The man in the photo above who looks similar to the artist’s rendering of someone wanted in connection with the Lefkow slayings is identified here as “Rev.” Scott Gulbranson of Creve Cour, Illinois. Gulbranson was a member of Matt Hale’s “White Beret” body guards.

The photo was taken during the formal arrest of Matt Hale in 2003 for contempt of court.

Another person of interest may be John Schlissman, formerly of Deerfield High School and a Hale follower. However, Sneed reports that Schlissman has given the police an alibi.

A Sneed source claims the man, a former Deerfield High School student who was once charged with littering and violation of curfew while passing out racist pamphlets, reportedly gave police an alibi at the time of the murders.

Remember how the authorities kept saying that Hale wasn’t allowed to communicate with the outside world? Well, maybe, and maybe not. From Saturday’s Seattle Post-Intelligencer:

HOFFMAN ESTATES, Ill. — Confined to his cell 23 hours a day, Matthew Hale sings opera loud enough for neighboring inmates to join in. He is studying Latin and reading everything from the Federal Rules of Procedure to Agatha Christie.

He slid into depression last fall, taking Prozac, but said he was buoyed when the adjacent cell was filled by a man with the same name as Hitler’s boyhood friend.

These and other tidbits about Hale, the Aryan leader convicted last year of plotting to kill U.S. District Judge Joan Lefkow, whose mother and husband were slain this week, are in the cache of letters federal agents seized here on Thursday from the home of Kathleen Robertazzo, his frequent correspondent.

Robertazzo, a friend of five years who shares Hale’s racial views, said that authorities took 100 of his letters, written in pencil on yellow legal paper, and made copies of her computer hard drive, promising to search her e-mail for secret messages to supporters.

“He doesn’t really talk about his case. I told him you have to stop woulda, coulda, shoulda — it’s over,” Robertazzo, 53, said in an interview. “We like to talk about history. He loves the Roman Empire. I send him jokes to keep his spirits up, famous one-line pickups and stuff, and just things to make him laugh.”

Go here and here for much more, including late breaking news. And for a couple of very good background pieces on Hale and his “church,” go here and here. The Daily Herald published an essay by Robertazzo, which can be found here. And Robertazzo’s interview of Hale is here.