Honoring the Victims: A Step Back Before the Hearing
As the crucial May 2025 evidentiary hearing for Chester Weger approaches, Andy takes a moment to explore the other side of the Starved Rock Murders. In this episode, he honors the lives of the three victims—Mildred Lindquist, Frances Murphy, and Lillian Oetting—and revisits the role of Chester’s original attorney, John A. McNamara. It’s a thoughtful, emotional journey into a pivotal moment in history you won’t want to miss.Listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or watch the full episode on YouTube.
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13:15
Oddities & Absurdities
In this episode, Andy discusses a variety of oddities and absurdities in the case including the lineup, the women's clothing, fingerprints, and a suspicious similarity between statements in Chester Weger's "confession" and a description in the Startling Detective Magazine September 1960 edition.
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36:15
The Tale of the Twine
In this episode, Andy takes a deep and detailed dive and revisits the manner in which the twine evidence has been misrepresented over theyears.
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29:27
The Arrest Warrants for Murder and the Unusual Role of a Justice of the Peace
In this episode, Andy continues his discussion of how the police had no basis to arrest Chester Weger for the murders, and discusses the unusual role of a Justice of the Peace, who was also a local grocer, who signed the arrest warrants for murder.
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16:20
What was the evidence to arrest Chester Weger for the triple murders??
In this episode, Andy takes a deep dive into the issue of how Chester Weger came to be charged with murder, how that issue has been portrayed in a book on the case, and how local law enforcement and the State's Attorney's Office lacked probable cause to arrest Chester for the triple murders.
In the winter of 1960 three women were found brutally murdered in a cave at the Starved Rock State Park. After months of dead ends, a manhunt ensued that ultimately pinned the crime on a 21-year-old dishwasher at the Starved Rock State Park Lodge, Chester Weger. In spite of contradictory physical evidence and under immense pressure from the police, Chester confessed to the crime. He has spent the last 60 years in prison, maintaining his innocence to this day.
Join Andy Hale, a civil rights attorney who specializes in investigating wrongful convictions, as he dives deep into parts of the case that have been left out of previous coverage. As Chester Weger’s attorney, he is actively investigating the case and has won the right to test DNA from the crime scene for the first time in 60 years. If Chester is innocent, this will become the longest wrongful conviction case in United States history. This limited series podcast will re-examine the story you think you know, provide real-time case updates, including DNA testing, and access to documents and photos previously unreleased to the public, to uncover the truth of what really happened in Starved Rock State Park over half a century ago.
USA