A case close to 12 years in the making

Nearly 12 years to the day they were murdered and their palatial Barrington Hills estate burned to the ground, the first public examination of what happened to Marvin and Kay Lichtman is poised to begin in Lake County Circuit Court.

It is a made-for-television movie in waiting. A tale of wealth and desperation, fire and ice, international intrigue and dogged police work.

In the time between Jan. 23, 1996, and today, when jury selection begins, both sides in the case against Peter Hommerson have faced challenges.

And they'll continue in the courtroom.

Additional Coverage Stories Lichtman estate has seen legal action before [1/14/07]

The prosecution will have to deal with witnesses who've forgotten what they'd seen and said, or disappeared completely.

Defense attorneys will have to account for why their client moved to Mexico within days of his initial questioning, abandoning a wife of more than 20 years, and two homes.

The figures directly connected to the trial are limited in what they can say about the events to unfold in the coming week.

But the events of the last 12 years are an open book.

Worlds collide

Marvin Lichtman, 78, was a self-made millionaire whose plumbing and heating supply business and skilled investing provided the $1.5 million, 22-room mansion at 20 N. Ridge Road for him and his 75-year-old wife. They also owned a vacation home in the exclusive Coconut Grove neighborhood in Miami.

Hommerson was a glass, tile and mirror installer who came to the United States in 1979 under refugee status from Hungary. He was married and owned houses in Algonquin and Woodstock, as well as 40 wooded acres in Wisconsin.

At the time of the murders, police say, Hommerson's finances were as bad as the Lichtmans' were good.

Officials say Hommerson was having trouble paying subcontractors. Checks were bouncing and the water was rising around him.

He had landed a job with the Lichtmans to create a glass etching of the couple and their dog, Duke. It was to pay him $8,000, but police say it was not enough to roll back the rising tide of debt.

Police say Hommerson rented a van on the day of the killings, despite the fact he owned a van. He filled it with cardboard boxes and at least one can of gasoline he purchased at a gas station near the Lichtmans' house.

Investigators say Hommerson drove to the house and parked in the garage, which had been left open by a maid at Hommerson's request.

He is believed to have shot Kay Lichtman soon after entering the house, then waited for Marvin Lichtman to return from a trip to Florida that afternoon. Hommerson shot him four times as he walked through his front door, investigators say.

At 7:39 p.m., an automatic alarm system notified the Barrington Fire Department the house was on fire. Shortly after, first responders at the scene recovered Marvin Lichtman's body from the entranceway just before the structure was engulfed in a fireball.

Fire departments from throughout the area were called to assist, and water had to be trucked to the scene as the blaze burned well into the night.

Investigators don't know if anything was taken from the house, and aren't sure of Hommerson's motive.

Frozen crime

After the fire was out, the crime scene had not only been seriously compromised, it also was covered in ice.

"We had essentially 15,000 square feet of ashes to deal with," said Undersheriff Charles Fagan, who commanded the Lake County Major Crimes Task Force team that led the investigation.

"And the thousands of gallons of water used to fight the fire had frozen solid over it," he said. "We had four to six evidence technicians on their hands and knees for eight to 10 hours a day in wind chills more than 20 below zero looking for clues."

Miraculously, evidence was found. The charred remains of Kay Lichtman were found in the rubble as were shell casings that investigators say match a type of pistol Hommerson was believed to have owned.

Hommerson was questioned by police Jan. 24, and after investigators told a judge he flunked a lie detector test, search warrants were approved for both of his residences.

On Jan. 27, Hommerson and his wife, Ros, left the area and arrived two days later in Laredo, Texas. There, authorities say Hommerson crossed the border into Mexico after telling his wife she would never see him again.

Lake County authorities charged him with the crimes on March 1, after Ros Hommerson told them she had lied about the alibi she provided for her husband on the day of the killings and had driven him to Texas.

Eight days later, police discovered Hommerson's name was really Lajos Fernezci.

A life on the run

He went first to Mexico City, Fagan said, where he met a woman he would eventually marry and have a son with while teaching English with forged teaching certificates.

Eventually, the family moved to Ixtapa, Mexico and opened a restaurant they called "La Yarda" after the 3-foot-tall glasses of beer served there.

As the time passed, a $100,000 reward was offered for Hommerson's arrest by the Lichtman family, and the FBI and State Department coordinated hunts for the fugitive worldwide.

But in the end, it was a staple of American television programming that proved to be Hommerson's undoing.

"America's Most Wanted" aired a segment on the hunt for Hommerson twice in 1996 and repeated it periodically throughout the years.

Fagan said it was the eighth time that proved to be the charm.

"It was in May 2005 when 'America's Most Wanted' ran the program again and they got calls from two unrelated couples in the state of Washington who said they had been in that restaurant and the owner's name was Peter Hommer," Fagan said. "The FBI took the information, developed it and with the cooperation of the Mexican authorities took him into custody a few weeks later."

After his arrest in Mexico, Hommerson was taken to Houston, where he briefly resisted extradition to Illinois in federal court before giving up the fight in October 2005.

The state declined to seek the death penalty in the case in June 2006, but if convicted of both murders, the 62-year-old Hommerson faces a mandatory prison sentence of life without parole.

In the courtroom

While the information from Hommerson's wife was certainly the final piece of the puzzle that allowed police to charge Hommerson with the crimes, it is unclear how much of that information will be presented at the upcoming trial.

Frank DiMarino is a former federal prosecutor and currently dean of the school of criminal justice for Kaplan University in Chicago.

He said the prosecution is on more solid footing with the "scientific" evidence against Hommerson -- the shell casings and surveillance video of the gasoline purchase -- than much of the information that could come from his former wife or other witnesses.

"In a case this old, you have to worry about witnesses recollection fading or they themselves getting lost, but that is not the case with scientific evidence," DiMarino said. "The scientific evidence does not lie, and its integrity can be preserved across the years as long as the proper records are maintained."

Less secure a proposition for the prosecution are the personal exchanges between Peter and Ros Hommerson, DiMarino said.

"Because they were still married at the time, any conversations between the suspect and his wife are subject to objection from the defense because of marital privilege," he said. "She may be able to testify about what they did, but anything he said to her is likely to face a very strong challenge from the defense."

Deputy State's Attorney Jeff Pavletic declined to discuss his strategy going into the trial, but said the prosecution is prepared.

"In terms of the time delay, we will argue that we are in this position because of the actions of the defendant," Pavletic said. "He went to Mexico and concealed himself, and the state was diligent in seeking him and attempting to give him his day in court."

That 10 years Hommerson spent in Mexico loom large for the defense, DiMarino said.

"It will be difficult for the defense to explain away the fact that a person who was aware that he was a person of interest in a police investigation, left the country and lived under an assumed name for 10 years," he said. "The prosecution will be able to argue that the flight was evidence of a consciousness of guilt."

Like Pavletic, Waukegan defense attorney David Weinstein declined to discuss specific strategy for the trial when asked about the 10 years in Mexico.

"We have an answer for that, and I cannot elaborate before the trial," Weinstein said. "We expect our client to be found not guilty."