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Chester Weger and the Starved Rock Murders

Several years ago I wrote about three fingermark cases, including this one: "The authorities obtained the fingerprints of up to five hundred people who worked at the park or lived in the area." This is reminiscent of the collection of many DNA profiles in the Colin Pitchfork case.
 
"His lab’s conclusion was that the hair was most likely linked to brothers Leo, Charles, and Edward Bray of Utica. To further their conclusion, the lab suggested exhuming the bodies of the brothers. That never happened. During cross-examination, the prosecutors have the Weger expert witness admit his line of work deals in probabilities. He also can’t conclude the Bray brothers committed the murders or even were at the park when the murders occurred. The prosecution pointed out that Edward Bray died the same day as the three women were found dead in 1960. That lead prosecutors to paint the possibility a hair from Bray could’ve transferred to Frances Murphy’s glove as the 4 bodies were handled by same individuals performing their autopsies." link

Cross contamination should never be completely ignored as a possibility.
 
I found a 19 July 1963 newspaper article that indicated that several people involved with law enforcement or hired by law enforcement received reward money (I had read some information about rewards previously, but I do not recall where). One of the individuals, Stephan Kindig, gave Mr. Weger a lie detector test and claimed that Mr. Weger was their man. I support a prohibition on rewards of this kind, in that they create a conflict of interest.
 
Chris_Halkides said:
Chester Weger passed away in the last few days. I had hoped that he would see a resolution of his case.
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My condolences to his family, friends, and supporters, and I know it's of no real solace, but at least he didn't die in prison.


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From what I have been able to learn, the hair on the glove had an intact root and was still growing. This implies that it was pulled out forcefully, a fact which adds to its evidentiary weight. DNA evidence was used to make a partial identification.
 
On social media Jim Ridings wrote, "Believing that Bray’s hair was accidentally transferred onto Mrs. Murphy’s glove was not only an unsupported speculation, it was a crazy unsupported speculation. Edward Bray’s body was taken from Seneca to a funeral home in Utica in the morning. The victims were taken from Starved Rock to an Ottawa funeral home that night, more than 12 hours later. These undertakers and funeral homes were miles apart."
 
Cases like this really burn me up. If he was indeed innocent, then whoever did the killings was still out there, and may have killed again. Who knows how many people may have been murdered by killers who got away with it because prosecutors and police did everything they could to convict an innocent person.
 
The hair and the bloody fingermarks both point away from Mr. Weger. There was a small speck of blood on Mr. Weger's jacket. How he could have killed the three women without transferring a great deal of blood onto his clothing is a question for the prosecution and its supporters to answer.
 
I have heard that Mr. Weger's attorney Andy Hale asked to present a witness on false confessions but Judge Janc denied this request. Whether new knowledge about confessions constitutes new evidence in the legal sense is one question, but whether the interests of justice were served is another.
 
Podcast with Andy Hale discussing the most recent court ruling here. A few weeks ago Tom's Take suggested it was time for Mr. Weger to confess. I did not agree with the host's analysis, but his haircut was...interesting.
 
Chris_Halkides said:
I found a 19 July 1963 newspaper article that indicated that several people involved with law enforcement or hired by law enforcement received reward money (I had read some information about rewards previously, but I do not recall where). One of the individuals, Stephan Kindig, gave Mr. Weger a lie detector test and claimed that Mr. Weger was their man. I support a prohibition on rewards of this kind, in that they create a conflict of interest.
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I support a prohibition on junk pseudo-science like "lie detectors".
 
Andy Hale and Sally Cohen gave a podcast retrospective on the recent legal proceedings (a third stage evidentiary hearing) involving Chester Weger and the Starved Rock murders.
 
Attorneys Andy Hale and Sally Cohen discussed Chester Weger and false confessions here. Dr. Brian Cutler's report on Chester Weger is here.
 
Jim Ridings recently wrote a book about this case, Murder at Starved Rock. I just received a copy, and read the chapter on false confessions, which discussed a few cases that have been mentioned at this sub-forum (The Central Park Five). I appreciate his straightforward style, and I would recommend this chapter to anyone unfamiliar with the phenomenon of false confessions and the damage that they do to the criminal justice system.
 
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