Why was Sister Cathy Cesnik murdered in 1969 and who did it?
Be aware before reading (and viewing): Some subject matter may be disturbing.
Our concern is that she fell into something evil and got caught up with it, they say.
Credit: Netflix
Were told the story is not the nuns killing.
The story is the cover-up of the nuns story.
(Now, the school is called Seton Keough High School.)
Accounts vary as to whether Sister Cathy ever made it back to her apartment complex after the shopping trip.
They heard yelling from the direction of Sister Cathys apartment.
It was a mans voice.
Garbled with emotion, anger.
We really thought it was some kind of violence that was going on up there, she recalls.
Gerry said Mass, saving some bread for Cathy if she returned home.
The car was muddy, and there was a twig inside near the steering wheel.
The plot thickens: Three days later, another young woman went missing and was later found dead.
Joyces body was found facedown in a stream, with her throat cut and hands tied behind her back.
Here, we meet John Barnold, the former chief of homicide of the Baltimore City Police Department.
He was continually quoted at the time as saying they didnt think Sister Cathys disappearance was a kidnapping.
Scannell is soft spoken, and its hard to tell if hes senile or just old.
She hadnt deteriorated no maggots or anything like that.
Does Jane Doe hold the secrets to unlocking this mystery?
They were powerful because they represented God, she remembers.
Ill never forget the look he gave me…
I didnt get a look like that until years later interviewing violent offenders, he says.
Teachers would look down, one former student recalls.
They knew something was going on.
Her memories of the time are foggy.
Jean even recalls Maskell bringing a cop into the room to abuse her.
Even though he said he didnt want to, Maskell encouraged him.
Finally, one student confided in Sister Cathy, and Cathy eventually asked Jean about the abuse, too.
The student recalls that Maskell looked furious but Magnus looked dumb.
Why wasnt Joyce Malecki mentioned in this episode?
Is her murder not connected with Cathys after all?
OR… was she also an abused student?
Who was the anonymous student Maskell threatened?
Who did Sister Cathy tell about Father Maskells abuse?
Did she tell someone else first, or go straight to Maskell himself?
Who else knew about the murder and helped cover it up?
Did Father Maskell actually kill her, or did he get someone else to do it?
You see what happens when you say bad things about people, he told her.
He was so nicknamed by the amateur sleuths (and apparent Watergate nostalgists) Gemma Hoskins and Abbie Schaub.
But thats only one ding against what is overall a patient and expertly constructed episode.
She screamed, I loved her and I killed her, regarding Sister Cathy.
In her mind, thats akin to having slain the woman herself.
But Wehner is not saying that she literally killed Cathy with her own hand.
The famedBoston GlobeChurch abuse newspaper articles (the basis for the Oscar-winning move) are name-checked in this episode.
As in Boston, other victims were inspired to share their stories once the door was creaked open.
I can tell you stuff you wont believe that [Father Maskell] did, she says.
She alleges Maskell took her into a wooded area, where she was raped by police officers.
Absorb that timeline: October 31, 1970.
Thats almost exactly one year after after Sister Cathy went missing.
She told him he had 15 minutes to pack his things and get out, Gemma Hoskins says.
And she looks like a sweet lady.
Here is Sister Marylita (left) in a Facebook post from last year.
Hysterical nonsense is how the priests defensive, deny-everything stance was described.
I think Father Maskells above reproach, an upstanding priest.
I would have gone right away to the archdiocese, dont wait 25 years.
The girls should have told their parents right away and gotten a lawyer and reported to the archdiocese.
Burning Questions
Who was Dr. Christian F. Richter?
Dr. Richter is the gynecologist Teresa Lancaster describes seeing on Father Maskells insistence.
Richter died 11 years ago, andthis obituarymerely describes him as a Civil War buff and an excellent doctor.
What about Joyce Malecki?
Her name never comes up during this hour but hopefully that isnt true for the rest of the series.
Was the Institute of Living used as a Catholic-priest-laundering site?
Lothstein provides haunting testimony on camera about his time working at Connecticuts Institute of Living.
It happened over and over again, Lothstein says.
It sounds like there could be a seven-hour Netflix show just about that.
Here are the five major points of interests from episode 4.
A self-described orthodox Catholic, he was instrumental in getting the 1994 lawsuit dismissed.
For years, McHugh has asserted that homosexuality is the root case of child sex abuse in his Church.
Unsurprisingly, McHugh would not agree to be interviewed forThe Keepers.
A lifetime of being a toady and sycophant might have caught up with him.
In McHughs dotage (hes 86), the man perhaps has finally discovered a sense of shame.
Is that was your friends do on the weekends?
Thats a typical pedophile, Deep Throat says.
A pedophile cannot separate from his collection.
Even if he cant get to it, he knows its there.
Sunny May
Deep Throats comment about the division chief leads into this episodes more fascinating, tough-to-decipher interview.
To my recollection there was nothing found, she says.
Was she also involved in a conspiracy to protect Maskell from the law?
No way, she says.
Its an ambitious leap forThe Keepersto make, but one that feels rightly earned.
Will Jean Wehner and Teresa Lancaster ever meet?
The two plaintiffs in the 1994 case have purposefully never encountered each other.
Wehner says it was because she didnt want a perception of another victims testimony influencing her own.
But is the show leading up to a get-together between the two women?
What does former cop James Scannell know?
Now we find out that he, like Paul McHugh, denies the concept of recovered memories.
And he says that Father Maskells real craving was to work in law enforcement.
kindly, allow him to babble on.
What about Joyce Malecki (redux)?
The kidnapping and murder of Malecki has now not been touched upon for three episodes.
Heres hoping thatThe Keepersreturns to her story soon.
What if Father Maskell and the boogeyman Brother Bob can be connected to Malecki?
That sure changes the shape of things.
Its hard to deliver justice to Father Joseph Maskell, for instance, since hes in the ground.
So whats left to do if the big bad guy is beyond justice?
Well, even if Maskell is guilty of instigating Cathys death, its unlikely that he did so alone.
Luckily, Abbie and Gemmas anonymous tip line soon bears unexpected fruit.
They get two different versions of a very similar-sounding story: I think my uncle killed Sister Cathy.
The first niece in question is Debbie Yohn.
Her uncle, Edgar Davidson, was an erratic and combustible guy.
There are even more shady details.
Cathy disappeared after buying an engagement present for her sister, but the present was never found.
Sharon Schmidt has a similar story.
Because we killed a woman and put her behind the shop.
Sharons brother Brian was haunted by Cathys murder, too.
Sharon says that learning about this only after Brians death was hard to take.
In Jeans words, Mike swallowed a lot of anger over the years.
Standing by her side through her traumatic confrontations with the Church often meant keeping his mouth shut.
Another such moment comes soon after, when Gemma finally gets a call from Cathys sister Marilyn.
They set up an in-person meeting, but theres an even more immediate impact.
Gemma cant believe how much Marilyns voice sounds like Cathys.
After hanging up the phone, she just cries and cries.
The past is not dead, as Faulkner said.
Its not even past.
After those emotional journeys, the episode does leave us with a couple leads.
First theres Marilyn, who might be able to provide some much-needed information about the necklace.
And then theres Edgar.
What does Edgar know?The biggest lead-in to the next episode, of course, is Edgar Davidson.
The survivors of 70s Baltimore are either dead or so old their memory is untrustworthy.
Is Edgar himself trustworthy?
How much will he be willing to tell if he knows anything at all?
Is that the answer, or did one of them copy the other?
Or was one of them not connected to Cathy at all?
Did the necklace have meaning other than an August birthday?Hopefully Marilyn can answer this.
Edgar is old now, with bushy gray hair and a hard-to-understand voice.
Hes still with it more than Maskell was in his later years, however.
Ultimately, Edgar basically denies culpability for the crime.
He says he was young and stupid, but offers little more than that.
He says he wasnt involved in the actual murder at all and has no idea who was.
Either way, its all were getting from him for now.
Not every murder suspect is going to pull a Robert Durst and just confess to everything on tape.
The search for suspects now turns to friendlier corners.
And boy, is there a lot to look at there.
First up is Gerry Koob.
As it turns out, Gerrys alibiiskind of shaky.
His story of the night Cathy disappeared has always been the same.
Gerry says he went out that night with his friend, Brother Pete McKeon.
As Gerry says, Pete was my alibi, and I was his.
As if proving his point, Gerry tells a story so colorful it seems obviously fake.
Both John Barnold of Baltimore City Police and Gary Childs of County refute the story.
to get to find out, the team tries reaching out to Pete McKeon.
But like Edgar, Pete is getting on in years, and his memory is probably unreliable.
Take Sister Russell, for example.
Another secret gone to the grave.
Importantly, that repression was also institutional.
In one of the most dramatic confrontations of the episode, filmmaker Ryan White presents former D.A.
Sharon May with a list of 50 abusive priests published by the Baltimore archdiocese in 2002.
Only one name on that list was found guilty of sex crimes, and he pleaded guilty.
(When Cathy died I said, You will not die as long as Im alive.
You will not die.)
The green birthstone, in fact, appears to reference the August birthday of Marilyns husband, Bob.
Jean, too, has found some healing over the course of this project.
The episode ends by proving Jean right.
She was likely right about the other things, too.
Is Gerry lying?Where on earth did he get that vagina story?
What did Russell do or know?Did she betray Cathy to Maskell for some reason?
Unfortunately, it doesnt look like well ever get an answer to this question.
Is there a solution?Well find out next episode.
As with Jean Wehner, Charles recollections of his abuse are horrifying in their complexity.
We wouldnt be here.
First, though, some final notes on the Cesnik case.
There are still some leads, though.
Forensic evidence has improved a lot since the 70s; maybe they could use that to get some DNA?
The Malecki family, unfortunately, does not share his confidence in their own case.
As one of Joyces surviving brothers says, If theres nothing, someone should tell us.
Instead, the FBI refuses to tell anyone anything.
The Maleckis, rightfully, feel abandoned.
They arent the only ones.
One Maryland state assemblyman, C.T.
Other survivors like Teresa Lancaster (the onetime Jane Roe) come forward to share their experiences.
They talk about how getting over child abuse takes a long time, and survivors shouldnt be punished.
It happens again this time, though Wilson vows to take another crack.
Larry Hogan in April.
The final act of this episode lays out the Churchs own failure to provide such justice.
As it turns out, Charles Franz is living proof of such corroboration.
Both Jean and Charles are angry, but not entirely surprised.
But their grassroots movement has done so much more than any of these other institutions.
