Starved Rock Murder

October 5, 2016

“Starved Rock Murder”

On March 14, 1960, a horrific murder took place in St. Louis Canyon, at the Starved Rock State Park near Utica Illinois. A park known for its magnificent steep sandstone canyons formed by glacial meltwaters, wilderness of animals, and wonderful views of waterfalls. The bodies of three women were found disturbingly beaten, abused, and covered in an enormous amount of blood and snow. This crime is known as one of the most shocking murders to ever happen in northern Illinois.         

Three women from Riverside Chicago went on a three day vacation trip to Starved rock state park and became the victims of a tripled homicide murder. The victims were Mildred Lindquist, Lillian Oetting, and Frances Murphy.  It was supposed to be originally six friends joining this trip, but for unmentioned purposes only three friends went. All three females were excited to get away and enjoy the wonderful nature of the park, especially Mrs. Oetting since she had been nursing her ill husband all winter. The women arrived to the lodge on Monday dropped off their suite case and left to the dining room area to grab lunch. Afterwards they headed out the door for a hike around the park with their camera, and a pair of binoculars. That evening Mr. George Oetting called the lodge to speak to his wife, but was told by staff member whom speculated that his wife and friends were gone sight seen. They had told Mr. Oetting that his wife would call him the next morning, unconcerned he ended called. The next day Mr. Oetting calls again and was assured by a staff member his wife was seen at breakfast and then went out with friends. That night there was a snow storm of eight inches in Illinois Valley, making the roads in the park impossible to walk or drive through.  The next morning a very worried Mr. Oetting calls the lodge once again and this time insisted on someone going to his wife room to look for her. Once the staff opened the room and seen untouched lugged, that is when they knew something was not right.

Mr. Oetting called a longtime friend, Virgil W. Peterson, whom is the operating director        of the Chicago Crime Commission. Once Peterson received all information of the missing women he contacted the state police and other law enforcement in the tri state area. Within minutes a Sheriff Ray Eutsey began organizing search parties to look for the three missing friends. Bill Danley, a local newspaper reporter was finishing his last story of the day when he received a tip about the disappearance. Grabbing a camera he also headed out to the park under the storm conditions to investigate the scene. When Danley got to the park he noticed a group of kids shouting that they had seen dead bodies in the canyon. Once he was able to question a few of the boys whom he recognized as part of the Illinois Youth commission camp, he contacted had contacted the lodge where the law enforcements were gathered. Danley was one of the first ones to enter the cave and see the bodies. It was described that the three women were lying side by side, covered in snow. They were on their backs, under a ledge, their clothes were torn, and their legs were spread apart and bruised. All three women were beaten viciously on the head, two of them were found tied together with white twine. Upon arrival the state police detectives began a search of the area. The camera that belonged to Mrs. Murphy was found camera along with the binoculars only feet away of the women’s body. State Attorney Harland Warren found a frozen tree branch covered in blood, which was assumed to be the murder weapon. No motive was found for the murders Attorney Warren had to work the crime with state authorities, since the officials did not have the experience required for such crime. Soon Warren started to become impatient, as there were no leads to this unsolved murder to compare. The only leads were looking for one or more men with scratched faces. The evidence at hand was the twine the murderer tied two of the women with, the branch with blood, and aluminum foil. While searching the pictures taken they found a picture with a man standing behind one of the victims. It was hard to identify but the conclusion remained that that was their criminal.  

At this point the case had gone nowhere. The state was pulling the funding from the investigation and there was no new leads to go on. Frustrated by the lack of State Police success in the investigation, Warren decided to call all of the evidence back to take a fresh look. It was reported that one piece of evidence kept coming up which was the string the three woman had been tied up with. They found this evidence to be important as it was believed to the only clue the killer left behind.

Armed with this new information, they set to find where the string came from. The investigation led them back to the lodge where they found a ball matching the string in the kitchen. Faced with the fact that all of the lodge employees had already been given polygraph tests, and had passed, there was speculation that the test might not have been accurate. At this time, Warren decided to hire a well-recognized polygraph technician from the Institute in Chicago. First they retested all the employees, the rangers and delivery people and anyone they could think had access to the lodge.  One person came up who had not passed the polygraph test a dishwasher named Chester Otto Weger.

After this new discovery Warren knew he could only use the polygraph as a focus of the investigation because it was not enough to use for an arrest. The police decided to gather more information by following Chester everywhere he went, even the town’s locals helped the police follow Chester and gather information.  It was mentioned someone had given a tip about a reported assault that happed six months prior and only a few miles from where the three women had been found. The report describes how a young couple came into the police station to report an assault. The young couple were robed, bitten and there was evidence the young woman was raped.  After hours of interrogation the police determined they not have enough evidence to believe the young couple. They could not believe such a crime was committed in such beautiful and visited park.