Thoughtfully Researched. Masterfully Told.

Three middle-age society women from suburban Chicago traveled to Starved Rock State Park for a brief vacation on March 14, 1960. Within two hours, they were dead.

Their beaten bodies were found in a canyon two days later. The savagery of the crime horrified America.

After eight months of investigations that went nowhere, Chester Weger, a 21-year-old dishwasher at the lodge, was accused.

He was hounded and harassed, culminating in an all-night grilling with physical and mental abuse and threats of death which forced a false confession. Weger quickly recanted the confession, which was contradictory in parts and did not match the evidence.

Prosecutors misrepresented and outright lied about what they had, none of which implicated Weger. They knew they were framing an innocent man just to close this sensational case.

Weger was convicted on the basis of his confession and was sentenced to life in prison.

He was released on parole in 2020 after nearly 60 years behind bars.

In this book, the truth comes out for the first time. Roy Tyson tells the details of the confession of Smokey Wrona, who led the Mafia killers.  This book examines the evidence and the shocking way Weger was railroaded to prison. New DNA tests and other evidence prove Chester Weger is innocent.

This is the story of two outrages: the brutal murders of three women, and how a corrupt system sent a man to prison for 60 years for a crime he did not commit.

As the women were being attacked, two of them pulled hair from their killer's heads. It was DNA from these hairs that positively proved Weger's innocence in 2023.

It is amazing to realize that these women, as they were fighting for their lives, also were helping to solve their own murders.