EAGLE CREEK TOWNSHIP | A manhunt continued late Monday night after Lake County police located the vehicle of a suspected killer in a truck stop parking lot earlier in the day.
Police were just steps behind 58-year-old Clarence Weber Jr., a Waukegan, Ill., man wanted on a charge of first-degree murder in the stabbing death of his wife.
Police spotted his car about 4:15 p.m. Monday in the parking lot of the Flying J Travel Plaza, off Interstate 65 and Ind. 2, about four miles outside of Lowell. When officers went inside a travel store there, a manager said a man matching Weber's description had just withdrawn money from the ATM, a statement confirmed by video footage, Lake County Police Chief Marco Kuyachich said.
"He must've seen the officers, because he went out the back as we were coming in the front," Kuyachich said.
Weber, with a freshly shaven head, had just withdrawn $400 from the ATM. Police think he spent Sunday night at the nearby Super 8 Motel. They later located his room and found shaving cream and razors, Kuyachich said.
Police set up a 2-square-mile perimeter near the gas station. Dozens of officers from multiple Indiana and Illinois agencies joined in the manhunt. Several police dogs and an Illinois State Police helicopter equipped with heat-sensing technology searched the area into the late hours of the night.
The area is covered in high grass and reeds, making the dogs and heat-sensing equipment crucial.
"You could hide in those reeds from a police officer just walking in the field," Kuyachich said.
Illinois authorities filed an arrest warrant for Weber, whose wife, Adalina Weber, was stabbed in the chest Saturday before walking into SpringHill Suites in Lincolnshire, Ill., where she collapsed and died.
A police bulletin with the suspect's description and vehicle information was dispatched, and Lake County police located the car, a 2005 silver Chevrolet Equinox. As officers scoured the perimeter, others checked unoccupied rooms at the Super 8, Kuyachich said.
Police gave truck drivers a description of Weber and dispatched over CB radios that drivers should not pick up any hitchhikers in the area, he said.
Weber is 6 feet tall and weighs 190 pounds. He last was seen wearing a white shirt and blue jeans. And, he's now bald, Kuyachich said.
Police believe he wants to flee the area.
Dom Cappelluti, detective supervisor for the Lake County, Ill., Major Crimes Task Force, commended Lake County, Ind., police for finding the suspect's car.
