Forty years after the naked bodies of three strangled boys were found in a forest, a stable worker has been convicted of the murders.
Kenneth Hansen, 62, was found guilty Wednesday of three counts of murder. He faces a maximum penalty of life in prison and could be eligible for parole after 11 years. There was no death penalty at the time of the slayings.John Schuessler, 13; his brother Anton, 11; and their friend, Robert Peterson, 14, disappeared Oct. 16, 1955, while hitchhiking to their homes on Chicago's northwest side after seeing a movie downtown.
Authorities believe Hansen lured the boys to a stable and sexually assaulted at least one of them, then strangled them when one threatened to tell authorities.
Hansen was arrested in 1994 after federal authorities investigating another baffling Chicago case, the 1977 disappearance of candy heiress Helen Vorhees Brach, stumbled upon witnesses who implicated Hansen in the boys' slayings.
A lifelong stable hand and father of three sons, Hansen maintained he was in Texas when the boys were killed.
One of the men convicted in the Brach investigation was linked to Brach's disappearance but not prosecuted for that crime.