CLAY COUNTY, Mo. (WTVO) Chester Weger, the man convicted of killing one of three women found dead at Starved Rock State Park in 1960, has died at the age of 86.
He died June 22, according to his attorney.
Weger was convicted in the 1960 slayings of 50-year-old Lillian Oetting, 47-year-old Frances Murphy and 50-year-old Mildred Lindquist. The women were hiking together in Starved Rock State Park in northern Illinois when they were attacked. Their remains were found in the park’s popular St. Louis Canyon, which is framed by a scenic waterfall and a 100-foot wall. Each of them had been bludgeoned more than 100 times.
A break in the investigation came when detectives determined that the cord used to bind the women’s hands matched twine from a spool in the kitchen of the Starved Rock Lodge, where Weger, then 21, worked as a dishwasher.
Wegner initially confessed to beating the women to death with a frozen tree branch during a botched robbery attempt and even took detectives to the park to reenact the killings.
But he later recanted, claiming he was innocent and that prosecutors had coerced him into confessing.
Weger was only convicted in Oetting’s killing. Prosecutors chose not to try him for the two other women’s deaths after he was sentenced to life in prison in 1961.
Weger was granted parole in November on his 24th try. His release was delayed for 90 days because Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul’s office sought to have him evaluated under the state’s Sexually Violent Persons Commitment Act. That law allows the state to hold people indefinitely in a secured facility in the custody of the Illinois Department of Human Services for sex offender treatment if an evaluation deems that necessary.
Associated Press contributed to this report.
