Illinois man, 80, set for release in 1960 triple-killing

[Omaha Steve]

Source: AP

CHICAGO (AP) — An 80-year-old man is set to be released from an Illinois prison this week, nearly six decades after he was sentenced to life for the killing of one of three suburban Chicago women whose brutalized bodies were found in a state park.

Chester Weger was convicted in 1961 of killing of Lillian Oetting, 50. Her remains were found at northern Illinois’ Starved Rock State Park in March 1960 along with the bodies of Frances Murphy, 47, and Mildred Lindquist, 50. The three women, who were hiking together, were found bound, partially nude and bludgeoned to death near the park’s popular St. Louis Canyon, which is framed by a scenic waterfall and a 100-foot wall.

The case confounded investigators until they determined that the cord used to bind the women’s hands matched twine from a spool in the kitchen of the Starved Rock Lodge. Weger, then 21, was a dishwasher at the lodge and had fished and hiked in the park for most of his life.

Weger was granted parole in November on his 24th try and is set to be released Friday from the Pinckneyville Correctional Center.



FILE - In this Dec. 6, 2016, file photo, inmate Chester Weger is interviewed at Pinckneyville Correctional Center in Pinckneyville, Ill. Illinois officials have granted parole to Weger, an 80-year-old inmate sentenced to life in prison for the 1960 killings of three suburban Chicago women whose brutalized bodies were found in a cave at a state park. Weber is set to be released the week of Feb. 17, 2020. (Zbigniew Bzdak/Chicago Tribune via AP, File)


Read more: https://apnews.com/eef0622e43d80d4969cbbc57f71981cf

[marble falls]

1. Sounds alright to me.

[Floyd R. Turbo]

2. Too old to be a threat!

AUBURN, Maine — A man who served decades in prison for stabbing his wife 14 times in front of her daughter was convicted Wednesday in a nearly identical crime — stabbing a woman at least 11 times while her twin children watched.

Albert Flick, 77, whom a judge previously deemed too old to be a threat, was convicted in the 2018 death of Kimberly Dobbie. Jurors deliberated less than an hour before reaching the guilty verdict.

Both the attack, which was in front of a laundromat in broad daylight, and Flick's purchase two days earlier of two knives, were caught on surveillance video.

Prosecutors say Flick was infatuated with Dobbie, 48, and followed her around and dined at the homeless shelter where she was staying. They knew one another, witnesses said, but were not in a relationship.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/07/20/man-deemed-too-old-dangerous-convicted-murder-again/1784897001/

[marble falls]

3. Still sounds all right to me. Flick was in a homeless shelter ...

Meanwhile my guy ...

“I don’t believe anyone who has ever talked to this man believes he’s going to go out and hurt anyone,” Celeste Stack, one of Weger’s attorneys, told the Chicago Tribune.

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.

Experts who conducted Weger’s evaluation concluded that he didn’t meet the legal criteria for the law to apply, a spokeswoman for Raoul said last week.

Weger, who turns 81 in the coming weeks and suffers from asthma and rheumatoid arthritis, will live and receive support services at St. Leonard’s Ministries in Chicago. As a veteran, he will receive Social Security benefits and medical coverage from Veterans Affairs, his attorneys said.

[Warpy]

4. I think at this point it will be harder on him than on people around him

Solid state electronics were first introduced in little battery powered radios about the time he went into the joint, that was as far as technology had gotten. Everything else was big and clunky and used vacuum tubes He missed the whole tech revolution and much of it will be beyond him, even if he had a prison job at a computer terminal. He'll be in a supervised living situation, a religious one with little access to women.

There is always a chance he's a psychopath who beat the tests and will reoffend, but it's a lot less likely than it would have been had he been released at 30 instead of 80.

[marble falls]

5. He is in a whole new world, that's for sure.

[Floyd R. Turbo]

11. Fuck "your guy"! He brutalized and murdered three women. He should rot and die with an ass full of

cancer in the worst conditions imaginable!

[BigOleDummy]

12. Agreed

And well said actually.

[marble falls]

13. Society says you do your crime, you do your time and then you get out. I go with ...

society on this one.

I also agree with the Constitution on cruel and inhumane punishment and non judicial punishment.

[Mr.Bill]

6. Whenever I see a story about releasing someone like this from prison,

I ask myself this question: Would I want him living next door to me?

The answer on this guy is no.

[oldsoftie]

9. I agree. And that question could be asked in many situations.

[marble falls]

15. He can live next to me.

[denbot]

16. Put up or shut up, and pick him up at the gate.

Fuck that piece of shit, he should never walk free.

[marble falls]

17. He can live next to me ...

I also agree with the Constitution on cruel and inhumane punishment and non judicial punishment.

No country gives out the lengths of prison terms or the numbers of death penalties as we do in this country except Pakistan, Russia and China.

Yet we have a murder rate that is many time higher than just about any country on the planet.

[denbot]

19. On your way to pick him up?

I thought not..

[marble falls]

20. Stupid remark ...

Weger, who turns 81 in the coming weeks and suffers from asthma and rheumatoid arthritis, will live and receive support services at St. Leonard’s Ministries in Chicago. As a veteran, he will receive Social Security benefits and medical coverage from Veterans Affairs, his attorneys said.

https://slministries.org/

You need to read the whole story. Its not as if a bunch of college kids got him out on a technicality. The whole correctional system supports his release. In how many Blue Moons does that happen?

[denbot]

21. Stupid reply..

If by college students, you were referring to the Innocence Project, it would have given me pause.

Since you seem to stand on the correctional system being on board, you are in the weeds.

The cost of housing prisoners is horrendous, the cost of housing elderly prisoners borders on staggering.

Any idiot could see why the correctional system burdened with your shit stain of the day would jump at the chance to jettison that budget chewing asshole regardless of merit.

[denbot]

23. Wow

[raccoon]

7. Has he ever expressed remorse? If not, I say keep him locked up. Nt

[oldsoftie]

8. Maybe he'll slip on the steps on the way out of the jail.

Or maybe someone will push him.
No one who did what he did EVER deserves to breath free air again

[JohnnyRingo]

10. Probably lost that dish washing job

He'll find out that now it's considered a good job that he can't get. Likely pays the same now.

[Yeehah]

18. I hope he gets run over by a truck

Brutal triple murder. Should never see the light of day.