Left Five Children

Kaufman County district attorney and wife found shot to death in home

Kaufman County district attorney Mike McLelland is the second official to bemurdered.
Photo courtesy of Kaufman County
Assistant DA Mark Hasse was slain outside the Kaufman County Courthouse inJanuary.
texasancestors.com

Another Kaufman County law enforcement individual was murdered brutally. District attorney Mike McLelland and his wife, Cynthia Woodward McLelland, were found shot to death in their home on Saturday.

Kaufman County Sheriff's Office spokesman Lt. Justin Lewis confirmed to Fox that the couple was found dead. Their shooting follows the January 31 murder of assistant district attorney Mark Hasse outside the Kaufman County Courthouse. Hasse, a prosecutor, worked for McLellan; no arrests have been made. Kaufman County Crimestoppers has a $100,000 reward for information leading to his killers.

According to the Kaufman Herald, the sheriff's office and Texas Rangers were seeking similarities to Hasse's murder. The Herald also reported that the FBI was comparing Hasse's shooting to that of Tom Clements, the executive director of Colorado prisons who was shot and killed at his home on March 19. The gun used to kill Clements was used in a shoot-out in Decatur, Texas, by Evan Spencer Ebel, 28, a member of a white supremacist gang who was killed by Texas deputies on March 21.

Kaufman County was one of a battalion of agencies that worked on a major bust of 34 members of the Aryan Brotherhood of Texas, who were indicted on federal racketeering charges in October 2012. In December, Texas officials issued a bulletin warning that the Aryan Brotherhood was "actively planning retaliation against law enforcement officials" involved in prosecuting the case.

Neighbors told the Dallas Morning News that they heard loud noises from the McLellands' house on Friday; the front door had been kicked in. WFAA reported that McLellan's body was found in a hallway, perhaps trying to escape, while Cynthia was found in a front room in their house.

McLellan, who was 63, graduated from the University of Texas at Austin and served 23 years in the army, with a stint at Desert Storm. Prior to his 2010 election as DA, he practiced law for 18 years as a criminal defense attorney, mental health judge, and special prosecutor for Family and Protective Services. Cynthia, 65, worked as a psychiatric nurse at Terrell State Hospital. They had five children, two daughters and three sons, one a Dallas police officer.

Anyone with information on the murder of the McLellands or Mark Hasse can contact Crimestoppers at 1-877-TIPSKCC (847-7522).

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Fugitive News

Dallas Police Department arrests 99 fugitives in summer crime program

Dallas Police/Facebook

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The Dallas Police Department has a new round of arrests in Operation Justice Trail, a coordinated effort led by Police Chief Daniel Comeaux to apprehend individuals with violent felony warrants, with 99 fugitives arrested and taken into custody during June.

The program is a partnership between the Dallas Police Department and the United States Marshals Service which began on May 1, with a goal to identify and take into custody violent criminals. During the firest month of May, a nearly-identical haul of 98 violent felons were arrested, and the initiative will continue through the summer.

“Our goal is simple: to make Dallas the safest large city in America,” Chief Comeaux says in a statement. “We know that a small percentage of violent criminals are responsible for a disproportionate amount of crime. By focusing our efforts on these individuals, we are sending a clear message—violence will not be tolerated in our city.”

These 99 fugitives, who collectively have 616 total arrests for crimes such as Assault on a Public Servant, Manufacture/Delivery of a Controlled Substance, Murder, Aggravated Assault with a Deadly Weapon, Sexual Abuse of a Child, Reckless Driving, and Stalking, were taken into custody by the Dallas Police Department Fugitive Unit and U.S. Marshals North Texas Fugitive Task Force between June 1–30.

Of those 99 fugitives, 22 were women and 77 were men. Three had arrests for Illegal Entry into the U.S., and one had an arrest for Alien Inadmissibility - Section 212 of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA).

Officials told Fox 4 that officers used "a combination of the city’s camera system and old-fashioned good police work" to make the arrests.

North Texas Crime Stoppers is offering a guaranteed $1,000 reward for tips submitted to the crime stoppers tipline that lead to the arrest of any individual with an existing felony warrant for specific crimes, until August 31.

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