Chester Weger, convicted in Starved Rock murders, dead at 86

Chester Weger, convicted in 1960 of a murder in Starved Rock State Park, has died.

Weger, 86, spent almost six decades in prison for killing Lillian Oetting, one of three women fatally bludgeoned in St. Louis Canyon. He died June 22, according to Forensic Medical of Kansas. The agency provides coroner’s services for Clay County, Missouri, where Weger was moved this spring.

Andy Hale, one of the attorneys who pushed to exonerate Weger, did not return messages seeking a comment or statement. Hours later, however, Hale did issue a statement on social media.

“It is with great sadness that we share the passing of Andy’s client of nearly eight years, Chester Weger,” Hale wrote. “Many of you know that earlier this month our long legal fight to prove his innocence in the 1960 Starved Rock Murders reached a turning point when the judge denied our post-conviction petition.

“Despite this outcome, and despite Chester’s passing, the fight is far from over. Andy and his team are actively exploring next steps and will begin sharing more behind-the-scenes details; evidence, testimony, legal arguments, and key moments from the case...We assure you, you haven’t heard the last of this case.”

Weger was convicted of murder in 1960 after confessing to bludgeoning the women in what he said was a botched robbery. He recanted, however, and spent the rest of his life insisting that his statement was coerced.

Although Weger was never able to persuade a court to exonerate him – his conviction was repeatedly upheld on appeal – Weger did leave many in the Illinois Valley convinced that he was wrongly fingered or was a patsy in a larger conspiracy.

Author Steve Stout researched the case in a book he published in the 1980s and he never wavered from the belief that Weger was guilty and properly convicted. Nevertheless, Stout said Tuesday he took no joy in news of Weger’s death.

“I just hope people remember this is a tragedy for the Weger family,” Stout said. “People forget that: this was as much a tragedy for the Weger family as it was for the victim’s families.”

The saga began in March 1960 when Oetting was sexually assaulted before being bludgeoned to death along with friends Mildred Lindquist and Frances Murphy.

The investigation was halted until then-state’s attorney Harland Warren matched the cords used to bind the women’s hands to kitchen twine that matched a spool in the kitchen at Starved Rock Lodge, where Weger was employed as a dishwasher. Weger was developed as a suspect and eventually implicated himself in interviews with police.

Weger and several of his attorneys would argue later that the confession was tainted by police misconduct.

“It was only as a result of the beating and of the months of psychological coercion, the threats of the electric chair, over and over again, that this man, who then was a young man, confessed,” Weger’s former attorney Donna Kelly said in a 2005 hearing before the Illinois Prisoner Review Board. “Now I submit to this board, that anyone who reads the substance of these confessions ... would know that these accounts are fiction.”

Weger’s prosecutor, the late Anthony C. Raccuglia, acknowledged that police brutality and tainted confessions were common in that era, but he disavowed Weger’s accusations that the confession was tainted.

Raccuglia did, however, say in 2002 that he never believed one portion of Weger’s interview was false. Raccuglia said he never believed the murders were the result of a botched robbery but rather a botched sexual assault.

After long contemplation, Raccuglia reluctantly decided to let Weger’s lie pass unchallenged. By challenging Weger’s version of the events, Raccuglia explained, he risked undermining Weger’s admission that he killed Oetting and two companions. Additionally, Raccuglia said he lacked the forensic ability to prove sexual contact.

Weger’s arguments fell flat with appellate courts, including the Illinois Supreme Court, which took up his appeals in the 1960s. He did, however, win a few adherents on the Illinois Prisoner Review Board.

In 2011, the board voted 8-5 against releasing Weger, who was then 72, and Illinois’ second-longest-serving inmate after William “The Lipstick Killer” Heirens. Raccuglia and then-La Salle County state’s attorney Brian Towne said that he could not recall a parole hearing when Weger obtained a single vote favoring release.

Weger finally won release at a 2019 parole hearing. He was released early the next year and initially resided under supervision in Chicago. He moved to La Salle in 2021 and then resumed trying to persuade a court to overturn his conviction.

His seemingly final effort ended June 18 when La Salle County Judge Michael C. Jansz shot down each of Weger’s witnesses and major pieces of evidence as “not reliable,” “hearsay” or “inadmissible.”

After the hearing, Weger attorney Andy Hale said they would appeal.

“The fat lady hasn’t sung,” Hale said.

Weger died four days later.