Chester Weger and the Starved Rock Murders

Chris_Halkides

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Chris_Halkides
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This case came up in a death penalty thread, starting at comment #203. Since that time a hair found in the hand of one of the victims was tested, and the DNA profile did not match Mr. Weger. "A DNA test that showed a hair found on a gloved hand of Murphy was from an unidentified man." Chicago Sun Times.

"The hair wasn’t the totality of DNA testing Weger and Hale had hoped for. Last November, according to court records, a judge approved Hale’s request to DNA test eight pieces of evidence from the crime scene including hairs found on the women’s hands and the floor of the cave, twine, and cigarette butts. All but one were not testable, according to the report from the Virginia testing company Bode Technology. The only testable bit of evidence was a hair found on the left index finger of Murphy’s glove, the same hand where authorities said her fingertip had been cut off and never recovered. “Chester Weger is excluded as a possible contributor of the DNA profile obtained from sample,” the report states." Rolling Stone

I am nearly 100% certain that the bloody fingermarks at the crime scene did not match Mr. Weger. I don't have time to say much more today, but I hope to come back later.
 
fingerprint dragnet

The police asked hundreds of men to submit fingerprint samples. This fact suggests to me that some of the bloody fingermarks on the women's clothing were of sufficient quality to be useful in comparisons. With Mr. Weger in custody, the authorities could easily have obtained his reference prints. If the fingermarks were of decent quality, I assume that his were checked and did not match. In the 63 years since the crime, the clothing has disappeared, to the best of my understanding. This is unfortunate because fingerprint database searching is a useful technique.
 
a possible conflict of interest

"The filing submitted late last week also contains allegations of impropriety at the time by law enforcement, the Sun-Times reports. According to the motion, a since-deceased LaSalle County state’s attorney shared reward money with two sheriff’s deputies and a polygraph examiner who was friends with one of the victims’ husbands. That reward, for finding the killer, was paid for by the husbands’ companies.

“The sheer hubris and impropriety of giving these men [money] is stunning,” the defendant’s latest petition reportedly argues. “tate law prohibits prosecutors from receiving such awards.”" Law and Crime

This might or might not be a side story to the main question of Mr. Weger's factual innocence or guilt. However, it does illustrate that there are sometimes conflicts of interest at play in the criminal justice system.
 
Thank you for posting this Chris. I haven't been watching or reading the news lately. It's just so damn depressing.

I'm going to have to watch that documentary again.

Thanks.
 
DNA from a hair tested

US Sun reported that a hair that had been found on the glove of Frances Murphy, one of the victims. The hair had an intact root, suggesting that it had been pulled out during a struggle. "From there, they were able to link this crucial piece of evidence to some men, who were all brothers, based near Starved Rock." WSPY also reported on this story. From what I can gather, there are other hairs that may not be suitable for testing.
 
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Chris_Halkides said:
US Sun reported that a hair that had been found on the glove of Frances Murphy, one of the victims. The hair had an intact root, suggesting that it had been pulled out during a struggle. "From there, they were able to link this crucial piece of evidence to some men, who were all brothers, based near Starved Rock." WSPY also reported on this story. From what I can gather, there are other hairs that may not be suitable for testing.
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Thanks for the update, Chris!

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No Vacancy

The State of Illinois (USA) is not budging: "Our position has not changed on vacating Mr. Weger’s conviction," read the note from [State Attorney James] Glasgow's office.
 
Chris_Halkides said:
The State of Illinois (USA) is not budging: "Our position has not changed on vacating Mr. Weger’s conviction," read the note from [State Attorney James] Glasgow's office.
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Doesn't surprise me in the least, Chris, and I'm sure it doesn't surprise you either.

Stupid people prove how stupid they are every time they open their mouths. Of course, 120 million isn't small change so that might have a lot to do with it.

At least Mr. Weger isn't in prison anymore. That's something anyway.

One thing I do wonder about is if the real killers didn't kill other people, or maybe Starved Rock was just a one off.

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what really happened?

I am not surprised, but it is always disappointing when the criminal justice system digs in its heels.

I am very doubtful that Chester Weger was involved, mainly on the basis of the bloody fingerprints, but now also because of the hair. Yet I don't have much of a hypothesis as to what actually happened. I have heard rumors that organized crime was involved, but that is not easy to fit with the hypothesis that one of the four brothers was the killer or one of the killers.
 
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Chris_Halkides said:
I am not surprised, but it is always disappointing when the criminal justice system digs in its heels.

I am very doubtful that Chester Weger was involved, mainly on the basis of the bloody fingerprints, but now also because of the hair. Yet I don't have much of a hypothesis as to what actually happened. I have heard rumors that organized crime was involved, but that is not easy to fit with the hypothesis that one of the four brothers was involved.
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The place was pretty isolated, and maybe it was just being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

What really pisses me off is the way they got his confession, and you and I both know what inevitably happens after that, but poor Weger probably thought they'd figure it all out and he'd be free soon.

The thing that gave his confession credence was the plane flying overhead at the time he said the killings occurred, but what's really interesting is that one of his interrogators also had a connection with the airport where the plane was found to have come from.

I think he was in a flying club there or something, and most of this is from memory, Chris, so don't take it as gospel.

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James Glasgow

The Chicago Sun-Times reported that, "Will County State’s Attorney James Glasgow says he believes the original confession of convicted “Starved Rock killer” Chester Weger in the bludgeoning deaths of three women from Riverside in 1960 and dismisses Weger’s claim he was pressured into falsely confessing.

"In a court filing, Glasgow says he’ll fight efforts by Weger’s lawyers Andrew Hale and Celeste Stack to remove him as the special prosecutor opposing Weger’s ongoing effort to persuade a LaSalle County judge he’s innocent."

Oxygen reported that, "Weger mentions in the docuseries that he thinks George Spiros, who was the son of the owner of Starved Rock Lodge in 1960, where the women were staying at the time they were killed, may have had something to do with the slayings."
 
Chris_Halkides said:
The Chicago Sun-Times reported that, "Will County State’s Attorney James Glasgow says he believes the original confession of convicted “Starved Rock killer” Chester Weger in the bludgeoning deaths of three women from Riverside in 1960 and dismisses Weger’s claim he was pressured into falsely confessing.

"In a court filing, Glasgow says he’ll fight efforts by Weger’s lawyers Andrew Hale and Celeste Stack to remove him as the special prosecutor opposing Weger’s ongoing effort to persuade a LaSalle County judge he’s innocent."

Oxygen reported that, "Weger mentions in the docuseries that he thinks George Spiros, who was the son of the owner of Starved Rock Lodge in 1960, where the women were staying at the time they were killed, may have had something to do with the slayings."
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Wasn't that lodge where the "incriminating" twine was found?

If I remember correctly, that was the big break in the case.

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Newspaper articles covering the bloody fingermarks

I looked at three articles archived by the Friends of Chester Weger on Facebook. Below are some direct quotes from three newspaper articles. I removed some paragraph breaks to shorten this comment.

Rockford Morning Star April 16, 1960
Bloody Fingerprints Left by Park Killer.
Ottawa, Ill. (AP)--State Police investigating the Starved Rock triple slaying said Friday night the bloody fingerprints the bludgeon-slayer have been found on the garments of two of his three victims. State Police Supt. William Morris called the discover “the biggest break in the investigation so far.” He said five or six fingerprints and a thumb print appear on a silk stocking, the hem of a slip and a girdle. He said the prints could probably be read, and that a conclusive report of their clarity will come from the state Bureau of Criminal Identification Saturday.
SNIP
Morris told The Associated Press there was little possibility that the prints were made by the victims themselves. He said there were placed in such a way that they could only have been made by a hand reaching from below.

Fingerprint Hundreds at Ottawa
[This story also appeared Tuesday, April 19, 1960 in the Alton Evening Telegraph]
Ottawa, Ill (AP)—Fingerprinting of up to 500 persons living in the area of starved Rock State Park begins today [Tuesday?] in the latest phase in the hunt for the killers of three Chicago-area matrons. Some men will be asked to provide hair samples as well. Employees of the park will be among the first fingerprinted.

Find Triple Killer’s Prints! Study Finger Marks Left in Blood of 3
By Sandy Smith
[This article appeared in the Chicago Tribune on Saturday, April 16, 1960]
“We can read the bloody finger prints and we will know who the killer is if we find prints that match with them,” said James Christensen, superintendent of the state bureau.”
SNIP
“The fingerprints of the victims were taken after their bodies were found March 16 in the cave. Christensen said the bloody prints definitely were not made by any of the victims.”
 
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strands of evidence

"Another one is the stupid twine. Even in the doc as Warren explains it it makes no sense. Nevermind that, again, it's months later. It begs the question was that spool even there during the time of the murders? How many spools would a busy resort kitchen go through during that span? But also, all he did was count the strands of the twine. Found 32. Then goes to the kitchen, finds two strands that together equals 32. So, no it's not really a match. Like, did the killer sit down with two separate threads and mix them together purposefully. I suppose it's possible but it barely passes the sniff test when talking about forensic evidence." I found this in the Unresolved Mysteries portion of Reddit. The commenter sounded knowledgable. If there really was this difference in the number of strands, then I am even less impressed with the case than I was before, which is a difficult feat.
EDT
Mr. Weger's attorney Andy Hale wrote, "But there is a problem with Mr. Warren’s dramatic story. It’s factually untrue. Contemporaneous newspaper accounts report that 20-strand twine was found tied around the wrists of Frances Murphy and Lillian Oetting and that a piece of 20-strand twine was found knotted to a piece of 10-strand twine near the mouth of the cave in St. Louis Canyon.[2] These newspaper accounts are corroborated by March 20, 1960 handwritten notes produced pursuant to a freedom of information act request that indicate there was 20 strand twine found around the wrists of victim A (Mrs. Murphy) and victim C (Mrs. Oetting). Those handwritten notes also state that there was a piece of twine found below victim B (Mrs. Lindquist) that was comprised of two different sizes of twine knotted together, 20-strand and 10-strand.[3]"
 
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Morris on the fingermarks

On 21 April 1960 the Bloomington Pantograph reported that "A mass fingerprinting operation is in progress at Starved Rock but officials have said fingerprints found on undergarments of the victims are "of no certain value." [State Police Chief William H.] Morris today said the prints are "nearly indistinguishable." He said that the fingerprinting would continue as a matter of routine investigation." This passage makes me wonder how good the bloody fingermarks were. Other newspaper accounts indicated that Mr. Christensen resigned in April 1960, effective June, due to criticism from Joseph Bibb.

Yet a year later he returned to this job. On 1 June 1961 the Mt. Carmel Daily Republican-Register wrote, "Christensen however has long maintained that Chester Weger, who later was tried and convicted of one of the three slayings. was his No. 1 suspect at the time that he resigned." Why would Mr. Weger have been a suspect in April of 1961?
 
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no 12-strand twine

In a 1991 story called "Murder, they wrought," The Chicago Tribune wrote, "After examining the twine that bound the wrists of two of the victims, John F. Schaich, supervisor of the Illinois State Crime Laboratory, said, ''This is 20-strand twine, of the type used for tying parcels, freezer packages and meat in butcher shops.'' A similar piece of twine-tied in a granny, or mistied square knot, to a piece of 10-strand twine-was found near the entrance to the murder cave." The story continued, "This [finding the bloody fingermarks] led to the largest mass fingerprinting ever undertaken by the Illinois State Police, involving some 500 employees of the state park and of concessionaires at the park."
EDT
A question in my previous comment said April 1961, but it should have said April 1960.
 
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Conflict of interest?

Jake Malooley reported, "A couple years into Weger’s sentence, when the reward money in the case was distributed, State’s Attorney Warren accepted $11,500, and deputies Dummett and Hess each took $5,000." I am no expert, but the idea of public employees accepting rewards appears to raise a huge question concerning conflict of interest.
 
Chris_Halkides said:
Jake Malooley reported, "A couple years into Weger’s sentence, when the reward money in the case was distributed, State’s Attorney Warren accepted $11,500, and deputies Dummett and Hess each took $5,000." I am no expert, but the idea of public employees accepting rewards appears to raise a huge question concerning conflict of interest.
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Of course, a pretend skeptic would NEVER entertain that idea.

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Mark Harrington reported, "Recently Othram Labs in Dallas, Texas tested the root hair and bulb of what the defense claimed was pulled during a struggle and was discovered on Murphy. That DNA genealogical exam showed the hair belonged to a man last name of Bray who lived near the state park’s LaSalle Canyon murder scene in Utica. However, state prosecutor Colleen Griffin argued that the defense has provided no reasonable explanation as to how Bray’s hair got on the glove, only that it belonged to the murderer. Hale has stated that it proves Weger’s innocence."
The presence of a hair bulb, as opposed to just a hair shaft, inclines me to believe that this hair was lost in a struggle. I am not a lawyer, but the state prosecutor's argument amounts to asking the defense to solve the case. IMO the hair bulb is additional weight on the scale in Mr. Weger's favor.
 
Several years ago I wrote about three fingermark cases, including this one: "The authorities obtained the fingerprints of up to five hundred people who worked at the park or lived in the area." This is reminiscent of the collection of many DNA profiles in the Colin Pitchfork case.
 
"His lab’s conclusion was that the hair was most likely linked to brothers Leo, Charles, and Edward Bray of Utica. To further their conclusion, the lab suggested exhuming the bodies of the brothers. That never happened. During cross-examination, the prosecutors have the Weger expert witness admit his line of work deals in probabilities. He also can’t conclude the Bray brothers committed the murders or even were at the park when the murders occurred. The prosecution pointed out that Edward Bray died the same day as the three women were found dead in 1960. That lead prosecutors to paint the possibility a hair from Bray could’ve transferred to Frances Murphy’s glove as the 4 bodies were handled by same individuals performing their autopsies." link

Cross contamination should never be completely ignored as a possibility.
 
I found a 19 July 1963 newspaper article that indicated that several people involved with law enforcement or hired by law enforcement received reward money (I had read some information about rewards previously, but I do not recall where). One of the individuals, Stephan Kindig, gave Mr. Weger a lie detector test and claimed that Mr. Weger was their man. I support a prohibition on rewards of this kind, in that they create a conflict of interest.
 
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