Bigger reward sought in probe of killings of Texas prosecutors

By Chris Francescani

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Texas authorities are seeking to double an existing $200,000 reward to find the killers of two prosecutors, in a move seen by some law enforcement experts as an indication the investigation has stalled.

No arrests have been made in the execution-style slayings of the two prosecutors, which occurred within two months of each other this year. The homicides have alarmed people in Kaufman County, Texas, and raised questions about whether the shootings could be linked.

Authorities have offered a $200,000 reward for information leading to a conviction in the January 30 killing of Kaufman County Assistant District Attorney Mark Haase or the slayings of Kaufman County District Attorney Mike McLelland and his wife Cynthia, whose bullet-ridden bodies were found at their home on March 30.

Anderson County District Attorney Doug Lowe said he has received pledges of $60,000 in additional reward money and is in discussions with Bell County District Attorney Henry Garza, president-elect of the National District Attorney's Association, to try to raise another $100,000 nationally in the week ahead.

"That's an indication that they (investigators) haven't gotten anywhere with all the leads," said a former federal prosecutor who asked not to be named to avoid offending colleagues on the cases.

Authorities have given no public indication that they were any nearer to cracking the cases.

On Friday, investigators executed a search warrant related to the cases, according to Kaufman County Sheriff's spokesman Justin Lewis.

The warrant was executed at the home of Eric Williams, a former Kaufman County judge, according to a NBCDFW.com, the website of a local television station.

SPECULATION OVER MOTIVE

The mystery surrounding the killings has prompted speculation among law enforcement experts and people in Kaufman County, about 30 miles east of Dallas, that they could be the work of a white supremacist Texas prison gang, Mexican drug cartels or their U.S. associates, or the scores of cases in the county that involved both murdered prosecutors.

The cases have drawn attention to the sharp spikes in both violence and threats of violence against U.S. law enforcement officials over recent years.

Between 2000 and 2010, there were 74 attacks on federal enforcement officials, including judges and prosecutors, according to Steve Swensen, a judicial security consultant and former Deputy U.S. Marshal.

"We're currently on track to double that number, to 150 by the end of this decade," Swensen said.

Carl Caulk, who heads the U.S. Marshal Service's judicial security division, said there was a "marked increase in threat activity" against U.S. federal law enforcement officials in the last decade.

"We've had threat cases in every major city in the U.S.," he said.

Two days after the McLellands were found, an unspecified security concern prompted federal prosecutor Jay Hileman, a veteran assistant U.S. attorney in Houston, to withdraw from a major racketeering case against suspected members and associates of the Aryan Brotherhood of Texas prison gang.

In Colorado, authorities in the past two weeks have arrested a pair of white supremacists who have been identified as persons of interest in the killing of Colorado's prisons chief, Tom Clements.

Clements, appointed two years ago as executive director of the Colorado Department of Corrections, was gunned down at his home south of Denver on March 19 in what investigators said appeared to be a targeted killing.

Police suspect he was shot to death by parolee Evan Spencer Ebel, who belonged to a Colorado-based neo-Nazi prison gang known as the 211 Crew, and authorities have been seeking to question other white supremacists in connection with the killing. Ebel died following a shootout with police in Texas.

(Additional reporting by Elizabeth Dilts, Simon Gardner, David Adams, Mark Hosenball and Lisa Maria Garza; Editing by Daniel Trotta, Paul Thomasch, Eric Walsh, Cynthia Johnston and Paul Simao)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/bigger-reward-sought-probe-killings-texas-prosecutors-015359211.html

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