Coasttocoast. Before leading investigators back home. My thoughts its someone we know. Reporter was he living a double life . I think he was. Reporter you are making him sound like hanibal lector. Its just wild. Reporter the courthouse. The moral center of every American City and town. The place we go to settle differences. Resolve disputes, find justice. Its the place where the store usually ends. But not this time. Not in rural kaufmann, texas, where life is leisurely and no one is a stranger. Oh, my god, Somebody Just shot somebody, they are laying on the ground. It was bam, bam, bam. Reporter this time, its where the story begins. Somebody was trying to send a message. It was just so bold. Reporter a story that quickly got too big for this texas town. And like a prairie fire spread across the nation. We have new information this morning on the thanhu for th man hunt. Reporter in this town, the hunters became the hunted. It was so scary, its not just me anymore, i have young kids. M
prison chief at his home, allegedly by a white supremacist, had given texas investigators and fresh angle in the murder of mark hasse-y. it is another strange attack on law enforcement, in a small town. nbc five ken says the suspected murder ending up in texas was especially intriguing to investigators. it made people wonder if perhaps there could be some connection with the hasse murder. they did tests on suspect evans weapon. his bullet was identical to what killed the prison chief back in colorado. but then they found out that it was not the weapon that killed mark cassie. and what is more he was deemed to have not been kaufman at the time that cassie was killed. so so it weeks in, the cassie case was going nowhere. we were leading with the
arrest warrant. nothing there either. so the task force widened the scope for the investigation beyond kaufman. we don t have a lot of violent crimes in kaufman. especially murders. so we naturally thought it was somebody from dallas. dallas, the big city less than 30 miles. but seemingly, a lifestyle away. remember, back in the 19 80s. mark and fellow prosecutor, marcus busch, had wrapped up some tough custom mayors. i thought it was the murder cases that we had prosecuted. they were having someone had discouraged, got out of prison, and just wanted him. it was just a personal vendetta against mark. even though investigators were convinced he was murdered because of his job as a prosecutor, they did not stop there. you stop to interview friends, families, associates. mark was a, he was not married, and no children. those extensive checks into his background came up empty. they re just was not anything there. he loved his mother who lived in dallas. he spent a lot o
line and it got into murdering family members, so i know my thoughts and prayers are with my wife and children back in dallas. it seems that the murders were connected, and everyone was terrified that the killings may not be over. did you start to think that there was a list? oh sure. there was going to be another victim if this person was not found. saturday night, shannon was shopping for easter dinner. when she was surprised by a phone call by her office. and i thought, my goodness who is out there on saturday, easter weekend. i m not gonna answer right now. but her phone kept ringing, it was another prosecutor from her office. and i knew then at that point, something is going on. and i answered, and she proceeded to tell me that the mclelland s were found in the house shot. must of been the biggest bombshell of your life? biggest. it s so hard to imagine anybody that you know being killed.
your family members, and their personal safety. the initial theories where as numerous as the hundreds of cases that mark had prosecuted. the first place to look was right in kaufman county. where mike was a prosecutor for three years. the big questions that we had is who has he prosecuted recently? sheriff s investigator julie stewart was involved from day one. is there something recent that he has prosecuted that has got somebody upset? so we started delving into his case load. investigators had started looking into every case he had prosecuted. they were robberies, drug prosecutions. even a theft that involved an elected official that stole office equipment. they did not immediately find anything that looked into a suspect. u.s. marshals pulled in anyone with an outstanding