[13][14] Police spokeswoman Elise Armacost announced that this discovery does not exclude Maskell from being a suspect in the case. Stuff being crimes, and they're walking around.. The Baltimore archdiocese has had its own extensive, and very expensive, pedophile priest sexual abuse scandal to deal with in recent years. It would be two months later, on January 3, 1970, that a couple of hunters came upon Sister Cathy's decomposed, frozen and mutilated body, and notified police. RELATED:10 Best True Crime Shows On Netflix. Part 1 - Victim Featured in The Keepers Tells Story of Survival in New Book, Part 2 - Attorney Believes Criminal Charges A Possibility in Sex Abuse Investigation. She wanted to do more than she was able to do within the confines of the order, Radakovic says. Mom Found Next to Her Car with Toddler Son Inside, Wife Wrote 'Letter from the Grave' Before 2008 Death Now Husband Is Guilty of Poisoning Her with Antifreeze, Body of Missing Md. In the end, The Keepers doesnt solve its biggest question: Who killed Sister Cathy? 'After that we had to break away from him. Baltimore's Metro Crime Stoppers has republished the reward for information about the murder of Sister Cathy Cesnik. [1] Tweet. The church first learned of the allegations in 1992 and removed Maskell as a priest in 1994, as soon as it had corroborating accounts of his abuse, according to Sean Caine, a spokesman for the Archdiocese of Baltimore. Lil Hughes KnippAnother of the women who were abused at Keough, Lil Hughes Knipp did not come forward until years after the 1994 lawsuit. Gemma Hoskins has helped dozens of victims get in touch with their investigators. Tricky geometry baffles the internet - but can YOU train your brain to solve how many triangles are in this image? And now the streaming, seven-part Netflix documentary, The Keepers, has investigated the case and will feature interviews with victims of the school abuse, and new revelations. She also talked about what happened after Sister Cathy found out about it. Joyce Maleckis murder is explored as much as it can be as being potentially connected to the murder of Sister Cathy Cesnik, but theres still so much that Abbie, Gemma, and audiences dont know. It just means that there's no link between Maskell and the crime scene. Audiences reacted poorly to how cold, smarmy, and arrogant Sharon May appeared to be, and with good reason: they have every reason to believe she was very much involved in a cover-up for the Archdiocese of Baltimore, evident enough from her complete inaction throughout the case. His aunt was also friends with Jean Wehner, one of multiple people in the documentarywho say they were sexually abused by Father Joseph Maskell in the Baltimore, Maryland area. Eluding police questioning, Maskell eventually ran off to Ireland in 1994 to work as a priest. Nov. 11-13, 1969: Joyce Malecki Is Killed. Obviously, the story grew and grew and one of our first access points was Gemma. There was another twist to come: After Radakovic buried her mother, she dug deeper into her sisters case and found that a documentary team was already doing the same thing, and had been for more than a year. When she first went in [to the convent], they had visitation days and my parents and I always went down for the visitation days, we never missed them, Radakovic says. Her account was brought into question by scientific evidence showing that it would have been impossible for maggots to be alive at that time of year. Want to keep up with the latest crime coverage? She didn't come forward or join the lawsuit against Maskell in 1994. Either way, theyre lying and withholding information that would be helpful to the case. Marilyn had the blinders ripped off in a very scary way, I think, that what she thought happened to her sister might not be at all what actually happened to her sister, White explains. Wehner, who reported her allegations about Maskell to the Baltimore Archdiocese in 1992, claimed that the only nun at the school who sought to help the abused girls was Sister Cathy. Everything Ive done, Ive really tried since that time which is just a little over a year ago for me Ive tried to give them all the information that Ive learned, she says of working with authorities. Her life had been threatened and she had allegedly been abused by the priest. ", court of Appeals of Maryland, No. More than 40 years after her death, the case of Sister Cathy Cesnik's murder is still unsolved. Her body was found in a wooded area two days later. There are many questions swirling around the death of Sister Catherine "Cathy" Cesnik, a beloved 26-year-old nun and teacher in Baltimore found . Sister Cathy's battered body - she had been beaten over the head - was discovered . Ryan White says hes seen a lot of people doubt whether the story is true at all, and insists that Koob is absolutely certain this happened, while the police are absolutely certain it did not. ', 'Before I knew it, there was a big man on top of me and then I thought that would be it and another policeman came in and I could hear Maskell in the distance talking and laughing. That documentary series, The Keepers, premiered on Netflix on Friday with Radakovic as a key participant. He worked on the story for the next year and a half, but said in "The Keepers" the archdiocese in Baltimore stonewalled him at every turn. And as long as youre alive, Cathy will be alive and dont ever forget that.. ', Giangrasso also believed Sister Cathy's killing was church-related, telling the Huffington Post: 'I personally thought it was in-house, within her social network the priests and the religious order.'. [8], In 1995, Teresa Lancaster and Jean Wehner (ne Hargadon), former students at Keough who say they were sexually abused by Maskell, filed a lawsuit against him, the school, gynecologist Christian Richter, the School Sisters of Notre Dame, the Archdiocese of Baltimore, and William H. Keeler. Though, of course, they insist theyre doing everything they can to help victims of abuse, on the subject of Maskell, they remain as vague and unhelpful as ever. Teresa Lancaster (Jane Roe)The second plaintiff in the 1994 lawsuit against Maskell, Lancaster was known in the case as Jane Roe. After the failed lawsuit, she went to law school and became a lawyer, working with Survivors Network for those Abused by Priests, or SNAP. The Keepers centres on the death of 26-year-old nun, Sister Cathy Cesnik, who went missing from Baltimore, Maryland on November 7th, 1969. Nugent reported that three Keough graduates, who each received settlements from the Archdiocese of Baltimore for injuries of $40,000 or more as parties to this case, during the past years have told Inside Baltimore that they were also raped by policemen with the approval of the depraved Father Maskell. Beginning tonight, Netflix viewers will be able to view all seven episodes of a series entitled, The Keepers., The documentary was produced by Ryan White. After a week of teaching, Sister Cathy, a member of the Sisters of Notre Dame, and the daughter of a Pennsylvania postal worker, decided on Friday night that she was going to go shopping. In 2016, the Baltimore County Police Department (BCPD) reassigned the case due to retiring officers, prompting new interviews and further investigation into the alleged sexual abuse at Keough. Hargadon-Wehner's new book "Walking With Aletheia" details her healing process, and what she's learned from - she says - communicating with several different aspects of her personality. Sign up today to get daily, up-to-date news and views from Irish America. Often, survivors would choose to remain anonymous, and the crew of The Keepers respected that choice and removed their stories, names, and/or faces from the series. She had a very soft spot in her heart for the School Sisters of Notre Dame, Radakovic says, but I think she felt she was called to do something other than live in the convent.. Father Neil MagnusAnother of the administrators at Keough, Magnus was accused of participating in sexually abusing students along with Maskell. Unless some brave sleuths or particularly inspired detectives go digging, Keough High School is now, for better or worse, closed to a continuing story. Netflix's documentary series "The Keepers" dives into the case and uncovers a web of abuse that may be the source of a cover up and the murder. In 2004, a retired Baltimore homicide detective told the Baltimore City Paper that the church lawyers had 'stepped in and they talked to the higher-ups at the police department. But through Gemma and Abbie, we talked to about 25 for the documentary. Possibly Missing: 1)An engagement gift 2) $255 cash (minus the rolls and gift?) The only way to do that was to find people who were involved. However, they say theres nothing, even though Jean Wehner found many victims willing to come forward simply by sending out letters in the mail. She was found dead two months later. His remains were exhumed in February of this year and reports in recent days have stated that a DNA sample from Maskell was not a match from a DNA sample retrieved from evidence from the murder scene in 1969. In 2013, Facebook page was started by an alum of the school, and more women told of their abuse at the hands of Maskell and others. However, the Catholic Church is completely unwilling to share these documents, even though White says he would love for them to be transparent and show the world what they have.. On January 3, 1970, the decomposed body of Sister Catherine Ann Cesnik was discovered at a dumping area on Monumental Avenue in Halethorpe, 21227. ', Asked how they could get away with such a crime, Lancaster told the TV news interviewer, 'Power and fear. The spot was not easily accessible to a casual passerby. Whats worse than considering the fact that A. Joseph Maskell terrorized one community? Her hope clung to a strange letter she had received in the mail, apparently sent by Cesnik and postmarked the day after she went missing. Before that, Gemma spent 37 years as an elementary school teacher. We know this speculation about the circumstances is not false, because Jean Hargadon Wehner tells us in the show that she has evidence proving otherwise. That was the first time I had learned of any of this.. And the oldest was in her 20's.. Something has happened to your sister. . They scared the living hell out of us.'. Were not going to let this go, Hoskins said. When she realized Sister Cathy was missing, she called Koob, and together with him and McKeon, the three later called the police. [4] Cesnik had three siblings. Detective Gary ChildsBaltimore County Police Detective Childs is assigned to the cold case file for Sister Cathy's murder at the time of "The Keepers. Cesnik felt called by God to be a nun, her sister says, and she had a gift for teaching. Billy SchmidtSister Cathy's neighbor in the Carriage Hill Apartments building. I don't understand what happens on the other side, she said. The more peoplewatch it, the more information will come out of the woodwork. That means Father Maskell was somehow involved. Bob ErlandsonBob Erlandson was a journalist working for the Baltimore Sun in 1993. Cookies collect information about your preferences and your device and are used to make the site work as you expect it to, to understand how you interact with the site, and to show advertisements that are targeted to your interests. ', While the murder of Sister Cathy is in the forefront of the series, White noted that there were other crimes 'happening before and after, and still filter down to today and may be linked to her murder.'. The investigation into her disappearance and death revealed rampant abuse at her place of employment, Keough High School, a prominent Catholic school in Baltimore, Maryland. Jean is the reason I made The Keepers I had a five-hour conversation with Jean and I left saying, I need to do something with this womans story. She, to me, was one of the most compellingpeople Ive ever met. We had no idea that people would still be talking about it five years later, and that people would still be watching it five years later.. Her former students believe that Sister Cathy was murdered as part of a cover-up to protect a priest at the school, A. Joseph Maskell, who Cesnik suspected was guilty of sexual abuse of students. I would say there were at least 40 survivors Thats just 40 from who Gemma and Abbie found, and most of them are no longer alive. Mine isdifferent than Gemmas theory, but we were all looking at the various versions of the truth and deciding what we believed was true. I'm not going to name names right now but they know stuff. ', He theorized that because there had been no signs of a struggle, 'it looked too clean. Jean Hargadon Wehner (Jane Doe)The first former student to accuse Father Maskell of sex abuse, she appeared in the 1994 lawsuit as Jane Doe. Wehner said she waited to come forward because she had repressed her memories of the abuse and only recalled them later. We met Gemma in a Home Depot parking lot, a few blocks from where Sister Cathys car was found. As one of the Baltimore detectives who initially worked on the case, Nick Giangrasso, told a reporter for Huffington Post: 'The Catholic Church had a lot of input into the police department.