The Advocate, OH on Sunday, May 2, 2004,
Officer remembers chaos that followed nun's deathBy Advocate Staff Report
TOLEDO (AP) -- Dave Davison and another police officer were eating breakfast in Mercy Hospital's cafeteria before their day shift on Easter weekend in 1980.
Suddenly, the quiet conversation was broken by shouting.
"There's a dead nun!" a nurse yelled.
The two ran to the hospital's chapel where three doctors, eight nurses and a roomful of Roman Catholic nuns were trying to revive the woman on the floor.
It was too late.
Sister Margaret Ann Pahl, 71, had been strangled and stabbed in the chest and neck about 30 times. An altar cloth had covered her body before she was found. After help arrived, someone threw a different cloth over her face. Hospital chaplain Rev. Jerome Swiatecki performed last rites.
Now 24 years later, a priest who was the hospital's other chaplain is charged with murder in a ritualistic slaying that has the Toledo Diocese looking into claims of satanic sex abuse by priests.
The Rev. Gerald Robinson, whose attorney said he will plead innocent, is in jail on $200,000 bond. Prosecutors on Monday will announce whether a Lucas County grand jury decided to indict Robinson.
He was arrested after investigators analyzed blood patterns and concluded the murder weapon was "in the control of the suspect," police have said.
Soon after the nun's body was found, hospital employees were told to lock their doors and stairwells. Word began spreading that Sister Pahl had died a horrible death.
Davison and his partner staked out a bus station.
"At first, we didn't know if there was a monster, a mad man running around town," he said.
Before leaving, he had written down the names of everyone who had rushed into the chapel. When he began talking to them about who could have done such a thing, he said he heard the same answer repeatedly -- "Father Robinson" or "the priest."
"This is no secret," Davison said. "From day one, they said he did it."
He believes that high-ranking police bosses, who were Roman Catholic, did not allow investigators to aggressively pursue the case.
Ray Vetter, in charge of the detectives and is now retired, said there was never enough evidence to get a conviction. "It could've been the pope, and we wouldn't have let it stop us from investigating."
Vetter said Robinson always was a suspect because he was near the chapel at the time of the killing. His office was close by, and police collected several items from there.
A Toledo police detective who joined the homicide unit a few years after the murder said Vetter once asked him if he had any ideas on the case.
"That indicated to me that this bothered him, and he wanted to come up with more answers," John Tharp said. "When people talk about cover-up, that's ridiculous."
Police today say a woman who alleges she had been physically and sexually abused as a child by several priests, including Robinson, spurred them to take another look at the nun's slaying.
Investigators reopened the murder case in December after the county prosecutor's office received a letter, prosecutors said.
Following Robinson's arrest on April 23, three other people have come forward and say that they too were abused by priests in rituals years ago.
Detectives who investigated the nun's murder say that some type of ceremony had taken place, and that Robinson acted alone.
Those who worked at the hospital say Sister Pahl was always smiling and soft spoken. She spent most of her time in the chapel, a quiet place employees would visit after a bad day.
Sister Pahl rose before dawn on April 5, 1980, to prepare for services in the chapel. She ate breakfast in the cafeteria and then returned to chapel. Within little over an hour, a group nuns found her body.
She would have been 72 the next day.
She grew up with eight brothers and sisters on a farm near Edgerton, a small town near the Indiana state line. She told family members she always wanted to be a nun.
For several years, Robinson and Sister Pahl worked closely. He was the hospital chaplain and she was the chapel's caretaker.
Robinson celebrated her funeral Mass, but he didn't deliver the eulogy.
The victim's sister, Catherine Flegal, said she never spoke to Robinson and did not notice anything unusual about his demeanor during the funeral. He never mentioned his co-worker during the Mass, she remembered.
But something did happen that still leaves her at a loss.
"Right during the mass we had a storm go through and the wind blew so hard, everything just rattled," she said. "We thought the roof was going to come off.
"When we walked back out, we could see the whole west sky was just scarlet. I never experienced anything like that. It was just eerie. I really wondered what was going on."
Priest Indicted in Nun's 'Ritualistic' SlayingNote, how they CAN'T get rid of the "ritualistic" part - it sounds so good. More Americans trust Fox news than any other news.Monday, May 03, 2004
TOLEDO, Ohio — A Roman Catholic priest has been indicted on an aggravated murder charge in the slaying of a nun 24 years ago.
[...]
The nun's body was discovered in a chapel at Mercy Hospital, covered by an altar cloth. Investigators have described it as "ritualistic" slaying that has the Toledo Diocese looking into claims of satanic sex abuse by priests.
Robinson was released from jail Monday after supporters put together enough property to post a $400,000 property bond to cover his $200,000 bail. He said nothing before getting into a sport utility vehicle that was waiting for him.
[...]
Detectives have said the nun's death involved some type of ceremony and that they believe Robinson acted alone.
Robinson was arrested after investigators analyzed blood patterns and concluded that the murder weapon was in his "control." They have not identified the weapon or who owned it.
Investigators began to review the slaying after a woman contacted them alleging she was physically and sexually abused as a child by several priests, including Robinson, police said.
Three other people came forward after Robinson's arrest claiming they were abused by priests in rituals years ago. [...]