on the task force had moved their equipment into the
21:55
Speaker 1: police precinct so the investigation could be centralized. In a
21:59
Speaker 1: conference room to his left, Seacombe could see police officers
22:02
Speaker 1: comparing photos of Matthew Hale's followers to the composite sketches
22:06
Speaker 1: of the two men in the red car who the
22:08
Speaker 1: pastor had seen near the crime scene. And at a
22:11
Speaker 1: desk to Seacom's right, there was another FBI agent who
22:14
Speaker 1: was listening to a recording of a phone call that
22:17
Speaker 1: Hale had recently made to his mother. The FBI at
22:20
Speaker 1: this point was taping all of Hale's phone calls in
22:22
Speaker 1: case he said anything incriminating. And meanwhile, other task force
22:26
Speaker 1: officers were sorting through this huge pile of letters that
22:29
Speaker 1: Hale had received in prison. However, after going through these letters,
22:32
Speaker 1: there was no mention of the Lefkows anywhere. However, at
22:36
Speaker 1: some point, Seacom would join these other officers and and
22:39
Speaker 1: continue to sort through all this mail in case something
22:41
Speaker 1: got missed. And as he was sorting through, you know,
22:44
Speaker 1: months worth of mail, something actually did catch his attention.
22:48
Speaker 1: For months, Hale had been exchanging letters with this woman
22:52
Speaker 1: whose name was Kathleen Robert Tazo. Basically every other day
22:55
Speaker 1: they were speaking. And Hale did not write to anybody
22:58
Speaker 1: else nearly that often, not even his own family. So
23:01
Speaker 1: this woman was clearly very important. Now on the surface,
23:05
Speaker 1: nothing in these letters between Hale and Kathleen was incriminating. However,
23:10
Speaker 1: given the frequency of communication, Seacombe had to wonder if
23:13
Speaker 1: maybe these two could be talking in code. Like maybe
23:17
Speaker 1: they are talking about the Lefkows, but we just can't tell.
23:20
Speaker 1: The return address on these letters was for a suburb
23:23
Speaker 1: in Chicago, about 30 miles away from the prison where
23:26
Speaker 1: Hale was at. So Seacombe bundled up all the letters
23:28
Speaker 1: from Kathleen and stuck them inside of an envelope. He
23:32
Speaker 1: would need them as evidence to get a search warrant.
23:44
Speaker 1: The next evening, March 2nd, 2005, Special Agent Douglas Seacombe
23:48
Speaker 1: led a team of FBI agents up the driveway of
23:50
Speaker 1: a suburban home just outside of Chicago. And as they
23:53
Speaker 1: made their way up the driveway, they saw the car
23:56
Speaker 1: parked there was red, just like the car the pastor
23:59
Speaker 1: had seen outside the church that had been loitering near
24:02
Speaker 1: where Michael and Donna had been killed. Seacombe made his
24:04
Speaker 1: way up to the front door and he knocked. And
24:06
Speaker 1: then a moment later, a woman answered and he said,
24:09
Speaker 1: are you Kathleen Robertazzo? And she said, yes. And he said, OK.
24:13
Speaker 1: And he held up a search warrant. And he said,
24:15
Speaker 1: we're here to search your house. And so Seacombe stayed
24:18
Speaker 1: outside with Kathleen while the other agents went inside and
24:21
Speaker 1: swept the whole house. And Kathleen seemed really annoyed by
24:24
Speaker 1: this whole thing, but definitely not that surprised. And so
24:28
Speaker 1: while the team was searching the home, Seacombe turned to
24:30
Speaker 1: Kathleen and asked her about her relationship with Matthew Hale.
24:35
Speaker 1: And he also asked her if she agreed with his,
24:37
Speaker 1: you know, white supremacist views. And Kathleen admitted that, you know,
24:40
Speaker 1: she did have a relationship with Matthew. But she corrected
24:43
Speaker 1: Seacombe and said, you know, I'm not a white supremacist.
24:46
Speaker 1: I'm a white separatist. Seacombe sighed and moved on to
24:50
Speaker 1: asking Kathleen about her whereabouts on the day of Michael
24:53
Speaker 1: and Donna's murders. And Kathleen insisted that she had nothing
24:57
Speaker 1: to do with that. She gave Seacombe her alibi for
24:59
Speaker 1: the whole day of February 28th. And while Seacombe was
25:02
Speaker 1: writing down the details on his notepad, the other agents
25:05
Speaker 1: came back out of the house carrying a computer. When
25:08
Speaker 1: Kathleen began complaining that she needed that computer for her work,
25:12
Speaker 1: Seacombe told her that they'd return it as soon as
25:14
Speaker 1: they searched it. And then before Seacombe put his notepad away,
25:18
Speaker 1: he looked down to the driveway and he looked at
25:20
Speaker 1: Kathleen's red car. And he remembered that he actually hadn't
25:23
Speaker 1: written down the license plate or the make or the model.
25:26
Speaker 1: But as he's looking at this car, he's realizing that
25:29
Speaker 1: there's no way this car matched the description of the
25:33
Speaker 1: pastor's red car that he had seen loitering outside of
25:35
Speaker 1: the church. Like this was definitely not the same car
25:39
Speaker 1: that was suspected of being involved in the murders. Two
25:42
Speaker 1: days later, on the evening of Friday, March 4th, so
25:45
Speaker 1: now four days after Michael and Donna were killed, Special
25:48
Speaker 1: Agent Seacom carried a cup of coffee into a meeting
25:51
Speaker 1: room with the other officers on the task force. He
25:53
Speaker 1: looked around the room and everybody just looked completely exhausted.
25:57
Speaker 1: It would turn out Kathleen's alibi had checked out and
26:01
Speaker 1: her red car was definitely not the red car that
26:03
Speaker 1: had been spotted by the pastor. And there had been
26:06
Speaker 1: nothing on her computer that they had taken to search.
26:08
Speaker 1: So basically, she was cleared. And so Seacombe and his
26:11
Speaker 1: fellow FBI agents over the past couple of days, this
26:14
Speaker 1: is right after Kathleen was cleared, they had gone ahead
26:18
Speaker 1: and expanded their search and began interviewing more and more
26:21
Speaker 1: of Matthew Hale's followers. And a lot of them were
26:24
Speaker 1: very confrontational. And at least three people were detained for
26:28
Speaker 1: starting fights with the investigators. But one by one, their
26:32
Speaker 1: alibis began to check out. And so none of them
26:35
Speaker 1: were tied to Michael and Donna's murders, at least not yet. Now,
26:38
Speaker 1: a lot of Hale's followers had criminal records, so Seacon
26:42
Speaker 1: was hoping that maybe once fingerprint evidence came back from
26:45
Speaker 1: the crime lab, it would turn up a match. But
26:48
Speaker 1: deep down, realistically, Seacon was starting to doubt that anybody
26:51
Speaker 1: in Hale's circle was behind this. Additionally, the task force
26:55
Speaker 1: had investigated that gang leader Joan had mentioned, Sean Peters,
26:58
Speaker 1: as well as that armed robber, Richard Young. And they
27:01
Speaker 1: both also had been cleared of suspects. And so now,
27:04
Speaker 1: you know, Seacombe couldn't help but feel like, you know,
27:06
Speaker 1: we're four days into this investigation, this pretty high profile investigation.
27:10
Speaker 1: And it sort of seems like we really don't have
27:13
Speaker 1: much to show for it. Now, it was the case
27:15
Speaker 1: that there were still dozens of other people on Joan's
27:18
Speaker 1: court docket that maybe could have wanted to kill her
27:21
Speaker 1: that Joan was not aware of. But, you know, it
27:23
Speaker 1: was going to take time to keep sorting through all
27:25
Speaker 1: these people. And right now they just They didn't have
27:28
Speaker 1: traction in any one direction. It was like everything was
27:30
Speaker 1: sort of becoming a dead end. And so as Seacombe
27:33
Speaker 1: is sitting in this room full of the other agents
27:35
Speaker 1: and they're all sort of at a loss for what
27:36
Speaker 1: to do next, he was thinking to himself, is it
27:39
Speaker 1: possible that we've all just sort of wrongfully jumped to conclusions?
27:44
Speaker 1: We all basically assumed that this attack was, you know,
27:48
Speaker 1: targeted at Joan. But Seacombe's thinking to himself, he couldn't
27:51
Speaker 1: remember any other case where a judge's family was killed
27:55
Speaker 1: and not the judge themself. Just then, Seacom's supervisor from
27:59
Speaker 1: the Chicago FBI office kicked off the meeting by announcing
28:03
Speaker 1: that the agency was putting up a $ 50, 000 reward to
28:06
Speaker 1: the public for information on the murders. Now, the task
28:09
Speaker 1: force by this point had received over 200 tips, but
28:13
Speaker 1: the supervisor said, like, clearly that wasn't enough. And so
28:16
Speaker 1: we're going to use this reward to try to entice
28:19
Speaker 1: people who might have been too afraid to come forward
28:22
Speaker 1: to come forward. We'll pay them. And so hopefully this
28:24
Speaker 1: leads to better tips. The next Tuesday, so nine days
28:28
Speaker 1: after Michael and Donna's murders, Seacombe walked into the command post.
28:31
Speaker 1: The task force had been working all weekend, following up
28:34
Speaker 1: on hundreds and hundreds of calls that had come in
28:38
Speaker 1: since the reward money was announced. But it still didn't
28:41
Speaker 1: really seem like they were getting anywhere. And so Seacombe,
28:43
Speaker 1: he sat down at his desk and he opened up
28:45
Speaker 1: a folder and he was about to get started when
28:47
Speaker 1: his cell phone rang. And he answered it and it
28:50
Speaker 1: was the deputy director of the crime lab. And so
28:52
Speaker 1: Seacombe's heart began to pound with anticipation and as the
28:55
Speaker 1: deputy director told him that they had analyzed those fingerprints
28:59
Speaker 1: found on that beer bottle in the basement of the
29:01
Speaker 1: crime scene up in the window ledge, and after they
29:04
Speaker 1: had run it through the database, they had found a match.
29:12
Speaker 1: Based on forensic evidence and a confession from the killer,
29:16
Speaker 1: this is what police believe happened to Michael Lefkow and
29:18
Speaker 1: Donna Humphrey on February 28, 2005. Around 4.30 a.m., while
29:28
Speaker 1: everybody in the Lefkow house was still asleep, the killer
29:31
Speaker 1: smashed through that basement window and climbed down into the basement,
29:35
Speaker 1: and with them was a gun. Their plan was to
29:37
Speaker 1: hide in the utility closet all day. and then once
29:40
Speaker 1: everybody inside the house cleared out, they would leave the
29:43
Speaker 1: utility closet, sneak upstairs, and they would wait. And when
29:47
Speaker 1: the time was right, they would jump out, and they
29:50
Speaker 1: would ambush the person that they wanted to seek revenge on.
29:53
Speaker 1: But things did not go according to plan. Around 9 a.m.,
29:57
Speaker 1: the killer was still in the closet... And they heard
29:59
Speaker 1: footsteps coming downstairs, coming down the hallway and into the
30:02
Speaker 1: office where they were. And then they heard the sound
30:04
Speaker 1: of somebody sitting in that desk chair and papers shuffling around.
30:08
Speaker 1: And then a moment later, they heard the sound of
30:11
Speaker 1: footsteps as somebody approached the closet. And then before long,
30:15
Speaker 1: the closet doors opened and there was this man standing
30:17
Speaker 1: there looking really surprised. He was on crutches and he's
30:20
Speaker 1: looking at the killer. And the killer just panicked and
30:22
Speaker 1: they raised their gun and they shot this man point
30:25
Speaker 1: blank in the head. And he crumpled to the ground.
30:28
Speaker 1: And the killer's looking down and there's just blood going everywhere.
30:31
Speaker 1: And they're like, I can't believe what I've done. And
30:34
Speaker 1: then a moment later, the killer hears somebody calling out, Michael, Michael,
30:38
Speaker 1: is that you? And he looks down the hallway and
30:41
Speaker 1: he sees this elderly woman shuffling down the hallway looking
30:44
Speaker 1: really concerned who clearly just heard the gunshot. And sort
30:47
Speaker 1: of in a continued state of panic, the killer rushed
30:50
Speaker 1: out of the closet, went down the hallway, raised the
30:52
Speaker 1: gun and shot this woman in the head as well.
30:55
Speaker 1: And as Donna is bleeding all over the hallway, the
30:57
Speaker 1: killer put their gun away, reached down, scooped her up
31:00
Speaker 1: and dragged her over into the office and sort of
31:04
Speaker 1: dropped her next to Michael. At this point, the killer's
31:06
Speaker 1: looking down at what they've done and they're thinking, well,
31:09
Speaker 1: At this point, I better make sure they really are dead.
31:12
Speaker 1: So they pull out their gun again and they shoot
31:15
Speaker 1: Donna and Michael one more time just to make sure
31:17
Speaker 1: they would not talk to anyone about what they had seen.
31:20
Speaker 1: After that, the killer went back into the utility closet
31:24
Speaker 1: and their eyes landed on that pack of beer sitting
31:26
Speaker 1: on the floor. And they felt like that was exactly
31:28
Speaker 1: what they needed right now to calm their nerves. So
31:31
Speaker 1: they reached down and they pulled out one of those
31:33
Speaker 1: beers and they cracked it open and they took a
31:35
Speaker 1: sip while they thought about what their next move was
31:37
Speaker 1: going to be. And so as the killer is drinking
31:40
Speaker 1: this beer, they're thinking to themselves, well, I've just killed
31:43
Speaker 1: two people that I did not intend to kill. Those
31:45
Speaker 1: were not my targets. And so they felt kind of bad,
31:48
Speaker 1: like two basically innocent people had been murdered here. And
31:52
Speaker 1: so it made the killer think, like, should I still
31:54
Speaker 1: stick around and wait for my intended target? And eventually
31:57
Speaker 1: they decided, you know what, I need to change my plan.
32:00
Speaker 1: And so the killer, they set their beer bottle down
32:03
Speaker 1: on the windowsill. Then they went and found a sponge
32:06
Speaker 1: and some bleach. And they began to try to clean
32:08
Speaker 1: up all the blood in the hallway. But as they're
32:11
Speaker 1: doing this, you know, they're realizing there's just so much
32:13
Speaker 1: blood out here. There's bodies and lots more blood in
32:17
Speaker 1: the office. Like, this is too much. I can't possibly
32:20
Speaker 1: clean all this. And so finally, around 1.15 p.m., the
32:24
Speaker 1: killer just sort of was like, well, this is as
32:26
Speaker 1: good as I can do in terms of cleanup. I'm
32:28
Speaker 1: just going to leave. And so they did. They left
32:30
Speaker 1: the house and they left behind that bottle in the
32:32
Speaker 1: windowsill that would have their DNA and fingerprints all over it.
32:37
Speaker 1: The killer was a man named Bart Ross, and his
32:40
Speaker 1: intended target was Joan Lefkow. But Bart was not like
32:44
Speaker 1: a hardened criminal. Bart was a cancer patient who had
32:48
Speaker 1: tried to sue his doctors after he lost part of
32:50
Speaker 1: his jaw during treatment. Ross had developed a vendetta against
32:53
Speaker 1: these doctors who had left him disfigured. And over the
32:56
Speaker 1: last few years, he'd become increasingly paranoid and detached from reality,
33:01
Speaker 1: and he ultimately blamed Joan Lefkow for dismissing his medical
33:04
Speaker 1: malpractice suit and preventing him from getting justice. And so
33:08
Speaker 1: Bart had put together this list of 25 doctors, lawyers,
33:12
Speaker 1: and judges he wanted to kill, and Joan just happened
33:16
Speaker 1: to be at the top of the list. But after
33:18
Speaker 1: going into her home with the intent to kill Joan,
33:21
Speaker 1: but actually just killing Michael and Donna, Ross was so
33:24
Speaker 1: shaken up by it that he gave up on attacking
33:26
Speaker 1: Joan and just left the scene. But he obviously left
33:30
Speaker 1: behind crucial clues that got him caught. Ross's fingerprints and
33:34
Speaker 1: DNA were found inside of Joan's home, not just on
33:37
Speaker 1: that beer bottle, but elsewhere in the house. However, his
33:41
Speaker 1: fingerprints and DNA were not found on those cigarette butts
33:45
Speaker 1: in the Coke can in that was left on the
33:47
Speaker 1: curb where that suspicious red car had been parked. And
33:50
Speaker 1: also Ross looked nothing like the composite sketches of those
33:53
Speaker 1: two men that were seen inside of that red car.
33:55
Speaker 1: So in the end, the investigators believed that the red
33:59
Speaker 1: car probably had nothing to do with the murders and
34:01
Speaker 1: Ross simply acted alone. On March 9th, one day after
34:05
Speaker 1: the fingerprint results came back, Wisconsin police officers spotted Ross's
34:09
Speaker 1: van near a federal courthouse in Milwaukee. But as they
34:12
Speaker 1: approached his van, Ross fatally shot himself. However, inside of
34:17
Speaker 1: his van, police found a note confessing in detail to
34:20
Speaker 1: the murders of Michael Lefkow and Donna Humphrey. Thank you
34:32
Speaker 1: so much for watching. Let me know what you thought
34:34
Speaker 1: of today's episode in the comments. And remember, we have
34:37
Speaker 1: a whole playlist of true crime episodes ready for you
34:39
Speaker 1: to binge right now. So click here and give them
34:42
Speaker 1: a watch. All right, until next time, see ya.