Posted on 04/25/2004 7:29:09 AM PDT by csvset
Toledo police detective Steve Forrester, left, and Tom Ross, an investigator with the Lucas County prosecutor's office, and formerly of the Toledo police, talk about the Robinson case.
Allegations made last year by a Toledo woman that she was sexually and physically abused as a child by Catholic priests during Satanic and sadomasochistic rituals led to the reopening of the 1980 case of a nun's murder for which the Rev. Gerald J. Robinson was arrested Friday, authorities said.
(Excerpt) Read more at toledoblade.com ...
I don't believe whatever she was subjected to was as diabolical as she is alleging.
More Victims of Priest Abuse Coming ForwardPLEASE, please, please note that this is the most recent update and it spells out, these victims are not stepping up to make accusations against Father Gerald Robinson, and, we want to emphasize none of the new victims are accusing him of anything.Posted at 11:45pm Wednesday
TOLEDO -- The murder case against a Toledo catholic priest has more victims coming forward. That according to a group representing victims of abuse. But these victims are not stepping up to make accusations against Father Gerald Robinson, the man accused of killing a nun 24 years ago.
Father Robinson is still in jail and we want to emphasize none of the new victims are accusing him of anything, but somehow his arrest appears to have given the victims courage to the point where SNAP Leader Claudia Vercellotti said in the past five days her phone has been ringing off the hook.
[...]
A University of Toledo religious studies expert Dr. Richard Gaillardetz said SNAP has done a great job for victims. He said all allegations should be investigated thoroughly although, there are occasions SNAP jumps the gun a bit. "I do think sometimes and I understand it, they are somewhat severe in their expectations about how quickly the church should act against accusations," Gaillardetz said.
[...]
We're told Bishop Leonard Paul Blair is in Rome, but we did talk to a diocese spokesperson who said the diocese doesn't know anything about new victims coming forward. The diocese has said in the past, it has made it a point to work with victims and help prevent any more abuse from happening.
Thank you WTOL, Ohio for your journalistic integrity!
I look forward to the usual BS spin of this story from CBS and other "fair and balanced" news outlets in the morning.
You'll have to take that up with the state legislature -- in this case, the Ohio state legislature. I don't make the rules, but historically murder has been considered too heinous to allow anyone to be officially "off" because a certain number of years has passed.
I'm not the one trying to explain or explain away anything. I've made some comments on what's been printed. Hopefully, the truth will out, but I don't know what it is and don't claim to.
There never was a "ritualistic ceremony." The ceremony part is a creation of the "fair and balanced" media.
I bet a million that none of the media sources will ever correct the lies they had published about this case. Why? Because it attacks the Catholic Church.
Please, read the newest update in my post below.
Altar cloth in Mercy Hospital hallway may expose nun's killer
Letter opener, scissors could have been weapon
by Robin Erb
Toledo Blade staff writer
April 29, 2004
On her way down a Mercy Hospital hallway, a Sisters of Mercy nun instinctively picked up neatly folded linen lying on the floor outside a chapel door on the morning of April 5, 1980.
Believing it to be a pillow case, she picked it up and took it into St. Joseph's chapel. She laid the simple cloth on a pew and - despite what she later described as an "eerie feeling" - went about her task of preparing organ music for that day's Holy Saturday services.
It wasn't until after her discovery moments later of murdered Sister Margaret Ann Pahl in the adjoining sacristy - and the ensuing chaos of responding doctors, distraught sisters, and a team of Toledo police investigators to the chapel - that someone unfolded the linen.
Blood?
Meanwhile, longtime Toledo attorney Alan Konop joined attorney John Thebes to defend Father Robinson. Though Mr. Thebes has known Father Robinson since childhood, Mr. Konop does not know the priest personally.
The crime scene
A day before Easter and her 72nd birthday, Sister Margaret Ann's body was found shortly after 8 a.m. in the sacristy of one of two chapels at the former Mercy Hospital.
She had been strangled, an altar cloth had been laid on her body, and her neck and torso had been stabbed up to 32 times. Her body was partially disrobed, and investigators at the time said it appeared that her killer wanted to make it look as though she was sexually assaulted.
A window blind in the sacristy had been lowered.
Sister Margaret Ann's eyeglasses lay on the marble floor nearby.
In later interviews with investigators at least three doctors responding to the scene under the code "Mr. Swift" told police they had checked the nun's pulse or breathing. However, they noted, her body was already cool to the touch.
The late Rev. Jerome Swiatecki knelt over her body to give her the last rites.
Through efforts to save the life of the elderly nun and follow the rites of the Catholic church, the original crime scene - where critical evidence such as fingerprints or blood evidence or smudges could provide clues to a killer - was compromised.
Neither investigators nor prosecutors would say just how much of the information taken from the scene is useful, but they have said that blood transfer pattern evidence is a key to the case.
Trying to save a life is certainly something that no one can criticize, said Art Marx, one of the original Toledo police detectives investigating the murder case.
"Your primary responsibility is for the safety of that victim," said Mr. Marx, who retired from the force in 1996.
In fact, investigators collected over the next several days two altar cloths, scissors similar to the ones Sister Margaret Ann Pahl used to cut wicks from candles at the hospital's two chapels, and a unique letter opener "shaped like a sword," documents obtained by The Blade indicate.
New techniques
Those items could now be subjected to new forensic investigative techniques.
"When I started in 1975 blood was something you cleaned up. It didn't have a forensic value to most people," said Norman Reeves, who spent 25 years in law enforcement and is the secretary-treasurer of the International Association of Bloodstain Pattern Analysts.
Members of that group interpret blood stains found at crime scenes, such as the shape, size, and location as they relate to the forces that created the stains.
Blood stain pattern analysis is not new. Information dating to the 1800s shows Europe used and experimented with blood stain pattern analysis, Mr. Reeves said. However, Toledo investigators may not have used the discipline in 1980 because it isn't something every law-enforcement agency was using because they lack knowledge or training.
Blood-stain evidence "can be extremely important or it may be nothing," said Herbert MacDonell, director of the Laboratory of Forensic Science in Corning, N.Y. "It can be a key piece of evidence. In other cases, it doesn't mean anything at all. You have to take each case individually."
Mr. Reeves gave an example of how a blood transfer pattern works: A knife handle with the name Chicago cutlery on it becomes bloody because it was in a suspect's hand. The suspect puts the knife on a counter. The Chicago cutlery wording could leave remains on the counter when the knife is picked up because the blood transferred the pattern.
Aside from determining where blood is found, it is crucial for investigators to determine where blood is not found, he said.
Mr. Reeves said experts do not generally form an opinion on one blood stain or one small group of blood stains if they are looking at photographs. However, if a blood transfer pattern that has identifiable characteristics is transferred to a surface they can study, the evidence may become more than circumstantial.
"It can be helpful in a case. Sometimes it can be pivotal," Mr. Reeves said.
From what he has heard about the Toledo case, he said, "I believe there is a contact transfer pattern that is significant in this case."
Many possibilities
Among the items seized at the time was a letter opener with a unique medallion taken from the room of Father Robinson at Mercy Hospital, documents show. Tests on the opener for blood proved inconclusive at the time, but a coroner's office review by Dr. Renate Fazekas, a forensic pathologist, indicated the letter opener "could have been the weapon used" in the stabbings.
Dr. Fazekas also determined at the time that a pair of scissors - requested by investigators and comparable to a missing pair of scissors that Sister Margaret Ann used to cut wicks from candles - "very well could have been the weapon" but would not say "with 100 percent certainty."
There were other possibilities too.
One hospital worker told police that she had lent a knife or scissors to one of the men who delivered laundry and that he had failed to return them. Another nun found a pocketknife that did not belong to her in an old cake box, where she stored odds and ends.
A housekeeper who had helped Sister Margaret Ann clean the chapels told police she had found a window open in a board room on the first floor the night before Sister Margaret Ann was killed.
Noting there had been recent thefts of hospital property, she was concerned enough to call security to search the room for her. They found nothing.
A medical records clerk told police that she was praying in the chapel, also on Good Friday, when the lights mysteriously went out and curtains near an emergency exit seemed to move.
Police conducted dozens of interviews with Mercy nuns, hospital employees, and even jail inmates.
Crime tips were few but had investigators seeking out suspicious loiterers and disgruntled employees.
In the days following the murder, investigators also sent clothes and fingerprints to evidence technicians. It is unclear how much of it proved helpful.
Fact or frenzy?
Today some of the frustration for investigators is the mingling of fact and rumors that have been believed for so long.
Among them, that lit candles were found around Sister Margaret Ann's body.
Despite numerous broadcast news reports, both locally and nationally, as well as a news wire report, candles were never found out of place in the sacristy, investigators have told The Blade.
Such misinformation frustrates people such as Lucas County Prosecutor Julia Bates, who this week issued a statement that her office no longer will comment on the case.
She said the national media "frenzy" over the case endangers both Father Robinson's right to a fair trial and the public's right to have him tried in the jurisdiction where the crime occurred.
"It's unfair to him and it's unfair to us," she said.
The case has been reviewed more than once.
Former Toledo police Officer Dave Davison, who this week accused Toledo police of failing to aggressively pursue Father Robinson as a suspect, said he asked police to look at the case again after he retired in 1990 as a result of a disability.
Former Toledo Police Chief Gerald Galvin remembers Mr. Davison's request well, he said, because investigators in the case that occurred long before he took the top post felt they knew who the killer was but were frustrated by a lack of proof.
"We had blood evidence, but we didn't have the DNA technology then," he said.
The now-retired police chief also recalled Mr. Davison's accusations of a coverup, but he dismissed them.
"There's always the concern on some people's part that this was a Catholic priest; so [the claims were that] we were reluctant to move forward," Mr. Galvin, a Catholic himself, said. "I never found that evidence."
He forwarded the original investigation files to then-Lt. Rick Reed, who attempted to interview Father Robinson, but the priest declined, Mr. Galvin said. Lt. Reed, who has since retired, could not be reached for comment.
Mr. Marx, who first handled the case, said he was certain at the time that whoever the murderer was, he or she was familiar with the hospital and with the routine of the sisters.
"My thoughts were: You're in the hospital, and you're not just in a hospital - you're in a chapel where there is a dining room and a religious community down the hall.
"And then you're in a chapel, and you go in the sacristy. What are the odds that a stranger is going to end up there?"
Blade Staff Writer Christina Hall contributed to this report.
It is heinous all right, so, either you find the murderer and punish for the crime within - say, 10 years - or, if ten years wasn't enough, you forget the whole thing instead of falling for the "ritualistic killing" and other imaginary BS as is this very case.
In this case it's is just a lowly letter opener - it needs to cut through paper, not bones.
That's what I thought you said,that's also how I look at it and that's why I pinged you. I also think the case is a key conflict in the current battle of the unending war between good and evil.
A shining example for ya from NBC,
Abuse Allegations Led To Murder Charge Against PriestThis last one an update of 1 hour ago. Thursday's Toledo Blade is quoted in this article. You would imagine the NBC "news" would like to inform the public in a "fair and balanced" fashion, but there is NOT A WORD OF CORRECTION from NBC about the lit candles around the corpse. I guess the spookier the better sale, and who cares about the pesky truth in the media?POSTED: 10:49 am EDT April 26, 2004
UPDATED: 10:56 am EDT April 26, 2004TOLEDO, Ohio [...] Robinson, 66, was charged Friday with killing Sister Margaret Ann Pahl, who was strangled and stabbed about 30 times on April 5, 1980. Her body was found in a hospital chapel, surrounded by lit candles with her arms folded across her chest.
Weapon Reportedly Connects Priest To Nun's Murder
UPDATED: 12:44 PM EDT April 27, 2004
TOLEDO, Ohio [...] The Rev. Gerald Robinson (pictured, left), 66, was charged Friday with killing Sister Margaret Ann Pahl (pictured, right), who was strangled and stabbed about 30 times on Easter weekend in 1980. Her body was found in a hospital chapel, surrounded by lit candles with her arms folded across her chest.
Church To Revisit Abuse Charges Against Priests
POSTED: 10:33 am EDT April 28, 2004
UPDATED: 10:36 am EDT April 28, 2004TOLEDO, Ohio [...] Pahl's body was found in a chapel, surrounded by lit candles and covered with an altar cloth.
Bishop Suspends Priest Accused Of Killing Nun
POSTED: 10:19 am EDT April 28, 2004
UPDATED: 10:28 am EDT April 28, 2004
TOLEDO, Ohio -- The Roman Catholic bishop of Toledo has suspended a priest charged in the 1980 killing of a nun whose body was found covered by an altar cloth and surrounded by burning candles in a hospital chapel.
Old Evidence Important In Nun's Murder
POSTED: 10:56 am EDT April 29, 2004
UPDATED: 11:00 am EDT April 29, 2004TOLEDO, Ohio -- Pieces of evidence... [This time there is not a word about the burning candles surrounding the corpse.]
They were outrageous, on their face, yet people rushed to believe the children ("five year old girls were vaginally penetrated with butcher knives").
Of course, every single accusation was false, and the children admitted they lied to please the social workers, but these people were ruined in the frenzy.
I don't believe the abuse accusations, and this priest likely had nothing to do with the murder.
It's a rush-to-judgment.
Murder in the chapelCathy too had the urge to be "fair and balanced" in her report. So, she wrote the dramatic title "Murder in the chapel" although the murder happened in a sacristy. She quoted someone talking about a "bull's-eye" in the case - so we already know the murderer, thank you Cathy.04/29/04
Catherine Gabe
Plain Dealer ReporterToledo - The details are both lurid and unfathomable. A priest accused of stabbing a nun to death more than two decades ago. Allegations of satanic rituals. Suggestions of a diocese cover- up.
[...]
Vercellotti says, "The diocese had the most information and did the least with it."
It has been widely published that the woman's allegations include being made to lie in a casket of cockroaches, eat a human eyeball and witness the slaying of a child and dogs.
Though the abuse allegations had nothing to do with the murder, it turned out to be "almost like throwing something at a dart board across a span of 24 years and it hit a bull's-eye," Vercellotti said. "It underscores how important it is for victims to come forward."
[...]
The sacristy and chapel have taken on an almost mythical sense, with some reports saying Pahl was found lying on the altar, arms crossed, altar vestments across her, candles lit.
[...]
To reach this Plain Dealer reporter:
cgabe@plaind.com 1-800-767-2821
And finally, Cathy could not pass up the opportunity to remind her readers that the corpse "was found lying on the altar, arms crossed, altar vestments across her, candles lit." Cathy, being a good reporter, "fair and balanced," and probably knowing by today that the last dramatic bit is a pure BS, preceded it with the "some reports saying..."
Dear Cathy, you deserve a long career in the journalistic profession. Crowds are hungry for your "fair and balanced" reports.
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