Copyright 2000 Chicago Sun-Times, Inc.   Chicago Sun-Times October 13, 2000, FRIDAY, Late Sports Final Edition SECTION: NEWS; Pg. 74 LENGTH: 383 words HEADLINE: Alan Masters; plotted murder BYLINE: BY GARY WISBY BODY: Alan Masters, convicted of plotting his wife's murder in a sordid case that spawned two books and a TV miniseries, was buried Wednesday in Chicago after dying in a prison hospital. Mr. Masters, 65, died Monday in the Federal Medical Center in Rochester, Minn., six months after being transferred from the Pekin Federal Correctional Institute. He drew a 40-year sentence in 1989 after a federal judge ruled he had conspired to kill his wife, Dianne. Also convicted were former Willow Springs Police Chief Michael Corbitt and former Cook County Sheriff's Police Cmdr. James Keating. Dianne Masters' body was found in 1982 in the trunk of her yellow Cadillac after it was hoisted out of the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal near Willow Springs. Missing for nine months, she had been shot twice and her skull was crushed. Prosecutors said Mr. Masters confessed he had beaten her to death with a pistol in the driveway of their home in Summit. But his statement was not allowed to be used at trial, and no one ever was charged with the murder. The government called Mr. Masters a "master fixer" who paid off judges and police officers such as Corbitt and Keating to protect gambling and prostitution in the southwest suburbs. A wealthy Palos Park attorney, Mr. Masters began courting Dianne while advising her on a divorce from her first husband. The Masters' marriage was marked by beatings and riven by her affairs, the last one with an English teacher. She talked explicitly about the affair on a telephone she suspected was being tapped by her husband. In the months before Mrs. Masters' disappearance, Mr. Masters openly made threats against her to friends and close clients. The sensational story was told in "Deadly Matrimony," a TV movie in which the overweight, toupee-wearing Mr. Masters was played by Treat Williams. It also was the basis for two books: Blind Justice, written by Ray and Edie Gibson with Mrs. Masters' brother, Randall Turner, and Shattered Hopes: A True Crime Story of Marriage, Murder, Corruption and Cover-up in the Suburbs, by Barbara Schaaf. Mr. Masters is survived by his wife, Janet, whom he married after Dianne Masters' death; two sons, Steven and Douglas; a daughter he had with Dianne Masters, Anndra; a brother, Leonard, and four grandchildren.