Expert: Suspect's DNA found near area where wife was slain
Clarence Weber may or may not be a killer, but he is definitely a litterer, according to an expert who testified Wednesday at Weber's murder trial.
The expert said Weber's DNA was on cigarette butts found in a parking lot near where his wife was working just before she was killed.
Weber, 60, is on trial for first-degree murder in the July 5, 2008 stabbing death of his wife, Adelina Weber, 31, behind a Lincolnshire hotel.
Prosecutors said that Weber, who had been served with divorce papers four days before the killing, went to the Lincolnshire restaurant where his wife worked on the day she died. She had moved out of their Waukegan home two months earlier.
Police found a note inside Adelina Weber's car they said was written by her husband and placed under one of her car's windshield wipers.
The note asked her to meet with him behind the hotel when she finished her shift at the restaurant, police said.
They also collected numerous cigarette butts from a parking lot near the restaurant, where witnesses have said someone matching Weber's description was seen on July 5.
Kelly Lawrence, a forensic scientist and DNA expert for the Northeastern Illinois Regional Crime Laboratory, said she did DNA tests on five of the butts, all of them Winstons, Weber's preferred brand.
Lawrence said she compared the results of those tests with a sample of Weber's DNA that was obtained by detectives of the Lake County Major Crimes Task Force.
Three of the comparisons produced an exact match of Weber's DNA, Lawrence said, and two produced a partial match. The likelihood of anyone other than Weber leaving the DNA on the cigarette butts was one in 1.06 quintillion, Lawrence said.
Prosecutors claim Weber stabbed his wife to death in the parking lot and then fled to Indiana, where he was captured four days later. Defense attorneys said in their opening statement that Weber killed his wife in self-defense by turning the knife she pulled on him back on her.
Testimony is expected to continue today.