The evening after the bodies of the Kaufman County District Attorney Mike McLelland and his wife Cynthia were discovered in their home in Forney, family and friends are sharing fond memories of the couple.
Tonya Ratcliff, the Kaufman County Tax Assessor and McLelland family friend of nearly a decade, said there is an enormous sense of loss in the area.
“They lose a very strong agent for justice and they lose a woman who wouldn’t step on a bug,” Ratcliff said.
“Cynthia and Mike were a lot of fun,” she added.
“They were funny people, they were witty. They had lots of stories.”
Ratcliff said the McLellands were welcoming and hospitable, opening their home for a massive party every December.
She said both were very involved in county political clubs, adding Mike McLelland was also a member of the Lions Club and Cynthia McLelland, a psychiatric nurse at the Terrell State Hospital, spent much of her time with the Kaufman Quilt Guild.
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She added that after Mike McLelland’s election to district attorney, he began “making a difference” for the county.
“His office handled a lot of cases that came out on the guilty side. We were winning cases with him as our district attorney.”
However, what Ratcliff said was most apparent about the McLellands was their devotion to each other.
“They were deeply, deeply in love and so attached to each other,” she said.
“Not just in front of each other, but apart from each other. You would never hear one of them say an ugly word about the other one.”
“They were just a wonderful couple and it was a pleasure to be around them – and I will miss them.”
