Elijah Daniels prays at a makeshift memorial Tuesday, Oct, 28, 2008.[Agencies]

In a message posted on her MySpace.com page Monday, Julian's mother thanked people for their prayers and said her son's "soul is at ease."

"I take comfort in knowing that Julian is with my mother and my brother and most of all the Lord and now he's my angel he's protecting," Julia Hudson wrote.

Jennifer Hudson, who won a best-supporting-actress Oscar last year for "Dreamgirls," has thanked fans for their support on her MySpace page but has been in seclusion in Chicago.

Around the time the first bodies were found, Balfour's parole agent had reached him by phone after Balfour missed a meeting with him that day. Balfour told the agent he was "baby-sitting on the West Side of Chicago," according to internal parole records.

The agent said he thought he heard a child in the background during the call. Balfour was taken into custody later Friday.

The Illinois Department of Corrections issued a warrant for Balfour on Saturday for violating terms of his parole by possessing a weapon and failing to attend anger management counseling and a substance abuse program, according to his parole history report.

Criminal charges can send parolees back to prison and keep them there even if the counts are ultimately dropped. A board that reviews such cases after parolees are sent back to prison relies on a preponderance of the evidence, a lower standard than in court. The board considers the violence of the original crime, the parole agent's recommendation, the arrest report, the parolee's adjustment and his attitude during a follow-up interview in prison, among other things.

In Balfour's case, a violation could have sent him back behind bars for a period as long as the remainder of his parole — until May 2009 — minus a day off for each day of good behavior. That would have meant a release date in mid-December at the earliest.

Parole records also show that a woman at Balfour's home refused to open the door during an agent's visit on Aug. 27. The woman told the agent during the 8:30 a.m. visit that Balfour was at work but Balfour's boss told the agent he wasn't due until noon.

"Agent heard other people inside the host site and suspected maybe suspicious activities going on," the report said. "Agent will be following up for a possible warrant on parolee."

Parolees must agree to allow agents to visit their homes and consent to searches. There's no warrant mentioned in following days on the report, which does note, however, that Balfour passed a drug test.

Schnapp, the corrections spokesman, said the evidence again wasn't sufficient to warrant revoking parole.

(Agencies/China Daily October 29, 2008)