It was an odd relationship.

Hardy Lloyd was a 26-year-old white supremacist from Squirrel Hill known to police for passing out anti-Semitic leaflets and carrying a 6-inch-long knife.

	John Beale, Post-Gazette Richard Lazar stands in the doorway of the studio apartment his father rented to homicide suspect Hardy Lloyd in Squirrel Hill. The apartment contained literature and clothing supporting beliefs of white supremacists. Click photo for larger image. Related coverage Neo-Nazi rented from Orthodox Jew

Lori Hann was a divorced 41-year-old legal secretary from Forest Hills who attended church and the symphony and loved her Newfoundland dog.

They met in cyberspace months ago, through an Internet dating service. Friends said they weren't romantic, but their disagreements could be passionate.

On Tuesday night, the pair argued for a final time as they drove in Hann's car. Police said the two stopped on a quiet, residential street in Squirrel Hill when Hann jumped out and headed onto a porch. Lloyd followed, police said, and fatally shot her. Then he ran away.

Early on, detectives suspected Lloyd, but they couldn't find him. After a frantic 48 hours, in which the homicide squad investigated the Hann case as well as another killing in Squirrel Hill, police tracked Lloyd late Thursday to a house in Carrick.

They apprehended him a short time later. He was riding in a vehicle driven by an unsuspecting woman he had just started dating after meeting her on the Internet.

Within hours, police said, Lloyd, who had been charged with homicide, confessed to Hann's slaying. He faces a preliminary hearing Friday.

"I'm so glad they caught him. I'm just so relieved, I really am. Such a waste of life," Hann's longtime friend, Diane Chop, 54, of Penn Hills said yesterday. "I just can't even imagine what would make him do something so bad."

Authorities would not speculate on a motive. They described the killing as the result of a "domestic dispute" unconnected to Lloyd's extremist beliefs. and characterized the pair as boyfriend and girlfriend.

"It was definitely a personal issue between the two of them," homicide Sgt. Timothy Westwood said. He would not give details.

Lloyd's attorney, Wayne DeLuca, declined comment yesterday. But Lisa Donato, whom Lloyd was with when police swarmed her black Suzuki Sidekick at Route 51 and Warrington Avenue, said he claimed self-defense during a phone call early yesterday.

Donato said she was driving down Saw Mill Run Boulevard Thursday around 10:30 p.m. with Lloyd as a passenger when a police car pulled behind her.

"All I could think was, I didn't do anything wrong," said Donato, 32, who lives with her parents on Wynoka Street in Carrick.

Police were following up leads that Lloyd recently met a woman in the neighborhood and were hoping to find him with her. They headed to the house just before she and Lloyd got in her sport-utility vehicle and drove away. Police followed, trailing the Sidekick until they spotted Lloyd in the passenger seat. Lt. Scott Schubert and Detective George Trosky took Lloyd into custody.

Donato said she had no idea that police were seeking Lloyd or that he had any involvement in white supremacist activities.

She said he seemed "a very sweet guy, very calm, very even-tempered. He seemed to like everyone and have a good sense of humor."

She said she met him after he contacted her through an Internet chat group. Though she had not dated anyone in eight years, she said she decided to meet him in person.

They first met late last month at the Giant Eagle in Squirrel Hill, where he had an apartment nearby, she said, then went to Frick Park.

"We walked and talked and decided we liked each other," she recalled. "He asked if I wanted to start dating and I said, 'Absolutely.' "

On Tuesday, Donato said, Lloyd traveled back and forth between her house and Squirrel Hill. At one point, he spoke on the phone to a woman he identified as a friend, she said.

Donato said Lloyd called her at 5 a.m. yesterday, about 15 minutes before he was arraigned.

"Hardy, they said you killed a woman," Donato said she told him.

"Lisa, I told them it was self-defense," she said he replied.

Donato said she spent much of Tuesday with Lloyd before dropping him off at his Squirrel Hill apartment. She said police later told her they had identified a 30- to 40-minute span that night when Lloyd's whereabouts could not be determined.

Police would not detail what led to the shooting, but Assistant Chief Regina McDonald said Lloyd went to Hann's house Tuesday night. She did not say what time. The two argued, got into Hann's car and then drove to Lloyd's apartment.

At some point, Lloyd got out of the car. Around 10:30 p.m. Hann told him to get back in, according to a police affidavit.

"Lloyd said Hann was very angry and said she was going to break up with him if he did not get in the car," the affidavit said.

Lloyd got in and Hann sped away. McDonald said she stopped "for some unknown reason" in front of a home in the 5400 block of Beacon Street, where she was slain.

Police said two handguns registered to Hann were found near the scene of her slaying. Police would not divulge their caliber. Hann was killed with a .380-caliber pistol, according to a police affidavit.

An inventory of items seized by police during a search of Lloyd's efficiency apartment in Squirrel Hill included a box of .380-caliber Winchester shells, a .357 Magnum, seven receipts for gun purchases and a paper bag containing white supremacy materials.

Chop said Hann bought two guns this year, and Lloyd was going to teach her how to use them. It wasn't completely out of character because Chop remembered her friend having a gun for protection in the past. But Hann was not a "gun person," Chop said.

One of four children, Hann divorced last year. She worked as a secretary for a Forest Hills attorney as well as for Family Home Health Services. Since December, she'd lived in a rented red brick duplex on Pacific Avenue with her dog, a Newfoundland named Miranda.

Chop believes Hann and Lloyd met in December or January. Chop had reservations about her friend surfing the Internet for relationships and told her so, but Hann dismissed the concerns.

"She had no intentions of anything ever becoming of it. She was just kind of vulnerable, and she wanted a male friend to go places with," Chop said.

On June 19, Lloyd and Hann were cited for trespassing after police caught them swimming in the Schenley Park pool after hours. Sonia Moore, a friend who worked with Hann, said she believed the two enjoyed time together but were not dating.

"She'd only just gotten to know him and I think she was starting to find out what kind of person he was," said Moore. "[Hann] said she was dating other guys [she'd met] on the Internet, but that Hardy Lloyd was a friend [she'd] met. She said he was real nice."

Moore said Hann tried for a while to fix Lloyd up with her other friends, passing along a copy of Lloyd's Internet personal ad and photograph to her. After a few telephone and e-mail contacts, Moore said she asked him to stop contacting her, saying "he didn't know anything about me and it seemed too wacky."

Moore could not remember exactly what Lloyd's personal ad said, but recalled that a reference to "hate" troubled her.

"Other ads say things like 'Knight looking for lady,' or whatever. It was so bizarre," Moore said. "The worst thing? I sent him an e-mail saying 'I don't want to go out with you. You might be a serial killer.' "

Lloyd is the son of Dr. Jon Lloyd, a Pittsburgh surgeon, and his wife, Jacqueline. The Lloyds did not return calls this week. But in an interview with the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in 2001, Lloyd's father said his son had Asperger Syndrome, a high functioning form of autism.

The syndrome disrupts the social and emotional development of children, resulting in poor social skills, difficulty handling change, repetitive behavior or obsessive interests. It does not, however, affect intellectual development and often is found in children who are exceptionally gifted or talented.

The elder Lloyd said his son had become fixated on race issues as a child and could not be dissuaded despite his family's heartbreaking efforts to reason with him. At one point, he said, the family even sought out a black athletic coach to work with Lloyd in the hope that it would change his beliefs.

When Lloyd started roaming the East End several years ago to circulate racist stickers and fliers and to declare himself the local leader of various white-supremacy groups, his father said he followed behind to tear down the offensive literature. At that time, he said he did not believe his son to be capable of violence.

"This boy does not have a following," the elder Lloyd said then. "He is the self-proclaimed master of this religion. To him, we're race traitors. We can't reason with him."

At that time, Lloyd called himself Brother Hardy, although in more recent postings on Internet Web sites and message boards he's called himself "Reverend Lloyd." In 2001, he joined the World Church of the Creator, a white-supremacy group that calls itself a religion.

But Lloyd was tossed out of the group late in 2002 after several incidents. He was charged with harassment for a knife-wielding confrontation with anti-racist activists at their home. Lloyd had a knife with a six-inch blade in a holster, according to a police report. The case went to a district justice, who found Lloyd guilty of harassment in absentia. He was fined $410.50, but never paid it.

Another confrontation led him to be involuntarily committed to a hospital, according to Bettysue Feuer, regional director for the Anti-Defamation League, which monitors the activities of hate groups. Since then, Lloyd has been affiliated with, or claimed to be the founder of, various other racist groups and has registered several Web sites to promote their principles.

Feuer said Lloyd was never considered to be a "significant figure" in the extremist movement. "But these groups are dangerous because they preach hate. If you've lived whole life preaching hate, that's what you're going to act out."

Chop said Hann did not share Lloyd's racist beliefs and was embarrassed by them. Sometimes they would get into loud arguments; what about, Chop wasn't sure. But Lloyd would tone down his venom in her presence, and Hann appreciated his other qualities, Chop said.

"I think this guy put on his best act because she said that he was very intelligent and seemed to be very educated," Chop said. "She just trusted everybody. She just gave everybody the benefit of the doubt. She wanted to help him."