CROWN POINT, Ind. — A suburban Chicago man who once spent six years in prison for attempting to kill his first wife was arrested Tuesday in Indiana on a warrant charging him with first-degree murder in his second wife’s stabbing death.
Clarence J. Weber, 58, of Waukegan, was taken into custody in a rural area just south of Crown Point, Ind., after police received calls from people who saw Weber walking along a road about 6:30 a.m., said Mike Higgins, a spokesman for the Lake County, Ind., sheriff’s department.
“He was walking home to Waukegan,” a northern suburb of Chicago, Higgins said.
Weber is accused of stabbing Adelina Weber, 31, on Saturday in the parking lot of a hotel outside the pancake house where she was a waitress. She had a stab wound to the chest when she walked into the SpringHill Suites Hotel lobby, collapsed and died.
Police had been searching for Clarence Weber since, including with a helicopter and dogs. Authorities say he abandoned a red Chevy Equinox at a northwest Indiana truck stop Monday afternoon after police surrounded the area.
He was being held Tuesday at the Lake County jail pending an extradition hearing. It was not immediately clear when the hearing would be held or whether Weber had an attorney.
Court documents show Adelina Weber had filed for divorce from her husband June 30. She had been staying at her brother’s home, according to her family and attorney.
“He got served on July 1, and she was dead four days later,” Helen Rogal, Adelina Weber’s divorce lawyer, said.
She obtained a court order of protection against her husband May 5. Two days later, the couple’s Waukegan home was destroyed by a fire. Police are investigating the case as a suspected arson.
Clarence Weber “was the only person present,” Fire Marshal Steve Lenzi told the Chicago Sun-Times.
Department of Corrections records in Florida show Clarence Weber spent six years in prison there from 1989 to 1995 after he was convicted of attempting to murder his first wife. He also was convicted of kidnapping his 8-year-old daughter, aggravated assault, battery of a law enforcement official, arson, burglary, grand theft and resisting arrest in 1989.
The St. Petersburg Times reported in 1989 that he threatened to blow up his first wife’s home with highly flammable hydrogen gas, which he stole along with a pickup truck from a welding supply company where he worked. When police pulled him over and arrested him, he lit some of the gas on fire and was hospitalized with serious burns.
The Times reported it was Weber’s second public attempt to harm his first wife, who wanted a divorce after 19 years of marriage.
A month earlier, he had been arrested after holding a knife up to his wife’s throat and threatened to kill her and their three children. He choked his wife until she lost consciousness, then drove away with the couple’s 8-year-old daughter.
He dropped off the child in the street as police chased him to the top of a bridge, where he threatened to jump.
