CREST HILL, Ill. (AP) -- A parole review official refused to release Jennifer Hudson's estranged brother-in-law from prison Monday after a witness reported seeing the convicted felon with a gun like the one used in the slayings of the Oscar winner's mother, brother and nephew.
William Balfour hasn't been charged but has been questioned and called a "person of interest" in the killings. Balfour denied any involvement in a crime, including the allegation he had been seen with a gun, during a Monday hearing with a member of the Illinois Prisoner Review Board.
"He seemed to be disturbed. He contested those allegations" about the gun, Board Chairman Jorge Montes said after the hearing. "He was protesting the introduction of that evidence and he denied it."
Balfour, 27, has been in custody for more than two weeks, since the day the bodies of Hudson's mother and brother were discovered inside the family's home. After 48 hours -- the longest Chicago police can hold a person without charges -- Balfour was taken by the Illinois Department of Corrections on a parole violation.
Balfour, the estranged husband of Jennifer Hudson's older sister, Julia Hudson, served seven years for a 1999 attempted murder and vehicular hijacking conviction.
Jeanetta Cardine, executive with the prisoner review board, decided during Monday's 35-minute hearing that there is probable cause to hold Balfour until a Dec. 3 hearing before a board panel.
Cardine was told during the hearing that a woman, described as Balfour's current or former girlfriend, has told investigators she saw Balfour with a gun matching the description of the .45 caliber weapon used to kill Hudson's family members.
"She described the gun as being silver, the same make I suppose as the gun recovered by the Chicago Police Department," said Montes, who added that information about the woman's statements came from the Cook County State's Attorney's office.
Both the state's attorney's office and police department declined to comment Monday.
Officers found the .45-caliber gun days after the killings in a vacant lot in the West Side neighborhood where Jennifer Hudson's 7-year-old nephew's body was found inside the SUV.
While Cardine found probable cause to believe Balfour violated other conditions of his parole, including failing to get anger management and substance abuse counseling, Montes said the gun allegation alone was enough to keep Balfour in custody.
"That's a very serious allegation," Montes said. "If somebody's alleging they saw him with a gun that was used in the murder of three individuals, we would definitely hold" him.
Balfour did not have an attorney present at Monday's hearing and the Cook County Public Defender's office said he has not been assigned one because he hasn't been charged with a crime.
The bodies of 57-year-old Darnell Donerson and 29-year-old Jason Hudson were discovered Oct. 24 at the family's home. Seven-year-old Julian King's body was found three days later in the sport utility vehicle on the city's West Side. All three had been shot.
Before being turned over to the Department of Corrections, Balfour had refused to take a lie-detector test and stopped cooperating with detectives in the case, said a police official, who was not authorized to discuss the case publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
His mother, Michelle Balfour, of Chicago, has denied that her son had anything to do with the deaths.
