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GIST: "Chester Weger, who was released in February 2020 after six decades behind bars following the infamous Starved Rock Murders, will know by the end of the year if a strand of hair found at the scene of the crime can be tied to a suspect in a case.
Weger's attorney Andy Hale told The U.S. Sun how advanced genetic genealogical testing developed by the Othram lab in Texas - who helped blow open the Bryan Kohberger Idaho murder case - has given fresh hope for the now 84-year-old to have his conviction quashed.
Hale laid bare his incredulity at the "millions of holes" he's found in the case that gripped the country in 1960 when the bodies of Lillian Oetting, Frances Murphy, and Mildred Linquist were found battered to death at the Starved Rock National Park in Illinois.
Weger was convicted of killing 50-year-old Oetting, but prosecutors chose not to try him for the deaths of her friends Mildred Lindquist, 50, and Frances Murphy, 47, after he was sentenced to life in prison in 1961.
The women had been hiking before they were bludgeoned more than 100 times, in what was described as the most brutal of killings.
Under fierce and reportedly violent interrogation from cops which lasted 24 hours, Weger initially admitted his involvement, before backtracking once he entered prison.
Ever since, he has been attempting - and failing on numerous occasions - to prove his innocence.
'MILLIONS OF HOLES'
Weger, who was 21 at the time of the killings and employed as a dishwasher at a lodge where the three women were staying, is "100%" innocent, according to Hale.
The attorney points to a multitude of discrepancies in the original police investigation and subsequent discoveries which, he believes, prove Weger should never have spent such a long time behind bars.
He cannot understand how a court was persuaded to think Weger single-handedly killed the three women and then moved them all himself to remove them from plain sight without bloodying his jacket, before calmly returning to work.
Hale also points out that the murder weapon - a log - wasn't from anything growing in the park as well as to testimonies from two different people that include strong evidence indicating other parties were responsible.
Weger was released from prison in February 2020, three months after the Illinois Prisoner Review Board finally granted his parole on the 24th attempt. He was described as a model prisoner, yet there was no exoneration.
HEARTBREAKING TWIST
In a twist, Weger's freedom was then taken from him once again just a few weeks later as the Covid-19 pandemic forced him and his family into lockdown.
Yet hopes are now high of the resolution of a case Hale describes as a "crime of vengeance."
In the Emmy-nominated HBO documentary Murders at Starved Rock - produced by Hollywood superstar Mark Wahlberg's production company which brought fresh attention to the case in 2021 - the cops at the time were vividly portrayed as corrupt and acting improperly during a reportedly viscous interrogation that lasted 24 hours.
The investigation in the three-part series was intriguingly led by David Raccuglia, whose father Tony was the assistant state’s attorney in the case.
Raccuglia was determined to pick holes in his late father's work and ended up severely questioning his decisions and his steadfast belief, which he took to his grave in 2019, that the correct man was sent to jail.
Chicago-based Hale, who specializes in quashing wrongful convictions, contacted Weger offering his services in December 2016 and has been working meticulously ever since.
While DNA testing has already proved a strand of hair - with the root intact, which suggests it was pulled from someone's head during a bitter struggle - doesn't belong to Weger, advanced genealogical sampling could point investigators towards a new suspect.
Hale hopes to have an answer from the lab by the end of the year and feels they are getting "very close" to identifying who was responsible for the three murders.
"This company has been cracking a lot of cases in the last couple of years," he told The U.S. Sun.
The initial DNA screening was able to confirm the hair was from a male, but there wasn't enough extra detail to be able to register the findings with the national database.
"Othram is at the cutting edge of this technology," added Hale. "Genetic genealogy is fascinating and could help us."
Following the release of the documentary series, Hale has received even more pieces of new evidence, some of which he maintains was wrongly dismissed during the original prosecution 63 years ago.
He has spoken to potential new witnesses and painstakingly trawled through old documents and newspaper archives in a bid to try and prove Weger did not commit the crime.
Will County State’s Attorney James Glasgow, appointed as a special prosecutor in the case and who refused a motion last year to clear Weger's name, has also come in for scathing criticism from Hale and his team.
'WHAT A JOKE'
Glasgow, according to Hale, failed to examine the appropriate documents, interview various witnesses, and even dismissed documents given to a museum by local man Steve Stout, who wrote a book about the case.
“The state not only proceeded to trial against [Weger], the state also asked the jury to electrocute him,” a failed petition to clear Weger's name, said. “This is truly unfathomable.”
The U.S. Sun approached Will County's State Attorney's office about Hale's claims, but they refused to comment.
Hale also concedes a triumphant result would not only result in the longest wrongful conviction in United States history - but also leave the authorities faced with making a huge, record payout.
Standard practice is to pay out up to $2 million for every year spent in jail, meaning Weger could be paid $120 million for having most of his life taken away.
Hale fears, however, that such a huge sum could force the various agencies connected to the case to slow down the process as much as possible.
"It's a huge financial liability issue," said Hale. "There are people out there that don't want this to happen."
The entire story can be read at:
I’m a female mechanic and it’s dirty work – men say ‘power to yo
https://www.the-sun.com/news/9793400/chester-weger-dna-murders-starved-rock-jail/PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue/resource. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog for reports on developments. The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. The Star has a "topic" section which focuses on recent stories related to Dr. Charles Smith. It can be found at: http://www.thestar.com/topic/charlessmith. Information on "The Charles Smith Blog Award"- and its nomination process - can be found at: http://smithforensic.blogspot.com/2011/05/charles-smith-blog-award-nominations.html Please send any comments or information on other cases and issues of interest to the readers of this blog to: hlevy15@gmail.com. Harold Levy: Publisher: The Charles Smith Blog;
SEE BREAKDOWN OF SOME OF THE ON-GOING INTERNATIONAL CASES (OUTSIDE OF THE CONTINENTAL USA) THAT I AM FOLLOWING ON THIS BLOG, AT THE LINK BELOW: HL
https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/120008354894645705/47049136857587929
FINAL WORD: (Applicable to all of our wrongful conviction cases): "Whenever there is a wrongful conviction, it exposes errors in our criminal legal system, and we hope that this case — and lessons from it — can prevent future injustices.
Lawyer Radha Natarajan;
Executive Director: New England Innocence Project;
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FINAL, FINAL WORD: "Since its inception, the Innocence Project has pushed the criminal legal system to confront and correct the laws and policies that cause and contribute to wrongful convictions. They never shied away from the hard cases — the ones involving eyewitness identifications, confessions, and bite marks. Instead, in the course of presenting scientific evidence of innocence, they've exposed the unreliability of evidence that was, for centuries, deemed untouchable." So true!
Christina Swarns: Executive Director: The Innocence Project;
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YET ANOTHER FINAL WORD:
David Hammond, one of Broadwater’s attorneys who sought his exoneration, told the Syracuse Post-Standard, “Sprinkle some junk science onto a faulty identification, and it’s the perfect recipe for a wrongful conviction.
