Chester Otto Weger is an American convicted murderer. He was previously the longest-serving inmate incarcerated by the state of Illinois and the third longest in state history before his release on February 21, 2020. He was convicted in 1961 of the murder of one of three women found slain at Starved Rock State Park. He was held at Pinckneyville Correctional Center. On November 21, 2019, the Illinois Prisoner Review Board granted parole to Weger by a vote of 9–4. He was released on parole February 21, 2020.
Murders
In March of 1960, three women, Frances Murphy, Mildred Lindquist, and Lillian Oetting, took a four-day trip to Starved Rock State Park in LaSalle County, Illinois, along the banks of the Illinois River. They arrived from the Chicago suburb of Riverside, about 90 miles northeast of the park, and were married to prominent Chicago businessmen. On March 14, after checking into the Starved Rock Lodge, the three took an afternoon hike through St. Louis Canyon, but never returned. Their disappearances went unnoticed until March 16 when the husband of Frances Murphy phoned the lodge to inquire about his wife. Police organized a search of the park which led to the discovery of the women's bodies, bound with twine and partially disrobed, inside a cave in the canyon. All three suffered severe head trauma and a blood stained tree limb found nearby was determined to have been used to bludgeon them to death. Weger, a dishwasher at the Starved Rock Lodge, was among those interviewed by Illinois State Police in the aftermath of the discovery. Several employees of the lodge told investigators that he showed to work the day after the women's disappearances with scratches on his face. Weger was questioned extensively in the weeks following the murders and was administered at least three lie detector tests, which he passed. However, investigators continued to pursue him owing to his past brushes with the law. He fit the description of an assailant who bound a teenage girl with twine and raped her at nearby Matthiessen State Park months earlier, and was later identified by the victim in a photo line-up. The twine used to bind the murder victims was the same as that found in the kitchen at the lodge, and he failed another lie detector test given to him in September. Based on this, investigators put him on nonstop surveillance. On November 16, the LaSalle Countystate's attorney ordered Weger arrested and brought in for further questioning. After lengthy interrogation, he confessed to the murders the next day and led police in a reenactment at the crime scene. However, just days later, Weger recanted his confession, claiming it was made under duress after being threatened by his interrogators. A grand jury returned indictments against Weger for all three murders, as well as the rape and robbery at Matthiessen State Park, however the state chose to only try him for the murder of Lillian Oetting. Weger's trial began on February 13, 1961. His defense relied on the claim that investigators were relentless in extracting a confession from him, that he was told they would convict him on circumstantial evidence if he didn't and send him to the electric chair, accusations the investigators and other witnesses denied. He claimed he was washing dishes at the time of the murders before going to the basement of the lodge, and that the scratches seen on his face in the days after the murders were from shaving. Bloodstains found on Weger's leather jacket analyzed by the FBI were inconclusive as to whether they were human or animal. On March 3, 1961, the jury returned a verdict of guilty and fixed a sentence of life imprisonment, rejecting the state's request to sentence him to death. Weger was formally sentenced on April 3, and began serving his sentence at Illinois State Penitentiary in Joliet. His attorney filed an appeal which made its way to the Illinois Supreme Court, however the verdict was affirmed in September 1962.
Parole
In prison, Weger repeatedly professed his innocence over the decades, but was constantly denied parole. On November 29, 2018, he fell one vote short of parole in a split vote of 7–7 before the Illinois Prisoner Review Board. One year later, on November 21, 2019, the same board voted 9–4 in granting his release after nearly 59 years in prison. He was released to a Chicago mission that aides parolees with rehabilitation. After a 90-day delay as the Illinois Attorney General sought an evaluation of Weger under the state’s Sexually Violent Persons Commitment Act, he was released February 21, 2020.
