Sex and satanic rituals claim as priest is accused of murdering nun
By Andrew Gumbel in Los Angeles
28 April 2004
Depending on whom you believe, Gerald Robinson is either a quiet, somewhat remote, balding cleric who has faithfully served the Catholic Church for the past 40 years, or a sexual pervert and participant in bizarre Satanic rituals who killed a 71-year-old nun and covered up the crime.
Either way, the 66-year-old priest is the talk of the Rust Belt town of Toledo, Ohio, where he has been arraigned on murder charges and imprisoned in the county jail after his arrest last weekend.
His case is not only replete with details straight out of a Gothic melodrama, including one particularly lurid report of a ritual involving a teenage girl, a snake and a human eyeball. It is also once more throwing an unwelcome spotlight on the moral integrity of the Catholic hierarchy, which in this case supported Fr Robinson and allowed him to continue his pastoral duties even after he was formally placed under investigation for murder last year.