Texas district attorney shot to death

KAUFMAN, Texas – A North Texas county district attorney and his wife were found dead in their home Saturday, two months after one of his assistant district attorneys was shot to death in a parking lot a block from his office.

Police, FBI agents and Kaufman County sheriff’s deputies were investigating the deaths of county District Attorney Mike McLelland and his wife, Cynthia, sheriff’s Lt. Justin Lewis said late Saturday.

Lewis said he couldn’t discuss the investigation in further detail, including the nature of the couple’s deaths and whether authorities believe it is linked to the Jan. 31 fatal shooting of an assistant Kaufman County district attorney, Mark Hasse.

The Dallas Morning News reported that police Chief Chris Aulbaugh said the McLellands had been shot in their home and that although investigators didn’t know if their deaths and Hasse’s were related, they couldn’t discount it.

Aulbaugh said recently that the FBI was checking to see if Hasse’s killing could be related to the killing of the head of Colorado’s prison system, Tom Clements, who was gunned down after answering the doorbell at his home.

Evan Spencer Ebel, a former Colorado inmate and white supremacist who authorities believe killed Clements, was gunned down in a March 21 shootout with Texas deputies about 100 miles from Kaufman.