02/21/2020 - 16:48
- Clarín.com
- Dresses
Chester Weger , a man who was imprisoned in 1961 for a murder in the Starver Rock Natural Park ( Illinois ) and was the prisoner who had spent more time behind bars in the United States, regained his freedom this Friday at age 80 , after almost Six decades in prison.
Weger was convicted of the murder of Lillian Oetting, 50, whose body appeared in March 1960 alongside the bodies of two other women: Frances Murphy, 47, and Mildred Lindquist, 50.
The three women were found half-naked and beaten to death near a popular route of the natural complex.
After a period of confusion, investigators linked the case to Weger, a young man who was then 21 years old, due to the presence of a rope at the crime scene that had the same characteristics as that found in the kitchen of the lodge where he I worked cleaning dishes.
Chester Weger regained freedom at age 80.
At first, this man confessed to the murder of the three women, although he later claimed that he was innocent and that he had been pressured by the police officers carrying the case to plead guilty.
Finally, the authorities decided not to press charges for the deaths of the other two women after he was sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of Oetting in 1961, with only 22 years.
In November of last year, he was granted probation, which allowed Weger to leave the Pinckneyville Correctional Center today, about 500 miles south of Chicago, in Illinois.
This decision has not been without controversy , as according to local media, the granddaughters of the three women killed in the Starver Rock State Park have publicly opposed this release on more than one occasion.
An opposition with which Celeste Stack, a lawyer for Weger, does not agree, that in statements to the Chicago Tribune said she did not believe that "no one who has spoken with this man can believe that he will go out and hurt anyone."