CHICAGO _ Months before the 60th anniversary of the Starved Rock State Park murders, in which three suburban Chicago women were killed during a daytime hike, the man long imprisoned for the haunting crime has finally won his parole.
Voting Thursday morning in Springfield, the Illinois Prisoner Review Board rendered a 9-to-4 decision in favor of Chester Weger's release. In each of the last two years, the board had denied Weger by one vote. He will not be released for at least 90 days per a request from the Illinois attorney general's office, which is expected to have Weger evaluated under the state's sexually violent persons law, which allows for continued civil commitment if a person is deemed sexually violent.
Now 80, Weger was convicted and sentenced to life for the fatal beating of Lillian Oetting, 50, in March 1960 at the scenic park near Utica. Her remains were found in St. Louis Canyon along with the brutalized bodies of Frances Murphy, 47, and Mildred Lindquist, 50, all of Riverside.
The three friends were on a short vacation to escape the winter doldrums when, within hours of their arrival, they were attacked during a hike in the canyon, a popular attraction framed by a scenic waterfall and 100-foot wall.
After the board's decision, Mary Pruett, one of Weger's sisters, tearfully embraced Diane Oetting, a granddaughter of one of the slain women. Though both stood on opposite sides of the parole debate, their families have been friendly each year during the annual hearings.
"(Oetting) said to me, 'It's finally come,' and I said what a blessing it is that it's finally here," Pruett said. "I do feel for her. We always have."
Pruett, 77, of Smithville, Mo., immediately phoned Weger's daughter and shared the long-awaited news.
Pruett also was able to reach Weger at Pinckneyville Correctional Center. The family allowed reporters to hear his response while putting the call on speaker phone.
"I'm happy," he said in a soft voice. "I'm happy just to get out, you know. ... Tell everybody I said thank you."
Weger, who went for years without garnering a single vote until about eight years ago, was not present at Thursday's hearing. Instead, per board procedure, a member interviewed him this year in prison and wrote a report for the proceeding.
His attorneys, Andrew Hale and Celeste Stack, said the news did not come as a surprise and that Weger had remained hopeful. Pruett and her family said they planned to drive to the downstate prison Thursday afternoon to visit Weger.
The board's chairman, Craig Findley, said Weger has been accepted to live at St. Leonard's House in Chicago, where he can receive housing and supportive services.
Since last year's deadlocked decision, three of the seven board members who opposed Weger's parole have left the board. And the trial's lead prosecutor, Anthony Raccuglia, who long urged the board to keep Weger behind bars, died May 18 at 85.
Members who voted in favor of parole Thursday noted Weger's age, fragile health, lengthy incarceration, lack of discipline behind bars and questions of his actual guilt.
Oetting, of Montgomery, Ala., had opposed his release. She spoke out against his parole minutes before the board's vote.
"If he's not ready and he doesn't succeed (after parole), it's on you all," she told the panel.
LaSalle County State's Attorney Karen Donnelly also urged that Weger remain behind bars. "What has changed?" she asked the board before the vote. "Out of 59 years (in prison), Mr. Weger has gotten his GED. I don't see that as someone who wants to move forward and better himself for society."
Prosecutors argued at trial that Weger, who was working that day as a lodge dishwasher and had fished and hiked in the park most of his life, killed the women with a frozen tree branch during a botched robbery attempt. Each was bound with twine similar to that used in the lodge's kitchen and bludgeoned to death, having injuries consistent with more than 100 blows.
Weger was convicted only in Oetting's murder. Prosecutors, citing Weger's life sentence, opted against trying him for the other two women's deaths and an unrelated 1959 rape in a nearby state park that Weger also denies committing.
Raccuglia was widely believed to be the last surviving participant in the Starved Rock trial other than Weger himself.
Earlier this week, however, the Chicago Tribune located a woman who in 1961 was the jury's youngest member. She recently celebrated her 95th birthday. After all these years, the juror said she still is frightened, and her family asked that her name not be published to protect her privacy.
"I wouldn't think he would even want to get paroled," she said. "He's getting three meals and a bed and has nothing to worry about."
She recalled many details of her six weeks of jury duty but said she rarely thinks about it today. "I did my duty," she said. "I served. I did what I thought was right and never thought about it again."
The juror, convinced of Weger's guilt, said "everything added up."
She said most of the panel supported a death sentence but settled on the life prison term because of a lone holdout member. The woman said she opposes Weger's parole.
"I think killing three women does deserve a life sentence," she said.
Nearly six decades later, conspiracy theories and morbid fascination still surround the case. The murders occurred before modern DNA testing and other forensic advances, and Weger has offered various alibis over the years. His later request for genetic tests on hair found on the victims and blood on his fringed leather coat was stymied in state court in 2004 after it turned out the items had not been properly preserved.
In 2007, then-Gov. Rod Blagojevich denied Weger's request to either pardon him or commute his sentence to time served.
Another juror, who died two years ago at age 93, told the Tribune in late 2016 that she regretted the guilty verdict. She found Weger's confession implausible and the idea unlikely that Weger, standing 5-foot-8, could overpower three women. She identified herself as the holdout juror and said she gave in to the will of the rest of the panel.
Besides the parole efforts, Weger's attorneys said they are researching other post-conviction possibilities, citing the improperly preserved evidence and other issues.
"The arrest, interrogations and jury trial included many tactics now banned by the U.S. Supreme Court," attorney Stack said. "He received no Miranda warnings ... he was arrested with no probable cause and he was denied evidence that was beneficial to his trial defense. His case would not make it into the courthouse today."
After last year's hearing, Diane Oetting said she visited Starved Rock and hiked the trail where her grandmother was killed. It was cold; the path's bridges were icy. As passersby approached, Oetting said an uneasy feeling came over her, and she imagined walking in her grandmother's footsteps.
"They were trapped," she said, referring to the canyon's dead-end trail. "There was absolutely no way out for them except to pass him. It was just kind of overwhelming."
