NEW bombshell evidence in the mysterious Starved Rock murder case could trigger the biggest wrongful incarceration payout in United States history.
Chester Weger, 85, spent 60 long years in jail following the murders of three women in a state park in Illinois in 1960.
Weger, released in 2020 on good behavior but not cleared of the crime, has always protested his innocence.
He was just 21 years old at the time of the brutal slaying of Lillian Oetting, Mildred Lindquist, and Frances Murphy.
Weger says he was aggressively forced into a confession of killing Oetting by overzealous cop William Dummett and his partner.
He recanted the claim prior to the criminal trial in January 1961. Yet a jury found him guilty two months later.
However, indefatigable Chicago based attorney Andy Hale shared some explosive audio evidence with The U.S. Sun last night which he hopes could blow the case wide open and not only finally clear Weger, but ensure his family receives $120 million in compensation.
Hale was able to get Reynolds to complete a sworn affidavit about the evening he heard Dummett's confession.
It prompted Will County's Sherriff department to interview him to hear the story first hand - and as Reynold's is Hale's witness, they were then duty bound to hand any audio recording back to him.
Illinois awards $1 million to $2 million every year a person is wrongly imprisoned.
After being introduced to Randy Reynolds, whose late wife used to work with Deputy Dummett, there is stunning fresh hope.
In 1982, Reynolds attended Dummett's retirement party and overheard him boasting about Weger's conviction.
"In an arrogant manner, he said 'Chester Weger was innocent, but I got him to confess.' That's exactly what he said," Reynolds said in an affidavit witnessed by the La Salle County Sheriff's Department.
Hale told The U.S. Sun that the shock revelation could be the "final nail in the coffin."
"Justice must be served now," he said.
Dummett's alleged confession could blow the case wide open, considering the testimony given by Weger in the original trial over 60 years ago.
According to Weger, whose case was the subject of an HBO documentary produced by Mark Wahlberg's production company, Dummett was the primary person he initially pleaded guilty to before backtracking.
Hale laid bare his fury earlier this year at the refusal of state attorney James Glasgow to accept new genetic genealogy testing which aimed to show a strand of hair found on one of the victims belonged to an unnamed man from the area close to the crime scene.
In a 78-page motion to dismiss filed with the LaSalle County Court, which was released in February, Glasgow countered that Weger was guilty of slaying one of three women - Lillian Oetting.
“[Weger’s] repeated insistence that the ‘false confession’ was the only evidence against him is simply not true,” Glasgow assistant Colleen Griffin wrote.
March 1960: Three woman found murdered in Starved Rock National Park in Illinois. Weger, 21, is working as a kitchen hand there. Case becomes a huge national story.
November 1960: Weger is arrested and a day later confesses to one of the murders. The very next day, he backtracks, claiming abuse during the interrogation, led by William Dummett.
April 1961: Weger, who testified in his own defense, is sentenced to life in prison after being found guilty of murdering Lillian Oetting.
April 1963: Weger pens a letter published in the Chicago Tribune stressing his innocence.
November 2019: After multiple attempts to secure his freedom, Weger's request for parole is finally granted. An HBO documentary, produced by Mark Wahlberg's production company, works on a film about Weger's case.
February 2020: Weger is released after spending 60 years behind bars - just weeks before the start of the Covid-19 pandemic.
December 2023: Attorney Andy Hale tells The U.S. Sun that cutting edge DNA technology could prove a hair found on one of the victim's hands will clear Weger and spark a record $120 million payout.
February 2024: Hale tells The U.S. Sun the DNA evidence was "unfairly rejected" by the Will County State Attorney James Glasgow
August 2024: Bombshell admission from a man who claims he overheard Detective Dummett bragging about forcing Weger to admit guilt is shared with The U.S. Sun ahead of crucial September hearing.
They also argued that the state-of-the-art genetic genealogy testing undertaken by DNA lab Othram on evidence found at the crime still needed to prove his innocence.
“That it did not match [Weger’s] hair did not mean that [Weger] did not commit this crime,” they wrote. “The people would add that [Weger’s] trial cannot be judged by 2024 standards and law but by the standards and law in effect [when Weger stood trial] in 1961.”
Weger, who was working as a kitchen hand at Starved Rock on the day of the triple murder, said Dummett kept him up for almost 24 hours in the face of aggressive questioning and threatened him with the electric chair if he didn't confess.
The three victims, who were friends, were enjoying a visit to Starved Rock in March 14, 1960, where they were they were brutally bludgeoned over 100 times.
Weger, who endured 24 failed attempts to prove his innocence before being released in March 2020, just days before the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, was convicted of killing 50-year-old Oetting despite evidence pointing to a possible mob hit.
Prosecutors chose not to try him for the deaths of her friends Mildred Lindquist, 50, and Frances Murphy, 47, after he was sentenced to life in prison in 1961.
"For Deputy Dummett to admit that he thought Chester was innocent is incredible. It also shows that the confession was false and was the product of coercion," added Hale.
After seeing Will County reject the last DNA revelation—"What are they afraid of?" blasted Hale—the Chicago-based attorney who specializes in wrongful convictions now has all his hopes pinned on the next court date, September 11, when the court will rule on Will County's motion to dismiss.
If the court denies the motion, the case proceeds to a third and final stage, an evidentiary hearing—like a trial—where all the evidence is presented to a judge.
After that evidentiary hearing the court will decide whether or not to vacate Chester's conviction.
Hale cannot understand why Will County continue to believe Weger's confession was legitimate, and said Reynolds' admission is a "stunning game changer."
"Randy Reynolds is an extremely credible witness with no dog in this fight," concluded Hale.
"It's time for the Will County State's Attorney's Office to do the right thing."
The U.S. Sun contacted Will State's Attorney Office, but they've not responded.
