The Vintage Tribune newsletter is a deep dive into the Chicago Tribune’s archives featuring photos and stories about the people, places and events that shape the city’s past, present and future.
Vintage Chicago Tribune
Thursday, June 26, 2025
Chester Weger, then-77, in Pinckneyville Correctional Center, is seen on Dec. 6, 2016. He was sentenced to prison
for the 1960 Starved Rock State Park murders of three women. (Zbigniew Bzdak/Chicago Tribune)
Earlier this week, 86-year-old Chester Weger died of cancer in Kansas City, Missouri, surrounded by his family, his attorney Andy Hale said.
Despite his persistent claims of innocence, Weger
lived six decades in prison after confessing to the haunting Starved Rock State Park murders of three suburban Chicago women who were attacked during a hike in broad daylight.
Here’s a look back at the case and the man who was convicted of the crime.
March 14, 1960
Frances Murphy, from left, Mildred Lindquist and Lillian Oetting were killed at Starved Rock State Park in March 1960. (Chicago Tribune)
Lillian Oetting, 50, Frances Murphy, 47, and Mildred Lindquist, 50, left their Riverside homes in suburban Chicago for a four-day vacation at Starved Rock State Park near Utica,
Illinois. They checked into the Starved Rock Lodge and ate lunch before heading out on an afternoon hike through St. Louis Canyon, a popular attraction framed by a scenic waterfall and high rock walls. The women, wives of prominent Chicago business owners, were never seen alive again.
Weger, then a 21-year-old dishwasher at Starved Rock Lodge who was married with two children, arrived at work with scratches on his face, lodge employees later told police. Weger claimed he was writing letters at the lodge at the time of the murders.
The women’s bodies were discovered in a cave. They were bound, partially nude and bludgeoned to death, each having injuries consistent with suffering more than 100 blows. Authorities believed the killer or killers caused the catastrophic head injuries by swinging a frozen tree limb that was found nearby and stained with blood.
Nov. 17, 1960
Chester Weger,
second from left, stands with Sheriff Ray Eutsey in a cave at Starved Rock State Park during a reenactment of the triple slaying on Nov.
17, 1960. A deputy sheriff and two state troopers lie in the spots where Weger said he dragged the bodies. In his confession, Weger said he intended to rob the women until Frances Murphy resisted him and he injured her. To prevent his identification, he said, he then killed all three.
(Val Mazzenga/Chicago Tribune)
Weger confessed to the murders and led investigators in a reenactment of them. Prosecutors said Weger knew things only the killer could
have known, such as the fact that a red-and-white airplane flew over the canyon the day of the murders.
Chester Weger, right, shows state troopers how he tied the wrists of Lillian Oetting and Mildred Lindquist in the triple murder at
Starved Rock State Park on Nov. 17, 1960. (Val Mazzenga/Chicago Tribune)
A LaSalle County grand jury indicted Weger for the murder of the three Riverside women.
Weger said threats of electrocution and an offer of a “deal” by LaSalle County authorities impelled him to confess to the Starved Rock State Park triple murder.
March 3, 1961
Chester Weger, center, visits with his daughter Becky, 3, and wife, Jo Ann, during a recess at his trial for the murder
of three women at Starved Rock State Park on Jan. 30, 1961. (Arnold Tolchin/Chicago Tribune)
Weger was convicted in the murder of Oetting. The jury — made up of seven women and five men — fixed his punishment at life imprisonment. Two jurors became dismayed upon learning that Weger could be eligible for parole in 20 years. As he was led out of court, two sheriff’s deputies reported hearing Weger say, “You’ll never hold me.”
April 3, 1961
Chester Weger
has his picture taken by W.E. Woodward, a prison guard, as Weger enters the state penitentiary in Joliet on April 4, 1961. (Steve Marino/Chicago Tribune)
Weger was sentenced to life imprisonment for Oetting’s murder and Judge Leonard Hoffman rejected Weger’s plea for a new trial a few months later. Later, prosecutors, citing Weger’s life sentence, opted against trying him for the other two women’s deaths. Weger was taken to the Illinois state penitentiary in Joliet to begin his life sentence. He was assigned prison number
48223.
The Illinois Supreme Court later upheld Weger’s conviction and life sentence.
April 20, 1963
Chester Weger, convicted
in 1961 for killing three women at Starved Rock State Park in Utica, Illinois, wrote an autobiography from prison in 1963. In it he wrote, "Now there's
nothing in the world that I needed bad enough to kill for on March 14, 1960." (Chicago Tribune)
While serving a life sentence, Weger penned an autobiography and gave the 48-page manuscript to a Tribune reporter. In it, Weger proclaimed his innocence.
July 8, 2004
A LaSalle County judge ruled in July 2004 that there was
"no evidentiary value" to DNA testing evidence from the crime scene in Starved Rock State Park where three women were killed in March 1960 due to its contamination. (Chicago Tribune)
DNA testing on items, including Weger’s coat and hair found in the victims’ fists, showed the evidence had been contaminated. After Weger’s conviction in 1961, and after appeals were exhausted, prosecutors allowed school groups, civic clubs and student journalists to handle and examine the evidence.
Nov. 21, 2019
Chester Weger talks about his hope for freedom at Pinckneyville Correctional Center on Dec. 6, 2016. He was
denied parole on Dec. 15, 2016. (Zbigniew Bzdak/Chicago Tribune)
Weger was granted parole on his 24th try, in a 9-4 vote. State officials were seeking to have Weger evaluated under the state’s sexually violent persons law, which allowed for continued civil commitment if a person is deemed sexually violent.
Feb. 21, 2020
Chester Weger takes questions from the media on Feb. 21,
2020, after being released from the Pinckneyville Correctional Center. He spent about six decades in prison for the murder of three women in Starved Rock State Park in 1960. (Isaac Smith/for the Chicago Tribune)
Weger, 80, was released from Pinckneyville Correctional Center.
