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Dina Herkert

Longtime Starved Rock Murders case researcher and author, guest on The Starved Rock Murders with Andy Hale podcast.

Oct 1, 2026

1:17
So Dina, uh, how did you first hear about this case? Like, how did the Starved Rock murders get on your radar screen? Tell me organically how that kinda came about with you.
1:29
So first of all, um, it started when I was 16.
1:32
I went out to the Starved Rock Lodge and started working as a bus girl and a dishwasher, and I was reading The Starved Rock Murders by Steve Stough.
1:42
And here, I was surprised that here I was working with two people that worked with Chester back in the day when the murders happened.
1:51
And so I was gonna ask these people, like, what they thought.
1:55
So one of 'em was Josephine Schmidt, and she was around, um, back then working for, uh, Nick Spiros as a bookkeeper.
2:04
So I approached her and asked her whether she thought Chester was innocent, and she said she did.

38 MINS LATER

40:25
Anything stand out? Anything else?

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