Are investigators edging away from the idea that Census Bureau worker Bill Sparkman was killed in an act of anti-government violence?

Kentucky police have been largely silent for weeks now on the probe of Sparkman's case, in which the part-time Census worker was found dead in a rural area of the state, blindfolded and gagged, with a rope around his neck and the word "Fed" written on his naked chest.

But yesterday, the local captain said the investigation was making progress, and would likely wrap up in weeks, not months. "We're much closer than we were," Lisa Rudzinski told the Courier-Journal. "I think we are toward the end."

But Rudzinski also said that speculation that Sparkman may have been killed in an act of anti-government violence had "hampered the case," as the paper put it. "The speculation that has occurred ... with no concrete basis has been a detriment to the investigation," she said.

And in an interview with the Courier-Journal, Sparkman's son, Josh Sparkman, offered a new piece of information that may point in the same direction. He said that his father's truck, which had been found at the scene, had been rifled through, and that his
his grandfather's wedding ring, Bill Sparkman's credit cards, and a cell phone charger all had been stolen.

That may suggest the act was as much a simple robbery as a political statement. Still, the existence of the word "Fed"on Sparkman's chest would obviously point in the other direction.

So things are still very much up in the air.