Episodes
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In this episode, Andy discusses the status of the legal proceedings and a big court hearing that awaits on September 11, 2024, and Whitny offers her thoughts on the road ahead.
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In this episode, Andy and Whitny identify and discuss the three brothers who are linked to a hair found on the glove of Frances Murphy.
For more information, documents, photos, and other assets associated with and referenced in this episode visit andyhalepodcast.com. -
Missing episodes?
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In this episode, Andy recounts Chester's chance encounter with a key person from the criminal case and also discusses his latest request to examine some interesting items recovered at the crime scene.
For more information, documents, photos, and other assets associated with and referenced in this episode visit andyhalepodcast.com. -
In this episode, Whitny Braun joins Andy for a discussion about the genetic genealogy results and Will County's refusal to vacate Chester's conviction.
For more information, documents, photos, and other assets associated with and referenced in this episode visit andyhalepodcast.com. -
In this episode, Andy discusses the disappointing news that, despite the genetic genealogy results, the Will County State's Attorney's Office is continuing to refuse to vacate Chester Weger's conviction.
For more information, documents, photos, and other assets associated with and referenced in this episode visit andyhalepodcast.com. -
In this episode, Andy sits down for a heartwarming and heartbreaking chat with Chester and his sister Mary about the long road to prove Chester's innocence.
For more information, documents, photos, and other assets associated with and referenced in this episode visit andyhalepodcast.com. -
In this episode, Andy and Whitny discuss the recent results of genetic genealogy testing and the significant implications it has for Chester's case.
For more information, documents, photos, and other assets associated with and referenced in this episode visit andyhalepodcast.com. -
In this case update episode, Andy and Whitny discuss the court's recent ruling granting Chester Weger's petition for leave to file a successive post-conviction petition and the significance of this court ruling for the case moving forward.
For more information, documents, photos, and other assets associated with and referenced in this episode visit andyhalepodcast.com. -
In this case update episode, Andy and Whitny discuss the court’s ruling denying a new special prosecutor, Chester Weger’s request for additional DNA testing and genetic genealogy testing, and the controversial “John Reid” polygraph technique.
For more information, documents, photos, and other assets associated with and referenced in this episode visit andyhalepodcast.com. -
In this case update episode, Andy and Whitny discuss the recently filed motion to appoint a new special prosecutor and Whitny
offers her opinions on why the Will County State's Attorney's Office has done so little to investigate the case.
For more information, documents, photos, and other assets associated with and referenced in this episode visit andyhalepodcast.com. -
In this bonus episode, we discuss the recent filing of Chester’s Petition for Post-Conviction Relief, where the case goes from here, and some of the legal improprieties involved in Chester’s case.
To support Chester's GoFundMe click here!
For more information, documents, photos, and other assets associated with and referenced in this episode visit andyhalepodcast.com. -
There are many words associated with the Christmas season. Presents…cookies…family…egg nog and snow…but the spirit of Christmas is perhaps most closely associated with one word in particular: HOPE.
In this bonus episode, as Christmas approaches, we wanted to share a conversation we had with Chester and his family. We also go into greater detail on the States Attorney's Office and the road we've taken to get to where we are today.
For more information, documents, photos, and other assets associated with and referenced in this episode visit andyhalepodcast.com.
To support Chester's GoFundMe click here!
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And also exciting news! The Starved Rock Murders with Andy Hale is a finalist in the Signal Awards for "Best Exclusive Content and Experience!" There is a "voter's choice" part of this award so please please head to our website, andyhalepodcast.com, and click the link that takes you directly to where you can vote for us! Please share it out to your friends, family, followers as well! Thank you! -
In this bonus episode, we break down that decision and provide a roadmap of where we go from here, including additional forensic testing.
For more information, documents, photos, and other assets associated with and referenced in this episode visit andyhalepodcast.com.
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And also exciting news! The Starved Rock Murders with Andy Hale is a finalist in the Signal Awards for "Best Exclusive Content and Experience!" There is a "voter's choice" part of this award so please please head to our website, andyhalepodcast.com, and click the link that takes you directly to where you can vote for us! Please share it out to your friends, family, followers as well! Thank you! -
The plot thickens…
If the 60+ year saga of the Starved Rock Murders were a three act play, the first act would be the crime itself, the second act would be the decades that passed and the rumors and whispers that swirled around the truth of what really happened…and the third act would provide the answers and an ending that brought the whole tale to some sort of resolution.
We sit now on the cusp of the third act, where the plot thickens and there are revelations and plot twists in the story that make narrative begin to make complete sense. Those answers, those revelations that serve as our bridge from the second to the third act, that provide even further evidence of Chester Weger’s innocence and the conspiracy to use him as a patsy…well they were sitting all this time in a storage container in a garage in LaSalle County in the possession of the man who championed Chester’s guilt perhaps as loudly and confidently as anyone. And then ever so quietly that man turned those documents over to an obscure little archive in central Illinois where they might have simply continued to exist unseen by anyone who could make sense of the information contained within the fragile decaying pages.
But that is not how the story will be written. The details, the names of the guilty and complicit, within those files, bring us to the beginning of Act III and the final push towards the exoneration of Chester Weger.
For more information, documents, photos, and other assets associated with and referenced in this episode visit andyhalepodcast.com. -
The long-awaited DNA results are in. In this special bonus episode we break down the results and their massive impact on the case.
For more information, documents, photos, and other assets associated with and referenced in this episode visit andyhalepodcast.com. -
This massive break in the case involves a woman reaching out to Andy and recounting a story she had been told by a family member about the Starved Rock Murders.
For more information, documents, photos, and other assets associated with and referenced in this episode visit andyhalepodcast.com. -
The biggest mistake anyone can make when it comes to the Starved Rock Murders is to think that this is simply a tragic episode relegated to an obscure chapter of 20th century history that no longer has any impact on any of our lives other than as intellectual fodder for a podcast. Make no mistake, this case is more relevant now than ever. Because, 62 years after the crime, the man who was sentenced to life in prison the murders is still alive.
All the members of law enforcement who railroaded Chester are dead. All of the jurors are gone. All of the witnesses called to the stand have passed away. Chester’s wife, parents and many of his closest loved ones have been been laid to rest. But Chester Weger has endured.
Wrap your mind around the fact that when Chester Weger’s freedom was taken from him in 1960, John F. Kennedy had just been elected President. Chester went away to prison before the Civil Rights Act was passed, before NASA put a man on the moon, before the Watergate Scandal, before Star Wars opened in theaters, before the personal computer, the internet, the cell phone, the smart phone and social media. Sixty years. Chester spent sixty years behind bars…six decades of a man’s life spent in a cell.
And when he was finally released on parole in late February of 2020 it was into a world as alien to him as life on Mars. But within three weeks of his re-entry into the world the globe was gripped by a pandemic and Chester returned to a different form of prison…quarantine.
Yet he has endured. And today at the age of 83 he continues to hold on to hope that his name will be cleared and justice will finally be served. So make no mistake, this case is not simply a story of historical intrigue, this is a living, breathing, active pursuit for justice. And the man at the center of all of this, Chester Weger, deserves to have his voice heard.
In this episode I sit down with Chester, his sister Mary, and his niece Nita.
For more information, documents, photos, and other assets associated with and referenced in episode 6’s coverage of the case, visit andyhalepodcast.com. -
In a criminal trial in the United States, the courts require that the jury find the accused to be guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. It is the highest standard in the courts for evidence. In the case of Chester Weger, can anyone who knows the facts of the case, in good conscience, say that they believe he committed these murders beyond all reasonable doubt?
Can any reasonable person who is presented with the fact that -- the tree branch was not the murder weapon, that the twine found on the women didn’t match the twine found in the kitchen at the Starved Rock Lodge where Chester worked, that a phone call was intercepted a week after the murders indicating other high-ranking people had knowledge of a “kid” with bloody overalls in the trunk of his car, and a thousand more details that contradict Chester Weger’s confession – possibly say that they believe, beyond a reasonable doubt, that Chester Weger is responsible for this brutal crime? The false narrative surrounding Chester Weger, constructed around a coerced confession, has been laid bare.
This case, like a jigsaw puzzle, is made up of a thousand interlocking pieces. But when it comes to the State’s official case against Chester Weger, every piece is so obviously jammed into place and forced to fit. And when a piece couldn’t be forced to fit, it was fabricated to fit. The result wasn’t a puzzle solved but a grotesque mosaic, built on lies, manipulation and decades of deceit. The time has come, over sixty years later, to expose those lies and to prove, finally, the truth about the Starved Rock murders.
In this episode we discuss the Palmatier Brothers in more detail, and give our top 25 list.
For more information, documents, photos, and other assets associated with and referenced in episode 6’s coverage of the case, visit andyhalepodcast.com. -
Even though the murders at Starved Rock took place over six decades ago the anger, frustrations, fear, grief and guilt experienced by all of the people involved feel as palpable today as they did in 1960. Three women lost their lives, one man went to prison for sixty years, children lost parents, parents lost their children, and countless other souls became collateral damage in a horrendous miscarriage of justice that has left generational trauma and shattered lives in its wake. The question that haunts anyone who touches this case is what motivated this brutal crime? What demons possessed whoever performed this heinous act to savagely take the lives of three innocent women? Was it money? Was it lust? Greed? What sin drove someone to want one or more of these women dead and why?
To do justice to this case, we must peel back all of the layers of the onion, no matter how much it might sting. The victims, the accused, and the families and community members whose lives were forever altered deserve the truth.
As we have said before on this podcast, you can bury the dead but you can’t bury the truth. The ghosts of this case have haunted the dreams of too many people for too long. The truth is out there. We owe it to the victims to not be afraid to discover that truth, no matter how painful it might be.
In this episode we discuss motives for murder, and answers to questions from listener emails.
For more information, documents, photos, and other assets associated with and referenced in episode 6’s coverage of the case, visit andyhalepodcast.com. -
In 1961 when Chester Weger was convicted and sentenced to life in prison – the State knew that they had presented a false narrative to the jury. They knew their case was built on one false assertion after another and they proceeded anyway. The State knew that the tree limb could not have been the murder weapon. They knew from multiple reports that there had to have been more than one assailant. They knew from a lab report that a hair found at the crime scene did not match Chester Weger’s. They knew that the twine found in the Lodge’s kitchen and twine found at the crime scene were two different kinds. They knew that nothing had been stolen from the women and yet called it a botched robbery. They knew that a mysterious phone call had been intercepted by an operator who overheard two men discussing a third man’s bloody overalls in the trunk of a car that were related to the murders. They knew the identity of the two men on this phone call who were discussing a plan to burn the incriminating evidence. They knew that the official narrative was impossible.
They knew that what they had presented to the jury wasn’t the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
And even knowing all these things and more – the State still asked for Chester Weger to be strapped to an electric chair and killed. The State asked the jury to take the life of a man based on one thing and one thing only – an implausible confession – a confession the former prosecutor later called “absolutely ridiculous” - extracted after an admitted month long plan of psychological warfare - and hours and hours of interrogation – from an exhausted and terrified 21-year old dish washer.
This episode is a continuation of The Trial of the Century.
For more information, documents, photos, and other assets associated with and referenced in episode 6’s coverage of the case, visit andyhalepodcast.com. - Show more
