Kaufman County assistant district attorney Mark Hasse was headed to his truck on the morning of Jan. 31, 2013 when he was ambushed and fatally shot in the annex parking lot. Merely two months later, District Attorney Mike McLelland and his wife Cynthia were found dead in their home on March 30, 2013. This year marks one decade since these gruesome events and the city of Kaufman has certainly not forgotten.
After the events of Jan. 31, the city of Kaufman banded together to honor the loss of Hasse. As multiple agencies worked to investigate the murder, the city honored Hasse’s passing with a flag ceremony at the historic courthouse.
“We can only express our sincerest appreciation to everyone involved,” Kaufman County District Attorney Mark McLelland told the crowd assembled behind him at the courthouse. “This will be a fitting tribute to Mark Hasse.”
Two months later, McLelland and his wife were also found deceased in their home. After the two events were found to be connected, the city took action against Eric Williams. In March of 2012, Williams was charged with two years of probation for each of two state felonies – theft by public servant and burglary of building. “Both McLelland and Hasse — the assistant district attorney who worked for McLelland — were the prosecuting attorneys in the trial of Eric Williams,” wrote former Kaufman Herald reporter Loyd Cook.
Williams was found guilty on three counts of capital murder on Dec. 4, 2014. He was sentenced to death by lethal injection and as of late 2021, reports state he was still awaiting execution. His wife Kim was tried separately where she testified against her husband and pled guilty to helping plan and execute the murders. On Dec. 30, 2014, she was sentenced to 40 years in prison.
Years following the events, Kaufman has rebuilt and continues to remember these losses. In 2013, former Texas Governor Rick Perry appointed Erleigh Norville Wiley as Kaufman County’s new District Attorney. In 2017, Wiley published a novel titled A Target on my Back: A Prosecutor’s Terrifying Tale of Life on a Hit List. The book details the first-person story of Wiley and her family following the murders of her colleagues. Under the impression that anyone involved in the 2012 case was in danger, Wiley feared for her safety in the following months before Williams’ arrest.
In 2018, Kathryn Casey published a book called In Plain Sight: The Kaufman County Prosecutor Murders. Casey’s novel includes interviews from both Kim and Eric Williams, conducted over two years. In both the book and throughout his sentence, Eric continues to profess his innocence, filing for appeals in both 2018 and 2019. In contrast, his wife Kim has described the events in detail, acknowledging her regret and acknowledgement of her actions.
The case was also depicted in a dramatized episode on Forensic Files II titled “Marked for Murder.”
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