Have you been following the news about the horrific, execution-style murders of Chicago-area judge Joan Humphrey Lefkow’s mother and husband?

As you probably know, there is strong suspicion that the crimes may be connected to a white supremacist hate group led by the infamous Matthew Hale. Joe Gandelman has a very good overview of how Judge Lefkow got entangled with Hale through a trademark case. Chicago Tribune writer and blogger Eric Zorn has been on top of developments, and analyzes the devastating effect of organized political assassinations on society:

We don’t yet know why attorney Michael F. Lefkow 64, and Donna Grace Humphrey, 89, were shot multiple times in the family’s basement. Among other possibilities, they may have been victims of a wandering sociopath, a startled or murderous home invader or a killer with a grudge against the family unrelated to Judge Lefkow’s position.

What we do know is that the ability of judges and other public officials to make decisions without fearing for their lives or, worse, the lives of their loved ones is key to our way of life.

We know that fear is corrupting, corrosive, malignant, metastatic. It’s toxic to freedom, the enemy of justice.

We see more than our share of mayhem in this country-random, predatory; purposeful, senseless. But what we don’t see, or haven’t seen in a long time, are orchestrated hits on key government, law enforcement and business officials of the sort we associate with third-world thugocracies and nations nearly paralyzed by terrorism.

The Chicago Sun-Times has more on the despicable hate sites that have posted threats against Lefkow and her family, and many that have been gloating over the murders. The paper editorializes rightly:

If the shooting murders of Judge Lefkow’s husband and mother turn out to be a crime resulting from the Hale case — or from some other case she presided over — it will also be a crime against our very system of law and order, a hideous attack on our community. It will be a crime aimed at tearing apart everything we hold dear in our civil society.

At least one federal judge is speaking out about the need for more security. The Christian Science Monitor highlights other cases of targeted judges.

Meanwhile, the latest reports from police indicate that a fingerprint has been found at the crime scene on a shard of glass at the Lefkow residence.

On a related note: The Greatest Jeneration has a choice comment connecting the Lefkow case to the recent Supreme Court decision outlawing the death penalty for juveniles.

Update: Sketches of two “persons of interest” have been released.

Tom Maguire (via Instapundit) rightly takes the New York Times to task for a reckless breach of privacy.

Update II: (1227am, 3/3) New York Times follow-up today has details on police interviews with Matthew Hale’s family and supporters, as well as Judge Lefkow. This is the most interesting and chilling detail:

According to a report in Wednesday’s Chicago Sun-Times, the authorities are also pursuing telephone calls made to Judge Lefkow’s home Sunday night from a correctional facility. Prison and police officials refused to discuss the matter, but one of the judge’s daughters confirmed that her mother picked up the phone to find an unknown prisoner on the other end the night before she found her husband, Michael F. Lefkow, and her mother, Donna Humphrey, dead of gunshot wounds in their basement.

“Somebody called and you have to accept the charges, and my mom did because, I don’t know, she’s my mom and she’s so trusting,” Maria Lefkow, 27, said Wednesday morning.

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