EXTRADITION HEARING MONDAY IN CHICAGO FOR 9 LEBARON KIN

An extradition hearing is scheduled for Monday in Chicago for nine members of the Ervil LeBaron polygamist family wanted for questioning in the 1987 slaying of a rival polygamist clan leader.

The three LeBaron sons suspected of slaying several rivals are either in custody or presumed dead.The defendants in Chicago - all relatives of the late Ervil LeBaron - are sought to testify before a federal grand jury in Salt Lake City investigating the slaying Oct. 16, 1987, of Daniel Ben Jordan.

Taken into custody Feb. 14 after a North Lake, Ill., police officer spotted a couple of them in a truck bearing expired Georgia license plates were: Aaron Morel LeBaron, 20, Andrea Monique LeBaron, 18, and Patricia LeBaron, 29, three of Ervil's sons and daughters; and Linda Rae Johnson, 46, one of Ervil's wives.

The four also are being held on federal charges of conspiracy to transport illegal alien children.

Five children, Joshua LeBaron, Norma LeBaron, Danny LeBaron, Jessica LeBaron and Jared LeBaron - ages 11 to 16 - also were taken into custody and are being held as material witnesses to the Jordan homicide. Their exact genealogy was unclear on Friday.

It is believed the nine had fled to Illinois after Natasha Thelma LeBaron, 19, a daughter of Ervil, was arrested on Jan. 26 in Gwinett County, Ga., outside of Atlanta. Natasha LeBaron is also wanted for questioning in the death of Jordan.

She was arrested by Georgia police last month for selling an appliance without a serial number.

Jordan, who left Ervil's sect in a power struggle and formed his own group in Colorado, was gunned down on a deer hunt outing in the mountains near Manti, Utah. After Jordan's funeral in Colorado, Aaron LeBaron tried to take control over Jordan's family. Police dropped charges of menacing after the family said it didn't feel threatened.

Three Utah lawmen - from the Salt Lake FBI office, the state organized crime bureau and the Salt Lake County attorney's office - flew to Chicago and Georgia to interview the defendants.

Local authorities, however, would not disclose the nature of those interviews because of the secrecy surrounding the grand jury investigation.

The LeBarons arrested in Illinois used fictitious names the day they were stopped outside a motel in North Lake, but police became suspicious after finding a note that said to check on "warrants for Natasha in Denver."