Suspect's ex-wife says she lied for him

Ros Hommerson said she and her husband walked for about 30 minutes when he turned to face her for what she believed was the last time.

"We said goodbye," she told a Lake County jury Thursday. "He said he loved me, but he had to do this because the police would try to pin it on him because he had worked at the Lichtmans' that day."

That day was Jan. 23, 1996, when Marvin and Kay Lichtman were murdered and their $1.5 million mansion was torched. Six days later, Ros and Peter Hommerson were in Mexico as the husband of 18 years began his run from what he had told his wife was a police frame-up.

The third day of Peter Hommerson's murder trial was marked by his ex-wife's testimony that statements she made during police questioning two days after the murders were partially crafted by her husband.

Before that questioning, Ros Hommerson said, her husband told her to give four answers that were not true.

She said he told her to say he came home about noon for lunch and later in the afternoon while working at the Lichtmans', where he was creating a glass etching of the couple and their dog.

She was to tell of a drive they took from Algonquin to their second home in Woodstock and say her husband told her he would be renting a van that day.

Ros Hommerson testified she did that in her responses to police and in a six-page handwritten statement.

In reality, she testified, her husband left home at 8 a.m. and returned after 7:30 p.m. on Jan. 23, and they never discussed renting a van.

She also said that on Jan. 26, police searched the couple's two houses, and Peter Hommerson told her they should drive to her employer's home near St. Louis for a few days.

It was not a pleasant trip, she said. She and her husband were so terrified of what was happening she at one point told him to drive into a bridge to kill them both.

Once near St. Louis, Ros Hommerson testified, she borrowed $1,000 and a car from the man whose company she designs shoes for and got on the highway again.

Weeping at times during her testimony, she said she and her husband decided he would run and she would stay at home with their possessions.

They decided to go to Mexico and took turns behind the wheel. They drove from St. Louis to Laredo, Texas, in about 17 hours. While one drove, the other slept, and there was little conversation between the two during the trek, she said.

At the border, they checked into a hotel, ate, then walked across a bridge into Mexico.

Once her husband had walked away, Ros Hommerson said, she returned to the hotel and slept, then returned to St. Louis the following day.

Throughout her nearly two hours of testimony, Ros Hommerson never said her husband told her he had killed the Lichtmans.

She said his only statements about the crime were that "something terrible had happened" and police intended to falsely accuse him.

After she returned to Algonquin, it would be another month before she would go to police and tell them about her deception and her husband's whereabouts.

An arrest warrant for Peter Hommerson was issued March 1, and he was captured in Mexico in September 2005.

If convicted of both murders, he faces a mandatory sentence of life in prison.

Testimony is expected to continue today.