Arrest Made In Deadly Attack On Two Nuns

KLAMATH FALLS - A man has been charged with aggravated murder and rape in an attack on a pair of Roman Catholic nuns, police said Monday.

Maximiliano Cilerio Esparza, 32, also was charged with kidnapping, assault, sodomy, sexual abuse and possession and delivery of a controlled substance. He was being held without bail at the Klamath County Jail.

Sister Helen Chaska, 53, of Bellevue, Washington, was reciting the Rosary while walking on a bike path about 2 a.m. Sunday when she was attacked and killed, police said.

A second nun, Sister Linda Schoenhoefn, 52, also was attacked. She was treated at Merle West Medical Center and released.

"It's an extremely heinous crime," said Klamath County Sheriff Tim Evinger said. "It's unbelievable. It's sickening."

The nuns were members of the order of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, and both lived in Bellevue. They had been involved with the church for the past 25 years and were in Klamath Falls doing missionary work, authorities said.

Esparza apparently was traveling through the area and was arrested after police received a tip about a man who matched the description of the suspect and was riding a bicycle, said Klamath County District Attorney Ed Caleb.

The King5 story

Nun beaten to death; suspect arrested
09/02/2002

From KING Staff and Klamath County Sheriff's Office

KLAMATH FALLS, Ore. - On Sunday, Sept. 1, at approximately 12:30 a.m., two Orthodox Catholic nuns were physically and sexually assaulted on a bike path near Kiger Stadium in Klamath Falls, Oregon.

The attack occurred while the nuns were reciting the rosary.

One of the nuns, Sister Helen Lynn Chaska, 53, died at the scene as a result of her injuries. The other nun was able to call 911 after 2 a.m.

Sheriff's deputies sought a suspect they said was seen bicycling from the crime scene. The bike path runs along an irrigation canal through Klamath Falls.

The surviving nun described her assailant as a Hispanic male in his 30s, approximately 5-foot-6 to 5-foot-8 tall with a thin build, dark wavy hair and a mustache.

Late Sunday evening, officers received information which led them to a suspect at a Klamath Falls motel.

Based on information and evidence gathered, officers arrested the suspect, Maximilano Selario Esparza, who is held at the Klamath County Jail without bail.

Esparza is a transient who arrived in the Klamath Falls area late last week on the train from Portland, Oregon.

Both victims belong to the Order of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, based in Bellevue, Washington. They were in Klamath Falls doing missionary work for their order.

Anyone with more information on this crime may contact the Klamath County District Attorney Ed Caleb at 541-891-6505.

The Seattle P-I story:

Man charged with Bellevue nun rape, slaying

Monday, September 2, 2002.. Last updated at 12:10:00 PM PT

By LEWIS KAMB.. SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

Police in rural Klamath Falls, Ore. arrested a 32-year-old transient early today in connection with the vicious weekend attack of two Bellevue nuns -- an assault committed while the women recited the Rosary along a bike path that left one dead.

Maximilano Selario Esparza is being held without bail at the Klamath County Jail on 16 criminal counts that include charges of murder, attempted murder, rape, sodomy and assault, Michael Swanson, Klamath County Deputy District Attorney, said today.

Authorities identified the dead woman as Sister Helen Lynn Chaska, 53, a nun with the Order of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, a loosely knit Orthodox Catholic sect based in Bellevue. Chaska and Sister Linda Schoenhofen, 52, also of the Bellevue order, were in the Klamath Falls area doing missionary work when they were attacked, the Klamath Falls Sheriff's Office reported today.

Early Sunday morning at about 12:30 a.m., police say the two women were reciting the Rosary along a bicycle path near Kiger Stadium when Esparza attacked them.

"It's an extremely heinous crime," said Klamath County Sheriff Tim Evinger. "It's unbelievable. It's sickening."

Chaska died at the scene of her injuries, authorities said. Schoenhofen survived, and later described the assailant to police.

By yesterday morning, authorities were distributing a composite sketch with descriptive information about assailant throughout the area. The man was described as a Hispanic man in his 30s, approximately 5' 6" to 5'8" tall with a thin build, dark wavy hair and a mustache.

The sketch worked, authorities said today.

"We developed tips through community sources off of the composite sketch, and were able to track down and arrest the suspect," Swanson said. "He was a transient from Portland who arrived in Klamath Falls on the train last week."

According to the sheriff's office, a citizen tipped officers off to a man matching the description who was staying at a Klamath Falls motel. At about 8:05 p.m. last night, police contacted Esparza at the motel and brought him into the Klamath Falls Police Department for an interview.

Authorities said today that statements made by Esparza during the interview, combined with evidence collected throughout yesterday, led to Esparza's arrest early this morning.

I'm sorry these nuns were attacked and brutalized and one's life was taken.
That said, I I find their particular "order" to be as cultish and destructive as the Unification "Church" - Moonies. Sending impoverished women out to remote areas to sell religious arifacts for support as their ministry is a brutal life of sevice ... and just who is served by peddling artifacts?

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/85371_nun03.shtml

Slain nun had early religious calling

She belonged to strict order, devoted to helping needy

Tuesday, September 3, 2002

By LEWIS KAMB
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

Nearly 20 years ago, family members say Helen Lynn Chaska sacrificed a more ordinary life in the name of religion, vowing an oath of chastity and poverty to a fundamentalist Catholic order of nuns with one calling: to aid the sick, hungry and homeless.

At half past midnight Sunday morning, as the Bellevue-based nun recited the rosary while walking a bike trail in Klamath Falls, Ore., Chaska's humble life came to a horrific end.

Authorities say Maximiliano C. Esparza, a 32-year-old transient, was drunk when he came across Chaska and another nun on his bicycle.

He then allegedly brutalized the nuns, beating, strangling and raping them along the asphalt-paved path in an attack that Klamath County Sheriff Tim Evinger described as "sickening."

Chaska, 53, standing less than 5 feet tall and weighing less than 100 pounds, died at the scene from injuries suffered in the attack.

The other nun survived, and ran for help. Later, the 52-year-old woman described in detail the man who had attacked her.

Using a composite sketch of that description -- a Hispanic male in his 30s, short and thin, with dark wavy hair and a mustache -- police sought help from the public.

On information from a citizen, officers moved in on a Klamath Falls motel shortly after 8 p.m. Sunday. There, they contacted Esparza, eventually taking him to the Klamath Falls Police Department for an interview.

Authorities said Esparza spoke freely during the discussion, and that statements he made combined with evidence collected Sunday led to his arrest early yesterday.

Esparza is being held without bail in the Klamath County Jail in connection with 16 criminal counts that include aggravated murder, attempted murder, rape, sodomy, assault and kidnapping, said Michael Swanson, Klamath County deputy district attorney.

Klamath County District Attorney Ed Caleb said Esparza had just left "the only strip joint in Klamath Falls" before he attacked the women.

Yesterday, family members of the dead woman tried hard to make sense of the slaying -- the first news many had heard of Chaska in years. In pursuit of religion, they said, Chaska had fallen out of regular contact with members of her large family.

"Why would anyone attack a nun," her brother Jim Chaska asked during a telephone interview yesterday from his home in Beach, N.D.

"They certainly didn't have any money. My sister probably would have offered this man anything just to help him in any way."

That an encounter even occurred between Esparza and the two nuns -- both members of the Immaculate Heart of Mary order, a loosely knit Orthodox Catholic sect -- seems an unlikely coincidence.

Esparza "was a transient from Portland who arrived in Klamath Falls on the train late last week," Swanson said yesterday.

The nuns, meanwhile, apparently went to southern Oregon only last weekend to do ministry work. Residents had seen them Saturday selling religious items outside of local businesses.

Townsfolk said they were familiar with the two nuns, who apparently had traveled to small towns along the West Coast selling religious wares to raise money for living expenses and to support charitable efforts.

In a quiet Bellevue subdivision yesterday, a sign posted on the front door of a split-level yellow house where Chaska lived asked the media for privacy.

Neighbor Al LaTourette said the nuns are quiet and private types who have lived in the Lake Hills neighborhood home for about five years.

"They keep to themselves, except when they're trying to help someone," LaTourette said.

"They seem like a very fundamentalist order."

An office worker at the Sacred Heart parish in Bellevue said the local church serves as an answering service for the order of nuns, although a sister based in the parish said she is not familiar with the group.

Sister Mary Jo Nittle said she could not find any listings for the order in local Catholic directories.

According to a Pennsylvania-based Web site, the "Sisters and Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary," have served throughout North and South America for nearly 160 years, doing missionary work and establishing ministries.

Nuns, or "women religious," of the Catholic order take an oath to poverty, chastity and obedience, the site says.

Chaska's relatives said that she displayed a strong devotion to Catholicism at an early age.

"Religion was pounded into her as child," said Lyle Chaska, 74, of Minnesota, whose oldest brother was Helen's father.

Born the first of 10 children, Chaska grew up "a small girl with a roundish face scattered with freckles" in Beach, N.D. -- a small, rural town near the Montana state line, another uncle, Raymond Chaska, said yesterday.

"She pretty much played the mother hen to all of us," her brother Jim, the sixth child in the Chaska family, said.

"And when she got mad, she'd let you know it."

Chaska graduated from high school in Beach and attended college in Bismarck, Raymond Chaska said.

After college, she began devoting herself to Catholic charity work, and for a time, she worked with homeless children in Butte, Mont., he said.

Then, sometime between 15 and 20 years ago, Chaska moved to California to join a strict order of Catholic nuns, Raymond Chaska said.

"She had a car and a bank account with a little bit of money, and she turned everything over to them," he said.

"The family has always been pretty close, but when she took and left out West and joined that religious outfit, she didn't have any sort of outside life."

About three years ago, when Chaska's parents died, the family tried to contact Helen Chaska to have her return for a memorial service, Jim Chaska said.

But his sister had no money, and declined offers from relatives to pay her way home.

Yesterday, Jim Chaska said he hadn't seen his sister in 12 years. Raymond Chaska added that the last that he had heard from his niece was through a Christmas card about two years ago.

The only contact information provided for her was the name of a convent and a Seattle post-office box number, he said.

Jim Chaska said he only became aware of his sister's death yesterday afternoon, when a reporter called him.

Ever since, he's been trying desperately to contact his brothers and sisters, who are scattered throughout several Western and Midwestern states.

"It's so hard for me to even think right now," he said.

"I guess we need to try to decide what sort of arrangements to make. It's just such a shock."

While Chaska's family makes funeral arrangements, , the other nun who was attacked apparently is recovering from her injuries. She was treated at Merle West Medical Center in Klamath Falls and released Sunday.

Esparza, meanwhile, faces formal arraignment today. Authorities said yesterday that they may seek the death penalty.

Yet another article:

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apus_story.asp?category=1110&slug=Nun%20Killed

Man Charged in Ore. Nun's Slaying

Tuesday, September 3, 2002 ... Last updated at 5:47:01 PM PT

By JEFF BARNARD...ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER

KLAMATH FALLS, Ore. -- Police have charged a man with sexually assaulting a nun and strangling her with her rosary beads as she took a late-night stroll with another nun. The other woman was also sexually assaulted, police said.

Sister Helen Chaska, 53, became the first homicide victim in Klamath County this year when she was attacked while reciting the rosary as she and her companion strolled down a bike path just after midnight Sunday.

An autopsy showed she was strangled with her rosary beads, which became embedded in her neck. The other woman was treated at a hospital and released. Both were wearing their blue habits when they were attacked.

Maximiliano Esparza, 32, was charged with aggravated murder, kidnapping, assault, sodomy, sexual abuse and possession and delivery of a controlled substance. He was being held without bail at the Klamath County Jail. It wasn't immediately clear if he had obtained an attorney.

An arraignment that had been scheduled for Tuesday was postponed until Wednesday. Prosecutors said they plan to seek the death penalty.

Authorities described Esparza as a transient who arrived in Klamath Falls by train Friday. Police said they found him at a motel Sunday after getting a tip from someone who had seen a composite drawing based on the second nun's description.

The nuns, both of Bellevue, Wash., are members of the order of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, and were in Klamath Falls doing missionary work. They are self-described traditionalist orthodox Catholics, and are unaffiliated with the Roman Catholic Church.

As shaken residents placed flowers in the fence along the bike path, the slain nun's brother expressed shock.

"Why would anyone attack a nun?" Jim Chaska said during an interview with the Seattle Post-Intelligencer from his North Dakota home. "They certainly didn't have any money."

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