While the case remains open, allegations of sexual abuse by Father Maskell, and Sister's Cathy's plan to blow the whistle along with a possible cover up by the Catholic Church with close ties to law enforcement are at the heart of the horrendous case. I do believe in so many other things than I ever did before. 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. In that case, Cesnik might've been killed to stop her from actually being able to do that. The Keepers centres on the death of 26-year-old nun, Sister Cathy Cesnik, who went missing from Baltimore, Maryland on November 7th, 1969.Her body was found decomposed two months later, but the . On the evening she disappeared, Sister Cathy was reportedly counseling one of the abused girls when Maskell unexpectedly showed up. 2. But beyond that, all of them had ties of some kind to Maskell, either working with him or attending churches where he was a priest. On January 3, 1970, the body of Catherine Cesnik was found by two hunters. One of those calls went to a retired Baltimore County teacher, Gemma Hoskins. Priests regularly got away scot-free. It had to be somebody who knew her.'. The filmmakers said they were not trying to solve the murder of Sister Cathy, or the murder of Joyce Malecki, which is also featured in the series. There, on the ground, still clad, her face covered with maggots, was the body of Sister Cathy. Because the federal government keeps stalling and refusing to release information under the FOIA regarding Joyce Maleckis murder, there are likely countless pieces of possibly helpful evidence related to the homicides of both Joyce Malecki and Sister Cathy. Fans of The Keepers may be surprised to hear that Keough High School, where Sister Cathy and A. Joseph Maskell both taught, closed in July of 2017, following confirmation from the Archdiocese of Baltimore that they paid settlements out to students who had been sexually abused by Maskell. Source:https://www.spreaker.com/user/americancrimecast/sistercathy-1Join Gemma Hoskins and Shane Waters in this new podcast series about the unsolved murder . In the 1990s, Jean Wehner came forward and alleged that Father Maskell had sexually abused her and allowed other men to do the same. Its important to take this confession from Koob with a grain of salt, as he is proven in the show to be less than the most reliable of witnesses, but, as White says, I dont know where the truth lies.. What the show doesnt get into is that the FBI has pushed back the date even further now. ", Up Next: Netflix Hidden Gems For Sci-Fi And Fantasy Lovers. Your effort and contribution in providing this feedback is much Updated According to the Baltimore Sun, as evening fell on Nov. 7, 1969, Sister Catherine Cesnik left her unassuming apartment, heading to the Edmondson Village Shopping Center around 7:30 p.m. As far as her roommate, Sister Helen Russell Phillips, could tell, she was headed out to buy an engagement gift for her sister, as well as run a few errands. The Boston Archdiocese had been regularly making private settlements, paying for silence when it came to reports of abuse by priests. An undated photo of Sister Cathy Cesnik, whose body was found at a dumping area Jan . Her case has remained open ever since, Armacost said. Sister Cathy was a teacher at Archbishop Keough High School and went missing in Baltimore in 1969. And to end. The Baltimore Sun is republishing archived coverage of the unsolved 1969 murder of Sister Catherine Cesnik, which is the subject of a Netflix documentary series set to debut May 19. A young, conspicuously attractive woman, 1 she connected with her students. 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. Her body was left out in the open on a slight rise. Rather, people actually trusted him a lot, reportsHuffpost. 2023 Cable News Network. . ', He claimed that the detectives were told to either charge the priest 'or let him go. Two months later, her body was found in a frozen field in Baltimore County. Maskell's DNA did not match the forensic profile from 1970, although investigators noted that this . More than 40 years after her death, the case of Sister Cathy Cesnik's murder is still unsolved. White is unconvinced that the DNA found at the scene on a cigarette butt would match A. Joseph Maskells DNA, but he remains positive that, eventually, someone will catch whoever murdered Sister Cathy and theyll finally figure out why. Sister Cathy Cesnik & Joyce Malecki. They were last known to have been at shopping centers in the area, the same as Cesnik. Father Maskell was a counselor and chaplain at Archbishop Keough from 1967 to 1975. Police have also looked into whether Cesniks death is related to the deaths of three other young women in the Baltimore area around the same time. The women have since been more vocal about the abuses they suffered at Joseph Maskell's hands, and all the stories are universally awful (via Huffpost). The idea that he terrorized many, and that the Catholic Church chose not to stop him. By 1994, Maskell no longer worked at the high school and was the pastor of Holy Cross Church in Baltimore. But now, because of witness testimony, and a multi-part documentary about the Cesnik murder to be aired on Netflix beginning on May 19, there is hope that her killer may be identified and the case finally be put to rest. ', Asked how they could get away with such a crime, Lancaster told the TV news interviewer, 'Power and fear. (Cesnik) was a nun. She was warm and energetic, always ready to engage with her students, writing musicals for them to perform on stage, or inventing games to encourage them to teach each other new vocabulary. NEXT:10 Creepy Documentaries To Watch If You Loved The Keepers. (Handout photo courtesy of Netflix), Catherine Cesnik, a 26-year-old nun, disappeared after leaving her Southwest Baltimore apartment to go shopping in November 1969. [6], Immediately after Cesnik's disappearance, police searched the area for her body without success. One of the students was actually there to talk about Maskell the night before Cesnik disappeared, only for Maskell himself to barge into the apartment. And I can hear Cathy saying 'I told you I'd take care of this' and I said, I didn't think you meant 20 years later. [13][14] Police spokeswoman Elise Armacost announced that this discovery does not exclude Maskell from being a suspect in the case. Nicole Mello is an author of horrors, romances, and comedies. They are waiting to learn if those results link Maskell to the death of a nun who, according to an attorney, was a confidant to young women who had been assaulted by the priest. Joseph Cesnik in 1930 Census; Census Place: Pittsburgh, Allegheny, Pennsylvania; 1930 United States Federal Census; National Archives and Records Administration. The green 1970 Maverick had been parked illegally near the apartment. They were all young, attractive women, police said, who looked similar. Sister Cesnik had been reported as a missing person on November 7, 1969, from her residence at the Carriage House Apartments in Baltimore City, 21229. Catherine Cesnik was born in 1942, she was a devoted catholic nun who taught drama and English at Archbishop Keough High School in Baltimore, Maryland. The Keepers, a 7-part documentary, is currently available to stream on Netflix. However, White did still get to talk to them he even got to talk to the anonymous student he mentions in the series. In fact, people around the world were so distraught at learning about Sister Cathys case that they started flooding the Baltimore County Police with calls. Maskell denied involvement in any form of abuse. People from all over Baltimore County helped the police comb local parks and wooded areas for any sign of her. Something was clearly wrong, and so, according to the Baltimore Sun, Helen Russell Phillips called on the help of a few friends revs. Unless some brave sleuths or particularly inspired detectives go digging, Keough High School is now, for better or worse, closed to a continuing story. Many of the parents in the area would regularly attend his masses and let him baptize their children. ', He theorized that because there had been no signs of a struggle, 'it looked too clean. But that charming faade was shattered in 1992. However, with each day that passes, internet sleuths and hard-boiled detectives alike unveil a new connection or a potential piece of evidence that had been overlooked before in the case. Born in Pittsburgh, Penn., in 1942, reports the Baltimore Sun, Cesnik was described by her younger sister as devoted and rather ambitious. The case made against Joseph Maskell in the 1990s didn't actually last. 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. But she wasn't fully happy there, and by 1969, at the age of 26, Cesnik knew she had potential that her order was stifling, knew she could become so much more, and moved out to take a job at Western High School. Jan. 3, 1970, changed that. The service at the at Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Pinehurst, North Carolina lasted 1 hour. appreciated. According to police, Joyce Helen Malecki, 20, disappeared from a shopping mall only days after Cesnik on November 11, 1969, in Glen Burnie, a suburb of Baltimore. (Aside from reports that Maskell invited uniformed officers to assault the girls). In general, he exploited 1960s counterculture, offering a relaxed environment and a willing ear regarding sex, drugs, alcohol, and the like all things that the students' strictly religious parents detested. Baltimore Detective Lt. Sam Bowerman always believed Sister Cathy was killed by a man who either lived in, or was familiar with, the area around the Carriage House Apartments, knew the location off Monument Avenue where her body was dumped, and that the murder was unplanned. White tells us there is some dogged reporting happening right now in Ireland, digging deeper into the time that A. Joseph Maskell spent there, in addition to his time spent in the United States. But some thirty women soon came forward with accounts of sexual abuse at the school. She'd said no, but they still kept writing love letters and spending time together. There are a lot of different stories about how Maskell threatened the girls into silence, and Huffpost has the details. 'After that we had to break away from him. With new evidence cropping up recently, this article has been updated to reflect evenmorefacts and clues that the docuseries overlooked. Investigating detectives found no leads on Cesnik's death, and the investigation was later abandoned. Two women, both with close ties to an unnamed man who may have been . According to the autopsy, she had been struck on the back of her head by either a hammer or a brick, there was a hole the size of a quarter in her skull , and there were strangulation marks on her neck. Read on to learn about the victim. However, the material was never entered into evidence. More than 40 years after her death, the case of Sister Cathy Cesnik's murder is still unsolved But I can whole-heartedly say, Cathy has been very much a part of all this.. Huffpost added that choke marks colored her neck, and a quarter-sized hole in the back of her skull pointed to her actual cause of death blunt force trauma, leading to a skull fracture and brain hemorrhaging. I think this is it, Hoskins said, in a recent interview. Those who knew her at the time said that she wouldn't allow any conversation about Cesnik's death, saying that was her life before, and that she now had a new life. The exact area couldn't actually be reached by car, meaning that she would've been forced to walk there, or possibly carried. The Murder Of Catherine Cesnik, The Nun Who Knew Too Much. On occasion, they will attempt to combine all three, as there really isnt too much to life overall than fear, love, and laughter. A Warner Bros. "The Keepers" premieres on Netflix May 19. 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. There was a general backlash against it, and a Catholic psychiatrist argued that memories like that couldn't be repressed then recovered. Catherine (Cathy) Cesnik was a Catholic sister and taught English and drama at Archbishop Keough (later renamed Seton Keough), an all-girls Catholic high school in Baltimore. . The unsolved slaying of Sister Catherine Ann Cesnik in Baltimore in 1969 hit another dead end Wednesday when police learned that DNA from a long-deceased priest did not match crime scene evidence . A 1994 story in the Baltimore Sun, revealed that she had information about Cesnik's murdered condition, such as the maggots on her face, known only to the cops. She also talked about what happened after Sister Cathy found out about it. Pamela Lynn Conyers, 16, was last seen at the shopping mall in Glen Burnie on October 16, 1970, police said. Koob had an alibi for the night he'd been out at a movie with another priest and claimed not to know anything. She taught English and ran the drama club. [4] Cesnik had three siblings. Hoskins and Schaub looked into each of those tips, and the tips have kept coming in for the past five years. Two women anonymous at the time but who later came forward as Jean Wehner and Teresa Lancaster came forward with allegations of abuse, saying he (and some of his associates) had assaulted them while they were students at Archbishop Keough (later Seton Keough) High School (via Baltimore Sun). Give Light and the People Will Find Their Own Way. On May 17, the Baltimore Sun reported that his DNA did not match a sample that was taken. 'Father Maskell picked me up, took me to a wooded area where there was a lot of policemen gathered around, he left me in the backseat and two policemen abused me while Maskell stood next to the car. This is presumed to be the source of the DNA sample found at the murder scene, but Ryan White knows theres even more that Baltimore County Police arent saying. The theory that she was killed because she knew something about abuse that was going on by priests within the church continues to be a theory, but is not the only theory. 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. Giangrasso, pointing to the discovery of the car, and the fact that it was returned close to where Sister Cathy lived, theorized that the killer was someone who she knew and possibly whom she trusted. By Another article put out by the Baltimore Sun tried to paint a clearer image of the evening. Students, parents and the local media buzzed about the 26-year-old's disappearance. Details. This is huge news regarding Sister Cathy's case. I'm not going to name names right now but they know stuff. It started with a freelance journalist, Tom Nugent. Both women have said that she was the only member of the school's staff who helped them and other girls abused by Maskell, et al., and have said that she was murdered prior to discussing the matter with the archdiocese of Baltimore. One night, he invited Wehner into his car, only to take her to see Cesnik's dead body, long before it was discovered. Autoplay. The girl left but the next day, she later claimed, Maskell waved a gun at her, warning he'd kill her and her family if she revealed the abuse. I always felt like there was some reason for me to be here and I didn't know what it was. Hoskins says at a minimum she wants to see records on Father Maskell. Grace Elizabeth Montanye, 16, met a stranger at a shopping mall on Sept 29, 1971, northwest of Baltimore, according to police. A girl who did threaten to report him soon found his gun in her mouth, as he told her that no one would believe her he had a fancy degree from Johns Hopkins, after all. Does he ever reveal them? An autopsy soon revealed the victim was Sister Cathy Cesnik, a beloved 26-year-old nun who taught English and drama at Archbishop Keough High School and had vanished two months earlier during a Friday night shopping trip. CNN Sans & 2016 Cable News Network. Locating that stash, investigators found, among other things, nude pictures of underage girls. All Rights Reserved. He was permanently removed from the ministry in 1994. Feb 7, 2019 - Justice for Sister Cathy . It was actual, hard evidence that would at least be enough to arrest Maskell for possessing child pornography. I agree. Ghosts of the past might've followed her, though, punishing her for what she knew and the good she did. When Wehner could only nod in reply, Cesnik promised that she would take care of it (though Maskell did continue to abuse students after that, too). ', The cop, who died in 2009, said it was a shame because he was certain the priest 'knew more than he was telling. It was no wonder that in the wake of the news, the students were all quietly shocked, worried that the police might stop looking for her. CNN reported in 2017 that police had the okay to exhume his body for DNA testing, but even then, the DNA wasn't a match with what was found at the crime scene. The news shook a lot of people, to put it lightly. And you know it really just began as us with our camera, taking these trips to Baltimore not knowing that it would ever even become anything.. Sister Catherine Cesnik is pictured with her father, Joseph Cesnik. All six murders are still unsolved, so technically, the similarities could just be coincidence, but despite the lack of evidence, experience tells investigators that there's some connection. The church was her life and the people important to her were in the church, said Armacost. 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. In 1992, two female former students came forward to say Maskell abused them. However, theres even more to the story to be considered: Sharon Mays husband used to be a state cop. The Maryland Attorney Generals office has been investigating sexual abuse in the catholic church for nearly four years. What we do know is that the FBIs continuing failure to contribute meaningfully to this case has negatively impacted any chance at an ending to the story. Both . This seven-episode docuseries explores the still-unsolved murder of Sister Cathy Cesnik, a teacher at Archbishop Keough High School in Baltimore, Maryland. Updated by Nicole Mello on June 14, 2020: Justice still has not been found for Sister Cathy. Despite the fact that Father Maskell's DNA does not match the DNA found at the crime scene, Armacost notes that the results don't necessarily clear him as a suspect. After the complaints were made to the archdiocese, Maskell was temporarily removed from his post at the school for psychological evaluation. Really, the whole thing raises a lot of questions, summarized by Huffpost. We are no longer accepting comments on this article. It seems that either the Archdiocese is lying about having investigated the accusations, or the Archdiocese is lying about having internal records on A. Joseph Maskell. The mysterious Brother Bob is, in many ways, even more chilling a figure than A. Joseph Maskell. 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