Husband accused of wife's murder claims self-defense

No one knows why Adelina Weber agreed to meet with her estranged husband on July 5, 2008.

All the signals suggested she had made up her mind to leave him. She had moved out of their Waukegan home two months before and had served Clarence Weber with divorce papers that claimed "extreme and repeated mental cruelty" on July 1.

But after she finished her shift at a Lincolnshire restaurant, she drove across Milwaukee Avenue and parked behind the hotel where the note her husband had left on her car instructed.

"The note he left that day proved prophetic," Lake County Assistant State's Attorney Eric Kalata said in his opening statement. "Clarence Weber had written 'I promise this will be the last time' on the note."

Weber, now 60, is on trial for killing his wife during that meeting. Authorities say he stabbed her once in the chest before she ran into the lobby of the SpringHill Suites, where she collapsed and died from the loss of blood.

Weber, who had been living in Chicago since a suspicious fire destroyed the house he shared with his wife a few days after she moved out, then fled the state.

Indiana police spotted his car at a truck stop near LaPorte, Ind., three days later, then captured him the next morning as he walked along the side of the road.

He was returned to Illinois, and authorities later charged him with solicitation of murder for hire after saying they recorded Weber offering to pay another inmate to kill some of the witnesses against him.

Assistant Public Defender Katherine Hatch told the jury of seven women and five men that Weber was indeed in his wife's car on July and did in fact stab her once with a knife.

But it was 31-year-old Adelina Weber who brought the knife to the meeting, Hatch said, and Clarence Weber stabbed his wife as he was trying to protect himself.

"It was self defense," Hatch said. "There are no defensive wounds on Adelina Weber because she was holding the knife when Mr. Weber pushed it back at her."

Hatch said the fact that there was only one wound indicated there was no rage on Clarence Weber's part and claimed that he fled the state afterward because he was scared.

In 1989, Weber was charged with trying to kill his first wife on two different occasions in Florida.

Officials said Weber forced his way into her home in March of that year, held a knife to her throat and choked her into unconsciousness.

He took one of her children and sped off in her car, sparking a high-speed chase, then threw the child out of the car while it was still moving.

He was charged with attempted murder and kidnapping, but was released on bail.

About two weeks later, officials said, Weber stole a propane truck and was attempting to crash it into his wife's house and blow it up when he was interrupted by police.

He climbed out of the truck, opened one of the propane canisters and ignited it, blowing up the truck and severely burning himself.

Weber was charged with theft and arson in that case and served seven years of a 19-year sentence on the Florida charges.

In applying for an order of protection against her husband on May 5, 2008, Adelina Weber wrote that her husband was threatening to report her to immigration officials if she refused to go to marriage counseling with him.

"He said I must say yes to him or he could snap," Adelina Weber wrote.

The order of protection was still in force when Adelina Weber parked her car behind the SpringHill Suites on the day she was stabbed.

Testimony in the trial is expected to continue today. Weber faces a prison sentence of between 20 and 60 years if convicted.

He has been held without bond since his arrest.