For nearly six decades, Chester Weger has lived his life in prison after confessing to the haunting 1960 Starved Rock State Park murders of three suburban Chicago women who were attacked during a hike in broad daylight.

On Thursday, members of the Illinois Prisoner Review Board decided that was long enough, granting the 80-year-old inmate his freedom in a stunning 9-to-4 vote that brought relief to his family but stirred memories of loss and pain for relatives of the slain women.

After the board’s decision, a granddaughter of one of the victims crossed the room in the crowded Springfield board office and tearfully embraced Weger’s younger sister, Mary Pruett, 77, who said she always has believed her brother’s claims of innocence.

Though Diane Oetting’s grandmother was among the victims and she urged the board to keep Weger behind bars, Oetting said she recognized his family’s suffering as well. The two families have become friends — residual victims in the crime’s aftermath — during his parole board hearings.

“While we may not agree with the decision, we certainly respect it,” Oetting, of Montgomery, Alabama, said afterward.

Pruett, of Smithville, Missouri, was able to deliver the news to Weger after reaching him on the phone at Pinckneyville Correctional Center. The family allowed reporters to hear his response by putting the call on speaker phone.

“I’m happy,” he said in a soft voice. “I’m happy just to get out, you know?"

In each of the last two years, the board had denied Weger his freedom by one vote, records show. He is the second longest-held inmate in an Illinois prison, corrections officials said, behind a man incarcerated since 1958.

Weger will not be released for at least 90 days at the request of the Illinois attorney general’s office. The office is expected to have him evaluated under the state’s sexually violent persons law, which allows for civil commitment if a person is deemed too dangerous to be set free.

Weger was convicted and sentenced to life in prison for the fatal beating of Lillian Oetting, 50, in March 1960 at the scenic park near Utica. Her remains were found in St. Louis Canyon along with the brutalized bodies of Frances Murphy, 47, and Mildred Lindquist, 50.

The three friends, all from Riverside, were on a short vacation to escape the winter doldrums when, within hours of their arrival, they were attacked during a hike in the canyon, a popular attraction framed by a scenic waterfall and 100-foot wall.

Sara Etz Mendonca, one of Murphy’s granddaughters, said she delivered the news about Weger’s parole to her 82-year-old mother, Sally, who was pregnant with her first child when Murphy was slain.

“I burst out into tears,” Etz Mendonca said. “I said, ‘I’m so sorry mom; I just can’t stop crying,’ and she said: ‘I get it. You were deprived of a grandmother.’ I’m sure she’ll process it as the days go on. She wants her mother to be remembered and she wants us to know the profound love (our grandmother) would have had for us.”

Her sister, Kathy Etz, said the decades-old crime reverberates still. “The legacy of this murder has impacted all of the generations alive today. ... This is a super sad day for our family," she said.

Pruett, Weger’s sister, told board members before the vote that her mother promised before she died that “one day we’ll see him walking home.” She added: “I just hope my brother does not die in prison.”

Weger’s attorneys, Andrew Hale and Celeste Stack, said the board’s decision did not come as a surprise and that Weger had remained hopeful. In addition to the parole efforts, they are researching other post-conviction possibilities, citing improperly preserved evidence and other issues.

“The arrest, interrogations and jury trial included many tactics now banned by the U.S. Supreme Court,” Stack said. “He received no Miranda warnings … he was arrested with no probable cause and he was denied evidence that was beneficial to his trial defense. His case would not make it into the courthouse today.”

Weger, who went for years without garnering a single vote until about eight years ago, was not present at Thursday’s hearing. Instead, per board procedure, a member interviewed him this year in prison and wrote a report recommending his release.

Since last year’s deadlocked decision, three of the seven board members who opposed Weger’s parole have left the board. And the trial’s lead prosecutor, Anthony Raccuglia, who long urged the board to keep Weger behind bars, died May 18 at 85.

Members who voted in favor of parole Thursday noted Weger’s age, fragile health, lengthy incarceration, lack of disciplinary action behind bars and lingering questions of his actual guilt.

Diane Oetting had pleaded with the board to keep him in prison. “We’ve been fighting this for 40 years,” she said.

“It is the state of Illinois’ job to make sure that this man has been given the tools so that he can succeed outside and make a peaceful transition to the community,” Oetting said. “And if he’s not ready and he doesn’t succeed, it’s on y’all.”

Once released, Weger will receive housing and support services through St. Leonard’s Ministries on Chicago’s Near West Side. The organization, founded in 1954, helps up to 500 men and women a year after their incarceration and reports a recidivism rate well below the state average.

“We believe everybody deserves a second chance” said Erwin Mayer, executive director. “While we did not participate in the decision to release Mr. Weger, St. Leonard’s is a great place to help him re-enter into a society that he left so many decades ago.”

At the long-ago trial, prosecutors argued that Weger, who was working as a dishwasher at the Starved Rock lodge and had fished and hiked in the park most of his life, killed the women with a frozen tree branch during a botched robbery attempt. Each was bound with twine similar to that used in the lodge’s kitchen and bludgeoned to death, suffering injuries consistent with more than 100 blows.

Weger was convicted only in Oetting’s murder. Prosecutors, citing Weger’s life sentence, opted against trying him in the other two women’s deaths and an unrelated 1959 rape in a nearby state park that Weger also denies committing.

Raccuglia was widely believed to be the last surviving participant in the Starved Rock trial other than Weger himself.

Earlier this week, however, the Tribune located a woman who in 1961 was the jury’s youngest member. She recently celebrated her 95th birthday. After all these years, the juror said she still is frightened, and her family asked that her name not be published to protect her privacy.

“I wouldn’t think he would even want to get paroled,” she said. “He’s getting three meals and a bed and has nothing to worry about.”

She recalled many details of her six weeks of jury duty but said she rarely thinks about it today. “I did my duty," she said. "I served. I did what I thought was right and never thought about it again.”

The juror, convinced of Weger’s guilt, said “everything added up."

She said most of the panel supported a death sentence but settled on the life in prison term because of a lone holdout member. The woman said she opposed Weger’s parole.

“I think killing three women does deserve a life sentence,” she said.

Nearly six decades later, conspiracy theories and morbid fascination still surround the case. The murders occurred before modern DNA testing and other forensic advances, and Weger has offered various alibis over the years. His later request for genetic tests on hair found on the victims and blood on his fringed leather coat was stymied in state court in 2004 after it turned out the items had not been properly preserved.

Another juror, who died two years ago at age 93, told the Tribune in late 2016 that she regretted the guilty verdict. She found Weger’s confession implausible and the idea unlikely that Weger, standing 5 feet 8 inches, could overpower three women. She identified herself as the holdout juror and said she gave in to the will of the rest of the panel.

But the question of guilt or innocence wasn’t one of the legal factors before the parole board, which was charged with making a decision based on issues such as whether Weger’s release would deprecate the seriousness of the crime or promote a disrespect for the law.

“Everyone in this case and the name Starved Rock is in the public memory of the people of Illinois,” said board Chairman Craig Findley, who voted in favor of parole. “Whether Mr. Weger dies in prison or is released, that case can never be forgotten. Our decision is whether we believe he’s an acceptable risk and if the punishment is adequate or if it is not.”

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