Ex-justice of the peace charged in Texas slayings

http://www.cnn.com/2013/04/18/justice/texas-da-killed/index.html?hpt=us_c2


-- A former justice of the peace now faces capital murder charges in the killings of two Texas prosecutors and the wife of one of them, authorities announced Thursday.

Eric Williams' bail has been set at $23 million in the March killings of Kaufman County District Attorney Mike McLelland and his wife, Cynthia, and the January slaying of Mark Hasse, one of McLelland's assistant district attorneys. Williams was already in jail on a charge of threatening investigators probing the killings, and his wife had been charged with murder on Wednesday.

"The murder of a public official, such as a judge a prosecutor or a law-enforcement officer, is an assault on all the people of the state, because it's an attack of the rule of law," said Kirby Dendy, chief of the Texas Rangers.