Parole denied again for Illinois inmate for 1960 killings

Chester Weger has again been denied parole in the 1960 killing of three women in Starved Rock State Park. | Illinois Department of Corrections via AP

SPRINGFIELD — Illinois officials have again denied parole to a 79-year-old inmate sentenced to life in prison for the 1960 killings of three suburban Chicago women in a state park.

The Illinois Prisoner Review Board voted 7-7 Thursday on Chester Weger’s request, leaving him short of the needed majority vote for his release. The Chicago Tribune reports his attorneys protested, noting that one board member was absent.

Weger has continued to deny he killed the women from Riverside, whose badly beaten bodies were found in a Starved Rock State Park cave. Weger was 21 and worked as a dishwasher at the state park lodge. Jurors convicted him in 1961.

The board has denied his parole requests dating to 1972, although it also deadlocked 7-7 last year.

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