La Salle County judge ends Weger case, according to motion void after death

A judge refused Monday to reconsider his June 18 ruling against the late Chester Weger. Barring an appeal, Weger’s bid for exoneration is over.

Weger, who was convicted in 1961 of murdering a woman at Starved Rock State Park, died June 22. His death came just days after La Salle County Judge Michael C. Jansz rejected Weger’s attempt to overturn his murder conviction.

That ruling, and Weger’s death, set off a flurry of filings at La Salle County Circuit Court, including a motion to reconsider by Andy Hale, one of Weger’s lawyers. Hale asked Jansz to rethink his June 18 ruling and cited multiple reasons why Jansz ruled incorrectly.

But the special prosecutor’s office, in turn, argued Weger’s death effectively nullified the motion to reconsider. That, special prosecutor Colleen Griffin wrote in a recent pleading, should be the end of it.

Jansz agreed.

During an unscheduled conference call held Monday, Jansz granted Griffin’s motion and ruled that Weger’s conviction stands.

“The court finds [Weger’s] motion to reconsider is void and stricken from the record,” according to the entry in Weger’s record sheet, “since the motion to reconsider was filed after [Weger’s] death.”

Hale did not immediately return an email request for comment on whether he would challenge the Monday ruling, but he had, immediately after the June 18 ruling, pledged to continue pursuing Weger’s exoneration.

“That fat lady hasn’t sung,” Hale said then.

Weger spent almomst six decades in prison for killing Lillian Oetting, one of three women fatally bludgeoned in 1960. Although he confessed to all three murders, he recanted and spent the rest of his life arguing, with no success, that he had been framed or railroaded.