Ex-judge and his wife charged with killing Texas prosecutors

KAUFMAN COUNTY, Texas -- A disgraced former justice of the peace and his wife are accused of killing the Texas prosecutors who ended his career.

Eric Lyle Williams, 46, and his wife, Kim Lene Williams, 46, have been charged with capital murder in an apparent revenge plot that shook Kaufman County and sparked fear of an unprecedented attack on the rule of law in Texas.

Suspicion of involvement by Mexican drug cartels and a white-supremacist prison gang faded, as officials believe the couple acted alone in killing Kaufman County Assistant Dist. Atty. Mark Hasse outside the county courthouse in late January, and Dist. Atty.  Mike McLelland and his wife, Cynthia, in their home on March 30.

Eric Williams did the shooting and Kim Williams did the driving in Hasse's killing, and she waited in the car while her husband killed the McLellands at their home, Kaufman County Sheriff David Byrnes said Thursday at a news conference.

“It’s kind of mind-boggling to me that someone would go out and shoot three innocent people for any motive," Byrnes said. "It would appear any motive would be from his past legal problems."

The former justice of the peace had been prosecuted by McLelland and Hasse in the theft of three computers. In that case, the prosecutors presented testimony that Williams had made death threats against a former girlfriend and an attorney.

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