Chester Weger served 59 years behind bars for one of the most heinous crimes in this state’s history. Now out of prison, he is on a mission to prove his innocence, with help from a high-profile lawyer. Inside the effort to exonerate the “Starved Rock Killer.”
In March of 1960, the tranquility of Illinois’ Starved Rock State Park was shattered when three suburban housewives were found brutally murdered in a secluded canyon. The crime scene was horrifying—bludgeoned bodies, partially hidden beneath snow and brush. Public panic mounted quickly. With no eyewitnesses or clear leads, the pressure on law enforcement to deliver justice was immense.
A young dishwasher from the nearby lodge, Chester Weger, soon found himself in the eye of the storm. His slightly odd demeanor and a history of petty offenses made him an easy target. After hours of intense interrogation, Weger confessed—but almost immediately recanted, claiming the confession had been coerced. Nevertheless, he was convicted and sentenced to life in prison.
Weger never gave up insisting he was innocent. As the years stretched into decades, he became a fixture in the prison system—an aging man still denying the crime that had stolen his life. For many, it seemed like a closed chapter, one of those tragic but inevitable convictions. But then, new interest in the case began to stir. Journalists, lawyers, and even some law enforcement veterans started digging. DNA testing, unavailable in 1960, was now applied to old evidence. And what it revealed—or didn’t—started to cast doubt on the certainty of Weger’s guilt. Suddenly, what had seemed settled began to unravel.
In 2020, after nearly 60 years behind bars, Chester Weger walked out of prison on parole, frail but unbroken. His release didn’t mean exoneration, but it did reignite questions that had lain dormant for generations. Had an innocent man lost most of his life to a flawed system? Or had justice been served, and the doubts merely noise? The story remains unresolved, haunting in its ambiguity. But one thing is clear: in the shadows of Starved Rock, truth and certainty are not the same thing.
