“If we realize there’s not testable evidence, we’ll go home,” Stack told the judge, according to a transcript of the hearing. Weger’s lawyers Andy Hale and Celeste Stack said the evidence collected in the murder investigation included clothing from the three victims and fingernail scrapings in sealed test tubes. He also told the judge that, if a particular type of clothing fiber needed to be tested, it could be compared with more than 3,000 fibers in Microtrace’s collection from manufacturers. “It’s not really possible, in most cases, to make a blanket statement to say, ‘This entire case is contaminated,’ ” Christopher Palenik testified.įor example, hairs embedded in resin on microscope slides still could be tested for DNA even if they were jumbled together with other evidence, Palenik said. On June 1, LaSalle County Judge Michael Jansz heard testimony from Palenik’s son Christopher Palenik, a vice president of Microtrace. In court papers, Palenik said a “non-destructive examination” of the potential evidence has “no downside to the state.” Will County State’s Attorney James Glasgow, appointed special prosecutor in the case, also opposed the request. The LaSalle County state’s attorney’s office had fought Weger’s attempts to gain access to the evidence, calling it a “fishing expedition.” The office said the evidence wasn’t stored properly over the years - and that even school children were allowed to handle it on field trips. Chester Weger as he left Pinckneyville Correctional Center with his family in February 2020. Weger - who was the longest-serving inmate in Illinois - says that, despite his initial confession, he didn’t kill anyone and that testing the evidence could prove it. Weger, 82, was released from prison in February 2020 after members of the Illinois Prisoner Review Board found he was a model prisoner.īut the courts haven’t deemed him to be innocent of the killings.
Man paroled in Starved Rock killings walks out of prison after nearly six decades behind bars
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