Original subtitles

(birds singing)

David Raccuglia: I always loved Starved Rock.

My father used to take me hiking on the trails.

It's called Starved Rock from some sort of tribal war.

One tribe surrounded the rock, and the other tribe couldn't

get down at the top of the rock,

and they starved them to death.

(Interviewer speaking)

I think everything in the Illinois Valley is possibly a myth.

So, you know, you never know.

Narrator: And now, we visit Starved Rock State Park

on the south bank of the Illinois River in the south county.

Visitors who fled the city seeking peace and quiet and beauty and comfort

are richly rewarded in this wonderland

of strange and beautiful sights.

(intense music playing)

David: LaSalle is a sleepy little town.

This town was completely not prepared.

Things like this just didn't happen.

People didn't lock their doors.

They weren't afraid of violence.

Narrator: This is truly a winter wonderland.

But that was before three women were murdered violently.

Reporter 1: March 16th was the date.

The three Chicago women had been found dead

in a state park 90 miles from Chicago.

Reporter 2: Police say the women were beaten to death,

and their bodies dragged into the cave about a mile

from the main lodge of the state park.

Do you think that this, uh, person could still be here in this area?

He could possibly be. We're checking out, uh, that, uh, possibility.

Reporter 3: His men have no leads on anybody

in this brutal triple slaying.

(exhales deeply)

In March of 1960,

I was only seven months old,

but the Starved Rock murders... was with me

from the first day I could form a memory.

LaSalle County, it's about a hundred miles

southwest of Chicago.

It's a very isolated little community,

so when the murders happened, it was mayhem.

All of a sudden, people were putting double and triple locks on their doors

out of their fear that this madman was loose.

But as shocked as the town was,

they were even more shocked

when a local man was charged with the crime.

Reporter 1: Chester Weger was sentenced to life in prison

after being convicted of murder back in 1961.

As a kid, when I used to hear the name Chester Weger,

fear used to come into my body

because my grandmother, she had this massive scrapbook

filled with newspaper clippings, magazine articles

from all over the world, of Chester Weger.

He looked like the movie actor James Dean.

He had incredibly cool hair,

the epitome of bad boy '50s youth.

At the same time, I used to lay in bed

terrified that Chester Weger was gonna climb through the window

and kill me...

because my father was the prosecutor

who put Chester Weger in prison for life.

Chester Weger became my boogieman.

Reporter 1: At the age of 43,

Weger has spent the bulk of his adult life behind bars.

Reporter 2: Locked up 14 years before the Sears Tower was built,

Chester Weger, Illinois' longest serving inmate.

Reporter 3: For 45 years, Weger has insisted he's innocent.

Reporter 4: Each year, Weger goes before the parole board

hoping to be released.

Reporter 5: He still insists that he had nothing to do

with the murders of the three women.

David: My grandmother, she used to tell me,

"If he ever gets out of jail,

he's gonna come and kill us all."

Reporter 1: New at ten, Chester Weger... the infamous Starved Rock...

The Starved Rock killer is about to be freed.

Announcer: Limited time only at the Igloo.

It's OMG good.

Find it today at the Igloo.

Carryout available, on Route Six, West Peru.

Announcer 2: Rod and Jeremy in the morning

on Classic Hits 103.9, WLPO, LaSalle.

Rod (on radio): It's 9:05, WLPO news is now,

and I wanna take your calls and texts.

I'm thinking it through on Chester Weger's, uh, case.

Now, he is a convicted killer. My opinion is that he did it.

Uh, yours may be different than mine.

That's okay, you're respected around here for your opinion.

WLPO and it's Phyllis, uh,

with the first comment about this matter.

-Good morning, Phyllis. -(Phyllis on phone):

Caller 2: I knew his sisters, I knew Chester.

I'm sorry, he is guilty.

Caller 3: I think that he should have a new trial.

Uh, all these years it's always been in question and that.

- Yeah. -Jeremy: Well...

Rod: Uh, pick up the phone or turn the radio down, please.

815-223-3093.

Steve Stout: Sixty years later,

people are still scared of going to Starved Rock.

When I started writing my book in the '80s,

my friends from Chicago said, "The reason we don't go

to Starved Rock is because you once had a murder there."

I said, "The reason I don't go to Chicago, 'cause once you had a fire."

Bad things happen in good places,

and that's what happened that day.

Reporter 1: Three women, close friends and neighbors in Riverside,

had gone to the park Monday for a winter vacation.

Their bodies were found this morning about a mile

from the main lodge of the state park.

The victims were 50-year-old Mrs. Lillian Oetting,

50-year-old Mrs. Mildred Lindquist,

and 47-year-old Mrs. Frances Murphy.

The three women left a total of nine children.

Kathy Etz: I don't think we talked a lot about my grandmother

when I was a kid.

I think it was just extraordinarily painful,

so I just didn't bring it up.

I know from my aunts and my mom, obviously,

what made my grandmother really special,

but one of the real tragedies

is people ask me, "What was she like,"

and I'm like, "I don't know what she was like."

I don't know what made her special 'cause I never got to meet her.

I mean, the photo that really kills me...

it's, actually, this one.

Here's my mom so excited to get married,

and just thinking that nine months later her--

she was gonna learn this horrible thing,

and her mom was gonna be gone.

It-- I don't know. When I look at this photo...

it really upsets me.

My grandmother was going away with two women,

uh, spend a few days at Starved Rock hiking.

Steve: They parked their car at the lodge,

checked into their rooms.

They left most of their possessions in those rooms.

They had lunch, decided to take an afternoon walk.

They left the lodge.

They spent some time taking pictures of themselves

in front of the ice fall in St. Louis Canyon.

And they never returned.

(phone ringing)

Kathy: One of the husbands called the inn to say that

he hadn't heard from his wife

who was supposed to have phoned him.

Steve: That night there was a tremendous snowstorm here

that really shut things down.

(phone ringing)

Wednesday, they called again,

and they said, "This is not right.

They would've called by now. What's goin' on down there?"

So, they went into the rooms.

Kathy: The beds had not been slept in,

the luggage was intact, undisturbed.

Steve: They went out, looked at their car,

and it was covered with snow. It hadn't moved.

They knew at that moment

they had three people missing at Starved Rock State Park.

Rod: Phil on the WLPO River City Ways text line says,

"Can you imagine if he didn't do it?

"There's a miscarriage of justice

that he spent his whole life behind bars."

Jeremy: But you have to believe in the justice system,

especially when people of, of such high character

as the attorneys who tried this case--

David: This murder that happened in 1960

has left this town completely divided.

It's like anything, everybody has their opinion.

It took me a long time, it took me years,

several years, to find my footing with this.

A man behind bars in Illinois since 1960

is looking to the governor for clemency tonight.

David: In 2003, a good friend of mine

sent me a newspaper clipping,

and it said that there was an appellate court defender

who was opening Chester Weger's case,

trying to prove his innocence,

and that he was wrongfully convicted.

Reporter 1: His attorney, Donna Kelly,

argued that her client should be pardoned.

For Chester "Rocky" Weger, the pardon hearing may be his last bid for freedom.

She was accusing my father of, of making inaccurate claims

about Chester Weger's case,

and, you know, it was funny because that really hit me,

and I realized that...

I wonder if that was true.

Growing up with this case, my father was my hero,

so reading this news article with all these accusations,

that made me very, very angry.

My mother passed away when I was nine years old.

My father raised my sister and I with the help of my grandmother.

I was treated very well in LaSalle by a lot of people

because Anthony Raccuglia, my father,

put away the Starved Rock murderer.

And, at the same time, I was treated sometimes very poorly

because many people in this town believe

that my father put away an innocent man.

I had friends that couldn't come over to my house,

and I used to get in fights, like physical fights,

over defending my father for handling this case.

I remember running home to my father,

and he hugged me and said,

"I'm telling you, you have nothing to worry about.

Chester Weger was guilty. I put a guilty man in prison."

And that made me feel good, you know,

knowing that my father was on the right side of the law.

But could it be possible that Chester Weger was innocent?

There was something to get to the bottom of.

Crew Member: All set. Sound speed.

David: That was the one thing that sent me

into forward motion in making a film.

I bet you love this, right? I come to your office, and disrupt your whole day?

Well, it's the only time I get to see you, though,

is when you're-- want something, you know?

-David: Well... -At least that's an opportunity for me to get to talk to ya.

You know I have a lot of questions.

I've been calling you, and talking to you about it.

Anthony Raccuglia: My question is, why are you doing this?

I know you were always obsessed with this case.

Do you remember how disturbed you were that, maybe, he would get out of prison,

and come and harm the family and harm you,

and how you wanted to sleep with me almost every night?

You'd be waiting for me when I came home?

Isn't it a little bit ironic that now you're doing

a documentary as to whether or not this man is innocent?

There just isn't any doubt that the man was guilty.

It's just the story. I wanted to tell the truth.

I wanted to go all the way back to the beginning,

and exhaust all urban legend, and try and just tell the story

as it, as it really happened.

I came back to LaSalle.

-Crew Member 1: You rolling? -Crew Member 2: Yeah.

-David: Oh good. Shit. -Crew Member 3: These people think he's innocent.

David: And one of the first things I did was get all of the data,

all of the trial transcripts,

everything from the investigation that existed.

-Crew Member 1: Is that all right? -Crew Member 2: Yeah.

David: I was able to get a lot of people

from the case because of my father.

The Starved Rock murder gave him some fame.

And my grandfather spent

45 years as an alderman.

So, I interviewed several prosecutors.

Oh yeah, you don't have to be too smart, you just use common sense.

That'll solve a lot of questions.

David: Journalists of the day.

(dogs howling, barking)

And I wanted to go to where real information was,

and that was on the street.

(country music playing)

There was a big festival called the Burgoo Festival.

There's hundreds and hundreds of people.

We just put it out there that we were gonna be in town,

and we had lines of people wanting to talk to us.

Person: If Weger did it, I must've been his accomplice.

There's no way that one man could have contained them women.

David: The people who believed in his innocence

were very passionate.

I don't care what anybody says, I'll never believe it.

Sensible? Not always.

(Interviewer speaking)

The man is innocent as can be,

and, uh, and I'll go to my grave believin' that.

He wasn't bigger than a fly. How in the hell--

You ever get three women that's mad, and try to tie 'em all three up?

David: The other 50% of the people

couldn't have believed in his guilt more.

-Yeah, I think he's very guilty. -Guilty.

Sometimes people's nature is just evil.

David: The community is incredibly passionate.

It's almost political.

I don't think a country boy can do something like that.

David: I talked to anybody that would give me a story

about Chester Weger.

Person: I do think Steve Stout's book

is the primary reason today

people are convinced Chester's guilty.

David: Growing up in this area, when you hear the words

"Starved Rock," you think of Steve Stout.

-I, personally-- -Well, that's nice to say.

David: Well, in my father's home,

there's a photograph that you did of the canyon, framed--

I love the park, and I'm very proud

to have people think about the park, and link me with it.

I respect the park. I call it "my park."

I would never hurt my park.

It's just an amazing place.

That's what attracted the three women

into St. Louis Canyon that day.

You know, Starved Rock is named from violence,

and that day it, it really lived up to its name.

Bill Danley, a reporter at the LaSalle Daily News Tribune,

he was there at the time the bodies were discovered.

David: We have six minutes of tape on this tape,

and we have to change.

Either way, I'd like you to tell the story.

I was 29 years old at the time,

and about, uh, eight years into

a 15-year newspaper career.

On that morning, sometime early, we'd got a, a report

that three women were missing at Starved Rock Lodge at the park.

We drove down to the mouth of the St. Louis Canyon

and started walking in.

And you come around into what is the bulb of that canyon,

and right in front of you in the wintertime is a truly majestic frozen waterfall.

Like a giant pipe organ, you know, in an ice land of some kind...

and the fresh snow, and it looked just so pristine, like a calendar picture.

And then, you turn, and right here,

you know, is the carnage.

Eye-level in front of us were the bodies of those three women.

Nobody was expecting that, and I'm telling you,

it hit 'em like with the force of a physical blow.

And I think the thing that, that made it seem so profane was the fact

they, they weren't lying where they had fallen...

not willy-nilly, they had been put on display

with their legs spreadeagled, their underclothes torn away.

Philosophically, I thought I was opposed to the death penalty,

and I'm here to tell ya on that day, in that canyon,

I crossed that barrier because I looked at that scene,

I thought, if the man, the person who did this,

and could be brought to justice, and the only way

he could get what he had comin' to him was for me to throw the switch,

I would do it in a heartbeat.

And I guess I haven't changed my mind all these years on that subject.

These women were not just murdered,

they were brutally beaten,

almost to the point of decapitation.

Eyewitnesses of this, they were never able to get it out of their minds.

Bill: You just kinda grit your teeth, and you take the pictures,

and you'd write the stories and you do the thing, but...

you still go home, and dream at night, you know?

So, that was where the investigation got underway,

and, immediately, the decision was made the state police would take charge.

Anthony: There was a competitive edge to this investigation.

The state police, the sheriff's office,

and Harland Warren trying each to solve this crime.

Harland Warren: I, uh, had no education in solving criminal cases.

But... you gotta have common sense,

and the only reason I had common sense was

because I was born and raised on a farm in Serena Township.

I've never met anyone that reeks of another era more than Harland Warren.

(laughs)

He has that conservative,

1960 kind of style about him.

When he starts tellin' the case, he closes his eyes, and--

See, uh, about 12:30

on a, a Wednesday, the 16th of March,

I was at the club.

I had my lunch, and I was playin' gin rummy.

I mean, who plays gin rummy at a club at lunch?

He had an edge about him.

A deputy called me that they'd found the bodies of three ladies that were missing,

and they'd pick me up, and take me out to the St. Louis Canyon.

State police were already there,

and gathering up the evidence and everything.

Bill: They came in with like flame throwers,

and they started melting the snow...

and they were gathering little bits and pieces of evidence.

And when I was standin' there, I stepped on something hard.

So, I leaned down, brushed some snow away,

and here was a tree branch.

I produced the club as a possible murder weapon,

and the autopsies found bits of wood taken from the faces

of the three ladies.

Reporter 1: They did recover the murder weapon,

a tree limb that was used to savagely beat the women.

Harland: And there was also broken binoculars and the, uh, camera.

Bill: The murderer had attacked them with that camera.

That was, uh, another murder weapon.

They didn't seem to leave much doubt about that.

Reporter 1: Then there was the twine used

by the killer to tie up his victims.

Steve: Tied up, disrobed,

like it was a rape. A rapist did this crime.

Reporter 2: You will be looking for a sex criminal of some type,

- I would imagine? -That's right, I think he would have to be.

John Drummond: Authorities also found several pictures had been taken

by the victims apparently minutes before the murder.

One photo gave an initial impression of a stranger

lurking in the background, perhaps the killer.

Ray Eutsey: We found what we think is a, is a picture of a man,

possibly the assailant,

and, uh, we think we have valuable evidence.

John: There was still plenty of police work to be done.

From LaSalle County, John Drummond, CBS2 News.

My name is John Drummond.

That's spelling D like in David, R as in Robert,

U-M-M-O-N-D.

I'm a former reporter at Channel 2

in Chicago, Illinois, WBBM television.

Well, there are those who call me "Bulldog."

I had bulldog perseverance, and so on.

That's how I got the name.

In March of 1960, there was a major, major story.

One of the so-called crimes of the century.

Murders didn't happen down there,

and the three women that were slain from suburban Chicago

were all prominent, and they were inundated by media.

Life magazine sent a crew down there to cover that story.

The Chicago Tribune stayed at the lodge

trying to get updates every day on what was going on.

Who was the killer or killers, whoever it was?

Why were they slain? Were they assaulted sexually? Were they robbed?

These were the questions that people are asking about.

Reporter 1: At the main lodge, we talked to

LaSalle County Sheriff Ray Eutsey.

Do you think this could've been done, Sheriff, by one man?

I suppose one man could have done it.

Reporter 1: Do you think there could be more than one man

involved in this crime?

That's a, that's a possibility.

David: I really wanted to know who they were thinking of.

Why, what was the motive,

everything I could pull together,

starting with the investigation.

Harland: The three, uh, ladies

had been down by the waterfall,

and we had the photograph of Mrs. Oetting and Mrs. Murphy

standing in the snow.

We figured out that it was the Billy Goat Trail.

So, at least we knew which trail they took

to go down to St. Louis Canyon.

Well, the Billy Goat Trail came from the lodge.

Steve: The police believed the killer might have saw the women

leave the lodge, and took a hike into the woods

right on their path.

Anthony: The rumor mill was heavy from day one

about lodge employees being questioned.

There were people that thought that maybe it was the Spiros family that was involved.

David: You know, Nick Spiros was the Starved Rock Lodge owner.

He was concerned that it was going to affect his business.

John: And people said, "I'm not goin' down there

to Starved Rock anymore. No, no way, no way."

Bill: The husbands put up a reward of $30,000,

and then, Nick Spiros at the lodge added five grand.

David: He was trying to turn some of this into a bit

of marketing, rewards.

"I'll take the first polygraph."

Bill: The state police sent a couple of lie detector operators

to run all the lodge employees through lie detector tests.

David: So, George Spiros was the son of Nick Spiros.

He was someone who was suspect.

He was given a polygraph test.

He, basically, said he had an alibi,

but he did say that he saw employees of the lodge

with the women.

They looked at the male employees,

people that had criminal records,

anyone who looked suspicious.

Steve: Chester Weger and a friend of his, Stanley Tucker,

who worked in the kitchen, so, of course, they were suspects,

like almost everybody at the lodge was a suspect at the time.

Almost everybody in Illi-- Illinois Valley was a suspect.

David: People were interested in that reward.

Letters were pouring in,

they were following up on everything.

Harland: The state police figured it was the Mafia,

but the Mafia didn't have a damn thing to do with that.

(chuckles)

David: There was an asylum escapee.

That's where the madman that was on the loose came out.

You know, all of these leads ended up nowhere.

Bill: When I looked at that scene, I had no doubt

it was a sex crime.

Thing is, when they examined the bodies,

they didn't find any sperm.

That was a puzzle. They couldn't figure it out what the hell was taking place there.

They couldn't figure it out.

Spring came and went, summer started,

and the investigation seemed to just bog down.

Reporter 1: The authorities had few clues to go on.

Person: They could see some man in the background,

but never turned out that way.

Reporter 1: Apparently, Mrs. Oetting had failed to wind

the camera completely,

resulting in a double exposure.

The photos were of no help in finding the killer.

Steve: For eight months the crime went unsolved.

People were so scared.

People wouldn't go to the park, the lodge.

They pulled their kids in at night.

Everybody was scared to death.

Who could've killed these three women?

-David: Are you rolling yet? -Crew Member: Yeah.

You know what, what I opened my book to?

Habeas corpus. Ya ever hear of habeas corpus?

David: I have. What is, what is, actually, habeas corpus?

Harland: It means, whatever you're looking for, you found it.

David: Just look in the book a little bit

like you're reading, Harland,

for a few-- just for a couple minutes here.

Sure.

Harland: Time went on, but we didn't have a suspect.

And The Chicago Tribune

blamed me for bungling the evidence.

I thought, "Well, hell, as long as I'm the goat,

"uh, maybe, I better look into this thing,

see if I can find anything."

So, I went to the sheriff, Eutsey,

and I said, "I would like to have you assign Wayne Hess

"and Bill Dummett to me exclusively.

No publicity or anything, just let us go."

Hess was a gentleman, a police farmer, a great guy.

Dummett was a different type of person,

but he was just a hard-nosed policeman,

and that's 1960,

and they were the classic good cop, bad cop.

Made a good team, I thought.

"...is the evidence gathered at the scene of the crime."

I'd sit by the hour in my private office with all the evidence,

and I thought, "Well, what is there here that's a solution?"

So, kind of, absentmindedly

I picked up some of the knotted cord

that was removed from the wrists of the three ladies...

and I started counting the number of strands,

and it came out to 32.

I called Mr. Spiros, and I said,

"Maybe this string came from the lodge."

So, I went to the lodge at night when there'd be no one around.

Finally, I got out to the kitchen,

and here was a butcher block with a cone of cord.

And here on a coat hanger was a ball of cord.

I snipped off a piece,

went back to my office in the middle of the night,

and I start counting.

The cone of cord is 20, and the ball of cord is 12.

Well, and I start loosening the knot.

It turns out there were two strings.

What's 12 plus 20? 32.

So, I got in touch with John Reid,

polygraph people, internationally known.

And they sent down Steve Kindig, one of his operators.

Steve set up his polygraph in the two-room cabin,

and Dummett and Hess started bringing in the employees.

One of the individuals brought in

identified himself as Chester Weger.

Chester Weger's a dish washer in the kitchen.

"Chester, do you carry string like this?" "Well, yes, I do."

"I'd make little cats in the cradle,

set snares and traps for animals in the park."

Harland: Usually, Steve only spent about 15 minutes with people.

Half an hour went by,

three quarters of an hour went by.

In about an hour, Steve came out.

His face white as a bedsheet.

He says, "He's the one."

He says, "I'm 100% sure."

Now we had our suspect.

David: So, here it is right here.

This is where Chester Weger's family home was.

They were big coon hunters.

I'm sure this is coon hunting heaven right here.

You do realize we may get-- Somebody'll call the police.

-Crew Member: Yeah. -And I'm not kidding you.

-Crew Member: Yeah. -I know that--

So, in the making of this film, my whole goal,

I, I, I don't know if this is cathartic or what the reason is,

I just wanted to talk to Chester Weger in person.

I needed to sit across from him and talk to him.

That was very important to me.

I wanted to figure out

Chester Weger as a man, what is he like

because he scared the shit out of me most of my life.

So, I wrote Chester a letter.

He never responded.

I wrote him a second letter, he never responded.

Of course, having the last name Raccuglia didn't help,

so I started collecting and gathering all these stories

about him as a person.

You know, there's a lot of stories, believe me.

My aunt Theresa, my father's sister,

went to school with Chester.

She had a lot to say about Chester Weger.

Person: That's right. Okay.

We're all here tonight to work on our class reunion.

Chester Weger was a member of our class for two years.

Theresa Raccuglia Ellerbrock: He never really talked much.

What I remember of him is the fact

that we would walk out the front door of LP,

and he'd be in the tree eating his lunch,

and he, he'd make sounds at us.

We'd hear this "whoooo" sound coming from a tree.

Well, it was him, he was up in the tree eating his lunch.

He was creepy, reclusive, loner.

He had trouble with his wife when he was married with two kids.

-Oh my god. -I didn't even know he had kids. -There were a lot of stories--

There were a lot of stories that came out that way that I,

that I was told that I'm not going to repeat at this point,

but, um, yeah.

So, I, uh, you know, whatever ya think, ya think.

We, we heard that, we believed it.

So, it may be that, uh, Chester had a problem of some kind.

There was always rumors to that effect.

David: I've heard Chester had a criminal past,

the rape, when he was 12 years old.

-Juvenile. Juvenile records. -Juvenile records.

I think that's another, uh, nail in his coffin, so to speak,

that proves to you that he was entirely capable.

I have no doubts in my mind, you know, that Chester

assaulted the victims who were killed here.

They didn't find any sperm, but, maybe, he was shooting blanks or something.

I don't know the answer.

Anthony: I think he had a propensity to do these kinds of things,

and this, of course, was the major reason why this case was finally solved.

David: In 1959, seven months before the actual murders,

there was another rape that happened in Matthiessen Park,

which is a park right next to Starved Rock,

very close to the Weger home as well.

Nothing came of it for months.

Anthony: There was a letter that we saw that came

from a teacher by the name of Sue Ocepeck.

She, actually, in my opinion,

is the unsung hero of this whole thing.

From September 'til March.

Sue Ocepeck: 45 years ago,

a student of mine

in my first year of teaching,

um, told me

about having been raped in Matthiessen State Park.

She was a teenager.

Her and her boyfriend, they were on this path,

and this guy came out, he had a rifle.

He told her to tie her boyfriend's hands.

And she figured when he got the wallet, you know, then,

then he'd let 'em go.

But he didn't.

And she said she'll never forget his face as long as she lives.

All the time that he was raping her,

he rolled a bullet in his mouth.

Deputy sheriffs who had talked to them did not believe their story,

and I couldn't understand, why wouldn't they believe the story, you know?

I later found out that those officers

were Dummett and Hess.

The next thing that happens, one of those moments that you remember forever,

I was standing there ironing, and I had the radio on.

Reporter 1: Early in the afternoon, about 1 PM,

they got a tip that three Chicago women had been found dead.

Reporter 2: Their bodies were found this morning in a cave

in Starved Rock State Park.

At least two of the women apparently had been raped.

I was just covered with chills, and, and I, actually, just felt

like a bolt down my back.

Now he did it, you know, this-- Maybe it's the same person.

We both just hugged each other and cried

'cause we just kinda knew, she thought so right away, too.

She told me that the rapist

had used twine to wrap their wrists.

I said, "I just have to write a letter.

"I have to tell them it might have been the same person

who then was still free to commit murder."

Dummett: Well, then after this,

I took a whole bunch of photos.

I went to this gal's house,

and, all of a sudden, she said

that Chester raped her.

She had busted out crying and yelling and screaming

and everything else.

David: And so Dummett and Hess brought Chester to a lineup.

And James Supan,

who was the boyfriend of the rape victim,

also identified Chester

as the person who raped and robbed that day in the park.

So, Chester was brought back into the interrogation room,

and confronted with three crimes.

They said, "Now we have you on these two,

you might as well admit to the Starved Rock murders."

Steve: He was faced with jail time for the rape, robbery.

He knew he was going to jail.

He was caught.

Steve: And when his mom said, "Son, tell the truth,"

she walked out of the room and that's when he did it.

(David speaking)

Sounds like an old Cagney movie,

but that doesn't disprove it didn't happen.

Harland: Around midnight,

finally, Chester broke down and confessed.

Reporter 1: 23-year-old dish washer Chester Otto Weger

has confessed that he killed three prominent Riverside women

last March in Starved Rock State Park,

one of the most brutal crimes solved suddenly

after eight long months of investigation.

The confessed killer claims that his mind was on robbery,

not murder last March.

-Bill: Chester Weger. -Director: Go ahead, Bill.

Chester Weger, well, he got an itch

Killed three women with a white oak switch

Yes, Chester Weger, hound of hell

Played it cool, he did not tell

Until his mother shed a tear

Told him, tell the truth, my dear

Then Chester bowed his head in pain

Gulped and said, I done it, Wayne

(laughs) Gonna start over.

Forgot the lines.

(murmuring lines)

Steve: Chester Weger wakes up in the morning

after his confession,

and they ask him if he would go down to the canyon for a reenactment.

He was put on a metal leash, drug around this canyon,

and he explained, to dozens of reporters,

how he committed the Starved Rock murders.

Reporter: Sheriff's deputies take the place of the women

as Weger reenacts the crime.

Steve: He saw the women come down this way.

Reporter: He says he tried to grab the purse of one woman,

and found it was a camera.

The three women were cowed into letting him tie them up,

to give him a chance to get away, which they did.

So, when he turns to leave the canyon,

one of the women broke free from their bonds, ran out behind him,

and started beating him in the back of the head with a pair of binoculars.

Reporter: Mrs. Murphy came after him.

He then picked up a broken limb of a tree and clubbed her.

Steve: He picks up a frozen tree log,

he turns and he hits her, she goes down.

He instantly realizes he has to go back,

and do damage to the other two women

to prevent identification, and that's just what he does.

Reporter: So, he clubbed them to death, too.

Steve: He rips up their clothes.

He says he wanted to make it look like it was a rape,

a rapist did this crime.

He wanted money. That's all he wanted was money, green paper.

It's all about green paper. That's what he wanted.

Kathy: You know, I liked thinking that my grandmother

was the feisty one, you know, who--

You know, 'cause, again, the way we understood the story,

you know, you should just lie there.

Don't stand up and go, you know, if--

I don't know. I liked thinking that she was this feisty lady

who would stick up for her friends.

(Reporter speaking)

Oh, yes, he, uh, at times he, uh,

showed a lot of sadness,

shed a few tears from time to time.

He signed every page of his confession.

He didn't sign at the end.

Every single page of this confession,

and this is the real deal here, has his signature on it.

David: After the reenactment,

he confessed again to multiple people.

Not once, not twice, not three times, nine times.

But within 24 hours,

he recanted the confession, he said he didn't do it.

He said, "I'm gonna sign the confession,

and I'm gonna prove my innocence in the courtroom."

David: You've covered everything I need covered.

My goal is to--

I'm doing, I'm, I'm doing exactly--

I'll be interested in your goal.

I'm doing exactly what you're asking me to do--

If you weren't the son of Mr. Raccuglia,

I would question your motives.

-I know you know he's guilty. -Ask me.

I know you know he's guilty.

I know the old man knows he's guilty.

What is your... point of view?

Because I certainly wanted to know if you're the Free Chester--

part of the Free Chester Weger movement,

and that's what most documentaries do.

They search out a injustice, try to correct this.

There was not any injustice in this case

until the LaSalle County Appellate Defender's Office reopened it,

and that's the injustice.

Do I believe if he's innocent or if he's guilty,

and also, as a filmmaker, I don't wanna answer.

I just wanna keep pointin' the camera--

Oh, right, I'm, I'm talking as a son.

One second, let us get that underneath ya.

-Okay. -All right.

I remember going to my father,

and telling him that

I didn't wanna go to college.

I wanted to be a hairdresser.

That was a big pill for my father to swallow.

My father really wanted me to be an attorney.

He didn't want me to waste my intellect.

My sister became a judge.

I, personally, was a little bit of a hippy at heart.

I wanted to be in a creative field, see the world.

Ultimately, he came to me, and he said,

"Look, you wanna be a hairstylist, you need to be the best."

I moved to London, England, I opened salons.

I did hair shows, I worked for product companies.

You know, I had an incredibly great career that brought me all around the world.

But then, Donna Kelly decided

that she was going to reopen

Chester Weger's case.

It just hit me.

I had to know why he signed that confession.

This film became more than just,

"Oh, I'm gonna make a film." It became an obsession to me.

I give my father a lot of credit because he wasn't against it,

but he thought it was a waste of time and money

'cause my father believes in his guilt.

Anthony: Frankly, arrests should've been made much earlier than that.

I was surprised that Harland Warren waited until after the election.

That would've really helped getting himself back in office

because the big issue in that campaign was the Starved Rock murder.

Harland: My opponent ran ads that I was bungling the evidence.

But then, if we'd brought him in,

and got the confession before the election,

they'd say, "Oh, the state's attorney, in order to save his hide,

forced a confession out of him."

So, for that reason, we waited 'til after the, the election.

Of course, I was soundly beaten.

(chuckles)

Steve: A case that he solved,

he never got to try it in court,

but he laid out a great plan for the next state's attorney,

Robert Richardson, a good man.

But he'd never handled a criminal case before,

and Tony Raccuglia, his first assistant,

fresh out of law school,

so we had two guys in charge of prosecuting

the most important criminal case of 1960 in America,

never tried a criminal case.

Imagine the pressure they felt.

Yes, it is.

David: The first time I walked into this courtroom

when I was making this documentary,

I had a stack of photos,

and I was looking at this room, and I was looking at these little tables

where my father tried the case, with no experience.

And there were people everywhere.

People couldn't wait to get in.

It was like a Bruce Springsteen concert.

Anthony: While it was a great deal of responsibility,

I also, selfishly, looked at it as a way to prove

that I was capable of doing trial work at 26 years of age.

There were magazines and newspapers from all over the world.

Bill: Chester's conduct during the trial,

and during other public appearances

really seemed quite strange. He seemed to be enjoying the notoriety.

John: At that time, he was known as Rocky Weger, not Chester.

Rocky Weger, ex-Marine they always billed him as.

I think he had the "Rocky" tattooed on his arm if I recall.

He gave that impression with that swagger,

that type of tough guy with the little duck tail.

Oh yeah, he was not eating humble pie in those days,

I don't think. No, no, no, no.

Bill: They'd be leading him to the courtroom,

and the guys would shout questions.

"Rocky this" and "Rocky that," and he loved it.

He, kind of, enjoyed being the center of attention.

Anthony: He was the star.

He was gonna be the person

who would make or break the evidence in the case.

David: In the trial, my father didn't really have

a lot of huge evidence

besides the scratches and the suede jacket.

The suede jacket was a big part of the prosecution's case

because of blood spatters that were found of human strain.

It was spattered human blood

by repeated blows in a bloody area,

and I hit heavy on that.

That was one of the keys to this case, and the scratches.

We did bring in a number of kitchen employees from the lodge,

and they all said that his face was pretty badly scratched.

And then, of course, Stanley Tucker was a friend of Chester,

colleague at the lodge.

Stanley Tucker also said that Chester Weger

had scratches on his face at the time of the murder.

Anthony: That afternoon, the comments in the kitchen were,

"Your face looks like you were in a fight with a cat,"

and his answers were that, "I cut myself shaving."

There is absolutely no way

that those types of scratches could've come from shaving.

Anything you can tell us about how you're gonna conduct the trial?

Well, as much as I can tell you at this time is

that Chester will take the stand in his own defense.

Anthony: Chester Weger was a very cocky,

very assured man, who was of the impression

that he was gonna beat this rap.

I sat with Bob Richardson, and he said to me,

"I don't wanna cross-examine him. I don't think I can.

You're gonna have to cross-examine Weger."

David: My father had never tried anything

near the Starved Rock murders.

He was 26 years old.

But he was superhuman in a lot of ways.

I can, I can only picture him in his 20s

with something to prove.

Anthony: In those days,

you could put your nose right up to the witness.

Sort of the rough and tumble trial days, and that's what I did.

I got within nose to nose of him, and I said,

"You killed three women."

And that set the tone for my cross-examination.

My goal was to make his answers so unreasonable,

so ludicrous,

that the jury would have to believe

that what he was telling me

in response to my questions were lies.

I said to him,

"Chester, if you really believe you're innocent,

why did you confess?"

He said that Dummett and Hess told him,

if he didn't confess,

they would do something harmful to his wife.

And then, I reversed gears and said,

"But your alibi is

"that you were writing a love letter to another woman

who you said you were in love with at the time."

And he had no answer for that.

I mean, he, he didn't have an alibi.

The alibi that he presented was that he was alone,

alone writing a letter, which can be verified by no one.

Through questioning Weger, I wanted to show

that the confession was corroborated by other evidence.

So, I would say to him,

"How did you know about the red airplane?"

(airplane flying over)

Steve: The key to the whole confession is the airplane.

After he had killed the three women,

he moved the bodies up to a little overhang, a cave-like area.

Uh, Hess and Dummett ask him a very important question, "Why'd you move the bodies?"

-(airplane flying over) -He hears a sound.

And he looks up,

and he's seen a red and white airplane flying over.

He thinks it might be one of the Illinois State Police planes,

so he intentionally moves 'em into the cave here

to prevent any aerial identification.

So then, I said, "Well, I guess we better find that red and white plane,"

so go out to the Ottawa Airport.

There was a red and white plane.

Steve: They call the pilot.

The pilot confirms he flew over Starved Rock State Park

on March 14th.

If Weger wasn't here, how did he know about the airplane?

I don't see any way to explain that.

In fact, there was a carving that they found in the cave...

said, "Rocky."

They called him Rocky.

Anthony: We had the circumstantial evidence,

we had the confessions,

and we had truth on our side.

Chester Weger was given a fair trial,

and was convicted, not by Tony Raccuglia, not by Harland Warren,

but a jury of 12 peers.

We argued for the death penalty,

and then, the jury came back with life.

We couldn't tell the jury that if he got life,

it wasn't life, that he could be out in 11 years with parole.

(Reporter 1 speaking)

Reporter 2: You don't call this lucky?

No, sir, I don't.

Reporter 2: Well, who framed you, Chester?

Anthony: I'm always contacted by the parole board

when Chester Weger applies for parole.

What do I want to say?

And, of course, I wanna say I never wanna see Chester Weger walk the streets.

Kathy: You know, growing up, I think we felt some safety

that he would be in prison for his whole life,

and then we learned that there was gonna be a parole hearing,

and it was outrageous.

Just seemed unfathomable that they would let him out of prison.

I mean, he murdered three women.

How, how could he ever be let out of prison?

He was given a life sentence.

That's just not right.

Rod: ...might be able to stay in the studio.

I'm Rod Thorson, and live on WLPO

is attorney Anthony Raccuglia.

Tony, now we know you've been a staunch advocate

for keeping Chester Weger behind bars.

Uh, he comes up almost every year now, doesn't he, for parole?

Anthony (on phone): Yeah, this thing really disturbs me because

the fact of the matter is, he's 74 years old.

There's a lot of 74-year-old people that kill people.

Right after the verdict came in...

-Rod: Hmm. -Anthony: Now, I'm not interested in being

a part of a revenge situation from Mr. Weger

if he gets out of prison, me or my family.

-Rod: Right. -Anthony: So, you know, the truth is, keep him there.

David: Think it was three years into the making,

I received a letter from Chester Weger

saying he would allow me to interview him,

and then, I would have to go through the process

of filming in Menard Correctional Center.

And, you know, Menard is not, uh, an easy--

It's not like-- You don't walk in, and-- with cameras and a crew.

There's a lot of criminals there

that have committed mass murders.

It's a very rough prison.

This is everything I worked for.

I really was ready for that interview.

But when that date finally came, I was in panic.

There's a guy pointing a rifle at me up in the tower,

and I didn't sleep the night before,

and the, the closer I got to the prison,

the more panicky I started to get.

I mean, I-I'll have to be very honest,

I think it was, probably,

one of the most fearful moments I've had.

You know, it wasn't that I was scared he was gonna harm me.

I kinda wanted him to like me, I guess.

I wanted him to trust me.

Chester was put in this little side room,

and one of my producers said, "He's ready."

I was going to film my boogieman, Chester Weger.

The one thing I remember is the look on Chester's face.

Chester, I'm glad you, finally, decided to talk to me.

How has, how has your life been the last 46 years?

How, how have you survived being in prison knowing that--

all that you know in regards to your--

Let me, let me say that one more time. I'm sorry, I said it terribly.

I couldn't talk at first.

I was stumbling with my words,

and I-I'm sure he could sense, you know, the nerves.

I, I was very, very nervous.

How has your life been being in prison?

I don't know, I, I come to the penitentiary,

and when you first come in the penitentiary,

it's, it's, it's kinda scary at first,

but I got, I've got used to it, you know?

I go through every day living one day to the next,

knowing I'm innocent, or...

trying to prove my innocence.

That's what I've always known, uh,

and I know that someday that people will realize this,

and I will be out of prison.

David: Why did you decide now is a good time to talk to us?

My mother died in 2000. I lost my father in '96.

My kids, you know, they, they had no father.

My wife died.

David: The confession is why you're in prison.

Why did you sign it?

(Chester speaking)

At least people will know what they've done to me.

If I have to die in prison...

people at least know what they've done.

I said they, they can't hurt me no more.

They done all they could do to me.

The only thing I can do now is die.

They took everything I had, everything I ever wanted.

David: I expected this man to be arrogant and mean,

and I really saw the humanity in him.

I never killed these people.

David: I was emotionally distraught for Chester Weger.

And the first thing I wanted to do was speak to my father.

I said, "Dad, come on."

Do you really believe that I would ask for the death penalty

if I didn't think they were guilty,

and didn't have the evidence to convince me they were guilty?

Well, I mean, I think you believe in your heart

that he was guilty,

I mean, I-- People are wrong.

If there's information that might make this man innocent,

I wanted to expose it to the world.

Cameraperson: Perfect, Chester, right there.

David: This very tidy case that my father told me about,

a man confessed, he went to jail,

turned out to be a ten-year rollercoaster ride for me.

(pensive music playing)