April 7, 2025 • 48 mins
On Holy Saturday, 1980, Sister Margaret Ann Pahl was found murdered in the Sacristy of the hospital chapel. Sister Margaret's death would remain unsolved for 24 years. Join us for Part One.
Intro music by Joe Buck Yourself
Hosts Heather and Dylan Packer
www.mountainmurderspodcast.com
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/mountain-murders--3281847/support.
Intro music by Joe Buck Yourself
Hosts Heather and Dylan Packer
www.mountainmurderspodcast.com
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/mountain-murders--3281847/support.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Dark Cast Network.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
Welcome to the dark side of podcasting.
Speaker 3 (00:12):
Witchcraft, the occult, extremist beliefs, murder. Tune in to Rogue
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and other belief systems. I'll cover a wide range of
(00:34):
crimes involving ritualistic killings and extremist beliefs, to cult persuasion
and supposed possession, anything and everything that borders the line
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A side B, and then the truth. Let's uncover the
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(00:55):
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simply by Chine Rogue Darkness. Devil is on his way.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
Devil is on his way.
Speaker 3 (01:25):
Devil is on his way. Mother, go the Devil gonna
make you pay.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
Fall to your knees.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
Devil is on his way. Fall to your knees.
Speaker 3 (01:35):
Devil gonna make you pay fall to your knees.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
Devil. Hey, y'all, welcome back to Mountain Murders. I'm Heather
and I'm Dylan, Hey, how's it going. It's going great,
It's going great. Yeah, you sound enthusiastic. Are you ready
to start the show.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
Let's go lying.
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Look, dude, we have got some patrons to think so
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patreon dot com, now was a great time to do that.
It's patreon dot com slash Mountain Murders Podcast. Dylan, Are
you okay over there? You look like you're having a
moment of pain. Are you pained?
Speaker 1 (02:41):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (02:41):
Is listening to the sound of my voice painful for you?
Speaker 1 (02:44):
No? No, that warms my heart.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
Welcome to marriage.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
No, it's I'm sure I went too hard in the
gym yesterday.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
I'm mad at you because I had a bad dream
about you. Now it's made me feel kind of like
annoyed with you. So one of those dreams for you
cheated on me and then broke up with me, and
so then I woke up like pissed off at you
because you were a dick in my dream.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
But it's not real.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
Well I don't care.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
This is real life now.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
It's made my head feel messed up today, and I'm
viewing you through a skeptical LUNs.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
Well, when you go to sleep tonight, I hope I apologize.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
Well, you never do. That's the thing about dreams, You
never do. Are you ready to get into today's case?
This is going to be a two parter? Okay, all right,
you ready?
Speaker 1 (03:32):
I'm been ready, all right.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
Margaret Ann Paul was born on April sixth of nineteen
oh eight near the village of Edgerton, Ohio. It was
an area where farmers battled searing summer heat and stinging
cold winters.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
Oh that sounds great.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
There were drafts, floods, and challenges to those who lived
alongside the Saint Joseph River not far from the Indiana border,
and Dylan, I, I visited this area last summer and
can attest that summer heat is in fact.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
Seering so it's very very intense heat.
Speaker 2 (04:09):
I was surprised. I mean, I guess, you know, you
think of the Midwest, and if you are not really
familiar with the climate there, I didn't imagine it would
be hot as the devil's balls. But guess what it was.
It was very, very, very very hot.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
Well, I have to say, as being a Southerner all
my life, we have a I guess we make an assumption,
like you know people do about areas. We assume the
further you go north it gets cool.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
That's what you think.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
Yeah, but it's not true, no, because you.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
End up somewhere like Michigan and it's the devil's butthole
in the summer, like it's super hot. Yeah, it's hot
in Massachusetts. Yes, absolutely. I think we take for granted
like that we live in the only place that gets
steaming hot in the summer. Of course, we're also battling
that humidity that comes with the deep South.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
Now, there certainly are different kinds of heat. Yeah, and
when people say it's a dry heat, it is much
more bearable, I think because nice humid heat, Oh my gosh,
as soon as you step outside, you're just like clammy
and your sweat doesn't evaporate.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
We've had a little bit of that already this week. Yes,
where we live it seems to skip from winter straight
to summer weather. There's no spring. I kind of missed
the Mountain spring when you still have like cool mornings,
cool evenings.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
And always count on a nice breeze.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
Yeah, we don't have that anymore. And it was just
hot as fuck. So the Paul family lived a lot
like the Amish, like how the Amish lived now. They
had no electricity, no indoor plumbing, which I think you know,
back in the early nineteen hundreds this was pretty common.
Margaret was one of nine children.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (05:54):
The Paul family used horses and mules to plow the land,
and spring horse drawn reaper harvested the crops in the fall.
Frank and Catherine Paul owned two hundred acres of farmland
where they grew wheat, corn, raised livestock like chickens, horses,
and cows. The family used oil lanterns at night, and
the only heat source was a woodstove. So again, I
(06:17):
think a lot of families live this way at the
turn of the century.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
Well, yeah, I mean that's not someone roughing it. If
you will that's just how most people live, you know,
short of affluent.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
I was going to say, my family lived this way
in the mid century. I mean, this is the way
my grandma grew up. And this was like all the
way up until like the sixties, before they really had
electricity and indoor plumbing and some of the modern amenities
we know today.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
Well, just having running water in your house and there's
any deal. Yeah, many places in the world today in
twenty twenty five don't have that, and that really is
a luxury.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
It's hard to imagine.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
Right.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
As a child, Margaret was described as diat hard working
and determined. Every morning before school, the children would do
chores like milking cows. So can you imagine getting up
at the krakodawon milking three or four cows before you
go to school? Uh no, right, I mean that's again
it's a little unimaginable in today's society.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
All I'd be milking is my frosted flakes.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
Then they walked a mile and a half to a
one room schoolhouse after having gotten up and done some
hours of work before they go to school. They had
further farm chores in the afternoons. At harvest, the children
were expected to shock the grain. The polls were devout Catholics.
Relatives like cousins, were nuns and priests. Catherine Flee Flagel,
(07:47):
Margaret's sister, recalled that her parents quote didn't miss many services,
so church was a really big part of their life.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
Now.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
From an early age, Margaret had a deep seated belief
in God, and she might someday become a nun. Like
this was something that she just kind of, I guess felt,
I'm a call. She was an ordinary child. I mean,
she had friends, she played, she had a really good
sense of humor. Yet she had always felt this higher
calling to serve God. In September of nineteen twenty seven,
(08:21):
the Paul family drove ninety miles east to Our Lady
of the Pines, a convent and retreat center just south
of Fremont, Ohio. Nineteen year old Margaret Anne professed her
vows to join the Sisters of Mercy, a religious order
founded in Ireland in eighteen thirty one. Not to be
confused with the band we saw last year.
Speaker 1 (08:42):
I'm sure you would not confuse them. Covenant, a covenant,
a convent, a convent, that's right? Or witches?
Speaker 2 (08:51):
Yeah, now, Margaret had left behind all of her personal belongings,
neatly packed and labeled for her younger sisters. She was
always no is being neat and tidy, and her sister
described Margaret as someone that needed everything. Just so, I
think we've probably all known those people. She left her
sister Mary Casbert a bright red jewelry box. So this
(09:14):
is a young woman who has no qualms with leaving
behind all of her personal possessions gifting those to her
sisters to go join a convent.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
Wow, I mean that that that's a really bold, brave move.
I think you know, to be able to just walk away,
you're basically saying this high this calling, this higher purpose
I feel deep inside is more important to you than
all these worldly possessions.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
Absolutely, Sister Margaret Anne spent two years as a novitiate.
I'm not very good at this side, don't Is that
a rookie I don't speak Catholic basically, yeah, Dylan, it's
like a rookie nun, followed by three more years in
the convent before she professed her final vows. I know,
(10:03):
like when you want to become a nun, there are
kind of a series of steps you don't just become
a nun right off the bat. You kind of do
this early thing where you're the rookie nun and you
kind of make your way through like a little process,
and then in a few years you take your final
vowels and you're a full fledged nun. So, yeah, maybe
(10:23):
she's like a nun apprentice. At this time, she took
a vow of chastity, poverty, obedience in service of persons
who were sick, poor, and uneducated, which were the vowels
of the Sisters of Mercy. At first, she took the
name Sister Mary Annunciata and were a ring to symbolize
(10:45):
that she was betrothed to Jesus Christ. I had to
stop recording just then because I was like plagued with
a coughing fit, and I think it's God punishing me
because I don't know anything about the Catholic Church and
I'm mispronouncing it.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
Oh my god, it was choked up on the Lord.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
Margaret completed her nursing training at Saint Rita's Hospital in Lima, Ohio.
The hospital was opened by the Sisters of Mercy in
nineteen eighteen and was originally founded to treat victims of
the influenza epidemic that claimed twenty million lives worldwide. With
intelligence and a dependable personality, sister Margaret advanced quickly into
(11:21):
leadership positions. She was promoted to flora supervisor in nineteen
thirty three and was then transferred two years later to
Toledo's Mercy Hospital, where she was appointed assistant superintendent of nurses.
She then spent a year teaching high school science at
a Catholic school. At twenty nine, Margaret was named superintendent
(11:42):
of nurses at Mercy Hospital in Toledo, which is a
pretty big deal. During World War II, Margaret was sent
to Tiffan, Ohio, where she worked as a floor supervisor
at another Mercy hospital, and by nineteen forty eight, she
was promoted to the top position at the hospital, serving
as a supervisor and an administrator. In nineteen fifty nine,
she was transferred to Toledo to run Saint Charles' Hospital,
(12:05):
one of the city's largest medical facilities. Margaret was considered
old school and was a perfectionist. She set high standards
for herself and got the job done. She expected those
around her to meet expectations and was quick to let
staff know if they were not rising to the occasion.
Speaker 1 (12:26):
So she took her position, and she took it seriously.
It sounds like she did.
Speaker 2 (12:31):
She wanted things done exactly the way she wanted it.
Margaret prayed often, but also had a very big heart.
Yet she is also known for speaking her mind. I mean,
she didn't really mind stating her opinion at all. So
you know, there was kind of like these two sides
of Margaret. The only outside activity that Margaret seemed to
enjoy was visiting her family in Edgerton. She would drive
(12:55):
her nephew's corvette when she was in town visiting.
Speaker 1 (12:58):
Oh wow.
Speaker 2 (12:59):
She also so indulged with opera music, so you know,
that was kind of her outside interests beyond the church.
At the age of sixty three, which it was in
nineteen seventy one, Margaret returned to Mercy Hospital in Toledo. However,
she had stepped back from her role as an administrator
and focused on pastoral care, serving as the sachristian, the
(13:24):
person responsible for making preparations for mass in the hospital's chapel.
And though she was steadily losing her hearing, sister, Margaret
continued working diligently to keep the chapel clean and ready,
as she found it rewarding to rise early and clean
God's house. Every day, she made sure there was a
supply of communion wafers, wine, anointing oil, holy water, candles,
(13:49):
and chalices. On April fifth of nineteen eighty that was
a Holy Saturday, the day before Easter and her seventy
second birthday. On Holy Saturday, there was no early morning
mass at Mercy Hospital, just a late afternoon service. In
nineteen eighty, the seventh floor of Mercy Hospital served as
a convent that housed seventeen nuns who were all trained nurses.
(14:13):
The sisters lived and worked around the sick and dying.
Each sister had her own room, along with a small
chapel for daily prayer. There were two kitchens on the
seventh floor, a common area, and a large bathroom with
like multiple showers like a communal bathroom. Most days, Sister
Margaret was up before dawn preparing the chapel for religious services,
(14:36):
but Holy Saturday was different. On this morning, the only
task Sister Margaret had was to strip the altars of
religious decorations, a symbol of the somberness of the day
and a reflection of Christian's mourning over the death of
their savior. She was allowed an extra thirty minutes of sleep,
so Sister Margaret arose at five thirty am.
Speaker 1 (14:59):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
She got to s sleeping late Dylan and late. Being
five point thirty am, the petit woman showered and quickly
dressed in the Sisters of Mercy uniform, which was a
blue sleeveless jumper over a white blouse and a black
veil tucked over her hair. Due to the Easter weekend,
many nuns and student nurses were either sleeping late or
they had gone home for the weekend. The hospital was
(15:21):
minimally staffed for the holiday. The first floor wing of
the hospital, where the main chapel was located, was unusually quiet.
Sister Margaret walked to the nuns dining area, picked up
an empty tray, and carried it to the sacristy next
to the Saint Joseph's Chapel, the last room in the
west wing. In the small sacristy, she gathered supplies, placed
(15:44):
them on this tray, and then carried it into the chapel,
kind of sitting it like on a front pew, so
that these items would be easily accessible. While she was
doing her work readying the chapel, cleaning up, setting everything up.
Margaret returned to the dining room and ordered breakfast from
the only other person present, Audrey Garaway. Garroway was a
(16:07):
cafeteria worker from Jamaica. In silence, the nun hastily ate
her breakfast, which consisted of a Grapefruit brand, cereal and coffee.
At around six forty five, she finished breakfast up and
told Audrey it was time to go quote fix up
the chapel.
Speaker 1 (16:23):
How did I know her breakfast would be very, very plain?
Speaker 2 (16:27):
I don't know, Dylan.
Speaker 1 (16:29):
How'd you know Grapefruit brand, cereal and coffee?
Speaker 2 (16:33):
Yeah, okay, sounds healthy, sounds like a breakfast we should
be having.
Speaker 1 (16:37):
Yeah, I'm not gonna eat that.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
No, you're gonna go fry some sausage, jup, aren't you?
Speaker 1 (16:42):
Well yeah, see, I just tell myself that's protein. I'm
getting sausage and eggs. And you know, if I'm feeling
sassy or if it's a cheap breakfast, I would have
like a waffle or something with some maple syrup.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
If it's a cheap breakfast, cheat. Oh, I thought you
said a cheap breakfast, And I was like, since when
her waffle's cheap bud and time consuming.
Speaker 1 (17:04):
So much work and putting to.
Speaker 2 (17:05):
Get out a waffle maker, and they got to clean
it up so good. Though, Sister Margaret went about her
day of cleaning the chapel, and like I mentioned before,
she was hard of hearing, and though she was approaching retirement,
she kept putting it off because she found her work
as the sacristan very fulfilling. It kept her busy and
(17:26):
it was also like a little bit more relaxing than
the previous jobs she had held in nursing and administration.
Those were very stressful jobs and this one really wasn't
very stressful for her, but she found it rewarding, so
she kind of kept on working. Now, the hearing problem
was a growing concern because Sister Margaret was having trouble
carrying on basic conversations now due to this hearing issue.
(17:49):
Sister Margaret had no idea that someone had entered the
chapel and had kind of creeped into the sacristy, which
is kind of like a big room where she keeps
all of her supplies. Right now, as Sister Margaret stood
on her tiptoes, she's on a chair on her tiptoes
(18:10):
trying to reach a top shelf. She must have at
some point felt a piece of cloth drop over the
top of her head, and by now the cloth had
already tightened around her neck. The perpetrator snapped the cloth tight,
which broke two small bones in Sister Margaret's neck. Once
the nun went limp, the assailant lowered her onto the
(18:33):
terizo floor. Sister Margaret was still alive, barely damn point.
Speaker 1 (18:39):
So she's been attagged.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
Kneeling over her body, the assailant removed the cloth, which
was a large white linen ultarcloth, and laid it out
kind of folded over onto the woman's torso. A crucifix
was removed from the cabinet and placed over Sister Margaret's
heart upside down. The letter opener was used like a
(19:01):
dagger to plunge into the nuns chest. And we're going
to get into this letter opener and initially the crime.
The detectives they're not really sure what the weapon is,
but I've gone ahead and give you a little spoiler here.
It's a letter opener. It was used like a dagger
to plunge into the nuns chest. And when the blade
(19:22):
was pulled out, blood seeped through the altar cloth. She
was stabbed again, just above the collarbone. This woman was
stabbed a total of thirty one times.
Speaker 1 (19:33):
Damn. That's so. We've talked about this before. But stabbing
someone over and over and over, and even though I
guess sometimes likely post mortem is just it's just very
vicious and it takes a real monster to do something
like that.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
Now, after the killer had completed this task of mutilating
this woman.
Speaker 1 (19:58):
And posing her, well, what's the Oh, I'm sorry with
the cross and all that. I mean, that's pretty.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
Okay, I know, but she's just slow down for a minute.
The killer then rolled up the hem of the nun's
dress like to her bra. He yanked the girdle and
pantyhose down off of her until they dangled like from
her right ankle. Then he took the crucifix and violated
her corpse with it.
Speaker 1 (20:24):
Oh my god.
Speaker 2 (20:26):
Sister Madeline Marie Gordon was glad to get this extra
hour of sleep on a chili April morning, and after
readying herself, she went to the cafeteria for breakfast. She
spoke with Father Swyteki, a large, boisterous priest who was
kind of easy going and liked to talk. Sister Madeline
Marie was the chapel's organist. She explained to father's Swyteki
(20:50):
that after breakfast she would be checking the sheet music
for the service. When she approached the chapel, the door
was opened and the lights were on. When she approached,
a wight cloth was lying on the floor just kind
of outside the chapel door. She assumed housekeeping might have
dropped like a pillowcase by accident or whatever, so she
picked it up, and as she entered the chapel, she
(21:11):
had this kind of odd feeling sweep over her. On
the front pew, she saw Sister Philip, another nun, silently praying.
The decorations which were supposed to be taken down for
this holiday were only half like removed, and so the
job was only half done. And Sister Madeline thought this
(21:32):
was odd because she didn't see any sign of Sister Margaret,
and it looked like Sister Margaret had started the job
but hadn't finished it right, so again just a little strange.
She spotted a green tray with a lot of items
on it kind of resting at the front pew, so
she assumed for some reason, Sister Margaret had stopped working
kind of in the middle of the job for some reason.
(21:54):
She didn't really know what was happening. She pulled out
her rosary and began reciting the morning prayer. Afterwards, she
went over to the organ to check the sheet music
for the Saturday for the Holy Saturday service. Going over
the music list, there was nothing written down about a
closing song. Father Gerald Robinson, who was responsible for selecting music,
(22:15):
must have forgotten to write it down. It was eight
fifteen when Sister Madeleine went to find a phone she
needed to speak with Father Robinson regarding the music. The sacristy,
which was closest to the chapel, a room with a
phone that was closest to the chapel was locked, which
she thought was odd because again, if Sister Margaret's working,
(22:36):
she's kind of in and out of this room, like
why she got the door locked. So then of course
she thinks it's strange, and she's like, well, you know,
maybe she had to leave and she was afraid to
leave this door unlocked. For whatever reason, it just so
happened that Sister Madeleine had a key to the sacristy
and was able to unlock the door. When she entered
(22:58):
the room, it was dark, but she noticed something on
the floor. The hospital had been recently conducting like CPR classes,
and she thought someone had left the practice dummy in
the sacristy. The only light in the room was coming
kind of from from the chapel, so she bends down
(23:19):
to get a closer look at the mannequin, but screams
in horror when she realizes it's Sister Margaret Ann.
Speaker 1 (23:25):
Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2 (23:26):
Now, as soon as Sister Madeleine screamed, Sister Philip jumped
up from praying. Sister Madeleine shouted, Sister Margaret Anne has
been raped. Now at this point, Sister Philip has jumped up,
She's kind of run to the sacristy, and that's when
she finds the non lying on the floor. Her arms
were straight by her sides and the legs were flat
(23:47):
on the ground, kind of going straight out from the body.
A very strange position.
Speaker 1 (23:52):
It's a kind of an unnatural position.
Speaker 2 (23:53):
So when you mentioned posing, I was like, wait a minute,
there's more, because she's almost posed in this very unnatural way.
I mean, no one just dies and falls down in
this very straight position right. The victim's face was badly swollen.
Sister Madeline Marie was shouting kind of uncontrollably in the chapel.
(24:13):
I mean, who wouldn't be completely shocked and afraid and
you know, kind of overcome with emotion. With most of
the offices empty due to the holiday, there were only
a few nuns and father swaya techi who heard the commotion.
They jolted down the hallway from the dining area to
see what could be wrong. Sister Phyllis Ann Gerald, administrator
(24:36):
and CEO of Mercy Hospital, learned that Sister Margaret Anne
was dead on the sacristy floor. Her first instinct was
to perform CPR or try to save the nun's life,
but she quickly judged that it was too late. Though
she had worked saving patients' lives for decades and she
had seen many a patient expire, the scene in the
(24:58):
sacristy was unlike anything shed ever witnessed. It left her
with a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach.
She said, quote the horror, the horror, It was just
the weirdness of it. She described the body as being
in a ritualistic type of position. It seemed abnormal for
Sister Margaret Anne's arms and legs to be so straight.
(25:20):
She said, quote, people don't usually die very straight, and
she's right. Another peculiarity noted by the witnesses was the
lack of blood. Sister Margaret Anne had been stabbed over
thirty times, but there was very little blood. The majority
of the blood was about a nine inch pool just
(25:41):
around her head, but that was it. And so for
her to be stabbed thirty one times and there'd be
such a little amount of blood, that was very strange,
very weird.
Speaker 1 (25:51):
Well what did that mean to you? Because I have
an idea.
Speaker 2 (25:55):
That she was stabbed a post mortem.
Speaker 1 (25:56):
Yeah, that one of the first couple few strokes killed her,
stopped her heart, and then the rest of it was
post mortem. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:04):
Well, I mean the strangulation almost had her there, so
it didn't take much to christ poor lady. A mister
Swift call was announced over the hospital's alert system, which
indicated a patient needed serious help.
Speaker 1 (26:20):
So it's doctor, I'll come call.
Speaker 2 (26:23):
Yeah, come one, come on, we need your help. Two
police officers with the City of Toledo happened to be
finishing breakfast in the cafeteria when they received the telephone call,
but it was the end of their shift. They worked
like the midnight to eight shift, so they were almost
off duty. They were a little reluctant to answer this call.
(26:44):
One of them said he expected it to be something
quote screwy, like a fight in the waiting room between
drunk people.
Speaker 1 (26:53):
So they're just tired, they're ready to go home. Yeah,
we're ready to get some rest. Figure some run of
the mill bs.
Speaker 2 (26:59):
Yes, just something ridiculous that's gonna keep them there longer. However,
the call was alerting them that a nun had died
in the chapel, and the officer said, quote, right when
I hung up, a nurse came running into the cafeteria
and said, we've got a dead nun in the sacristy. Now,
(27:20):
it didn't take long for the officers to see that
they had a murdered nun on their hands. There was
nothing natural about this death. When one of the officers,
named Davidson, who was first on the scene, asked the
other nuns kind of like, who do you think would
have done this? Or you know, they're kind of talking
a little bit off record, chatting, several of them said
(27:43):
father Robinson or quote the priest.
Speaker 1 (27:46):
Oh gosh.
Speaker 2 (27:47):
Officer Davidson also had a concern that valuable evidence had
been destroyed by the rush of nuns and medical workers
who had tried to help. I mean, it was understandable
that they came in, they tried to help, they thought
they were doing something good here. But he's also like, oh, no,
this crime scene has been destroyed basically.
Speaker 1 (28:09):
Well, and you're dealing with people who are used to helping, right,
helping others, you know, you know, for whatever reason. So
it's just natural for them to you know, rush in
and this is one of their own, and this is
one of their.
Speaker 2 (28:23):
Definitely feeling like they need to step in here. But
if the killer had left fingerprints or footprints, I mean,
the integrity of the crime scene was definitely tampered with
at this point, right. The lead detective on the case
would be a man named Arthur Marx, who was known
for his mustache and snazzy dress.
Speaker 1 (28:45):
Oh wow, yeah, he.
Speaker 2 (28:47):
I guess moonlighted at a men's clothing store where he
was able to get discounted suits, so he was kind
of known as a fashionistaff Yes. Now, he told sister
Phyllis they needed to set up a command post inside
the hospital. She offered a boardroom just a few doors
away from the chapel where they could kind of set
up this command post. Detective Marx had investigated hundreds of
(29:10):
homicides and had your reputation as being no nonsense and
like a bit of a bulldog, tenacious, he's not going
to give up, and he's really good at what he does.
Others called him a cops cop. He was also one
of the few on the force who had used deadly
force when necessary. So, you know, again he's got a
bit of a reputation fucking around, find out kind of guy.
Speaker 1 (29:33):
Yeah, it sounds like a real a real cop, you know,
like a bosh or something, a man's man.
Speaker 2 (29:41):
Now, the murder of a nun hurt him deeply, and
he felt that she did not deserve this kind of fate. Now,
while they're, you know, kind of initially checking out this
crime scene, a call comes over the police radio that
less than a mile away at the Greyhound bus station,
there was a man acting suspiciously, so they were ordered
to go to the Greyhound station. When the officers arrived,
(30:06):
they found no person fitting the description of this alleged
suspicious person and knowing at the bus station had made
the call, so they wasted twenty minutes sort of investigating
this ruse.
Speaker 1 (30:21):
So who called it in? I want?
Speaker 2 (30:23):
Well, I don't know, Dylan, but you know, this is
what we call a red herring. Now, years later, Officer
Davidson will push to reopen Sister Margaret's cold case, and
we're going to discuss more of that in a few minutes,
and we're going to definitely get into that in our
part two. Now, Davidson theorized that police and the diocese
(30:44):
conspired to protect the Catholic Church and the true killer's identity.
So we have a lot to talk about in part two.
It's going to be amazing. So you're gonna want to
stick around.
Speaker 1 (30:54):
Well, no, no, look, that's ridiculous notion that the Catholic
Church would go out of its way to protect people
that have harmed others. Yeah, I mean, it's just I mean,
come on, it's never are you writing some kind of
a fantasy novel?
Speaker 2 (31:09):
At this point, I am now Immediately everyone at the
hospital starts pointing fingers at Father Gerald Robinson. It seemed
no one liked him. Everybody was saying kind of in
whispers that they knew the priest did it. Everyone at
Mercy seemed to hate Father Robinson. Wow, yeah, but moving along.
(31:32):
So evidence was collected, including fingerprints and hair, which was
sent to the crime lab. Detective Marx felt it was
safe to assume the killer was someone who had known
sister Margaret Anne. The nune was five to two and
weighed about one hundred and thirty five pounds, so it
didn't take much to murder this elderly woman. But the
crime was kind of bizarre in its overkill, right, he felt.
Speaker 1 (31:55):
Well, and that makes them think it's personal.
Speaker 2 (31:59):
The choking itself, elf, had been enough to murder the
old lady, but then the stabbing and the way the
killer had tried to degrade the woman in death by
pulling down her underclothes to expose her pubic area was
personal and curious. Detective Mark speculated the killer must have
really disliked the nun. The possible motive of robbery was
ruled out right away, as nothing had been stolen from
(32:21):
the sacristy, not even gold plated chalices or any of
the other valuables that were held there. Father Robinson, the
hospital's chaplain, was nowhere to be, nowhere to be found.
So sister Phyllis, now if you remember, she's like the
CEO of the hospital. She immediately calls his residence, which
(32:41):
is located in the hospital. The forty one year old priest,
who was a Toledo native, said he had just gotten
out of the shower when he was informed about the
possible rape and murder. Robinson said he would dress and
be there soon. But guess what, Dylan, he never did
show up at the scene.
Speaker 1 (32:59):
Say else is shocked, rushing to the scene, trying to
figure out what's happening, and this guy, this is very
suspicious behavior.
Speaker 2 (33:07):
The hospital employed fourteen hundred people. Detective Mars deduced that
he would not need to interview everyone, and instead he
wanted to focus on the employees who had been on
the night shift and the people working this weekend and
this specific holiday weekend, so that would trim down the
list a pretty good bit. I mean, can you imagine
if you had to go interview fourteen hundred people. That's
(33:29):
a lot. That is a lot and probably unnecessary. I mean,
I think he's on the right track here. Now. A
housekeeper named Valerie Burning was called in to clean up
the chapel in sacristy after police wrapped up their search
an initial investigation. Two days later, when she was set
(33:49):
to clean father Robinson's apartment, she's, you know, doing her
little thing, dusting, cleaning up, make the bed, and that's
when she spots a nine inch sword shaped letter opener
just sitting on top of his desk. And for some reason,
this letter opener sent chills down the twenty three year
(34:10):
old woman's spine. She had this bad feeling sweep over her.
She quickly left the apartment and never went back.
Speaker 1 (34:18):
Damn.
Speaker 2 (34:19):
Yeah, so that's interesting right. Over the next three weeks,
six hundred interviews were conducted. Most of the interviews were
not beneficial to the case. A one, doctor Jack Baron,
described to officers that he had rushed to the chapel
after hearing that mister Swift call and had accidentally taken
(34:44):
a wrong turn, like down another hallway, and that's when
he inspotted a priest who was maybe thirty five to
forty five years old, wearing clerical garb. The priest made
eye contact with the doctor quote in a stare that
went right through me. The description was a match for
father Robinson. Now, Dylan, you're taking this in Yeah, what
(35:07):
do you think? What are your thoughts so far?
Speaker 1 (35:11):
Well, with the information you've presented thus far, I think
you would have to be wandering about father Robinson, right.
Everyone kind of sounds like he's already not that popular.
People don't really like him. He's everyone else was up
(35:31):
and about, you know, it seems, and he's the one
who's still taking a shower. Oh, I'll be right over.
He doesn't show up. I mean, it seems very suspicious
to me, suspicious behavior.
Speaker 2 (35:42):
A lab technician named Grace Jones, not to be confused
with the Awesome eighties icon, she had seen a priest
walking out of the chapel carrying a Duffel bag. She
wasn't sure of the time, but knew it was sometime
like after seven am, when Robinson was fine. Only interviewed,
he told detectives he'd been in his two room apartment
(36:04):
residents at the hospital the entire morning. He was drying
off after a shower when sister Phyllis alerted him there
had been a murder. He claimed he had never left
the apartment until the call came in. Yet Detective Marx
and his team of detectives felt something was just not
quite right. With father Robinson. Now, the autopsy reports was
(36:29):
grim as you can imagine. Dylan sister Margaret had six
stab wounds to the left I believe it was the
left side of her face, fifteen wounds to the left
part of her neck, and nine wounds to the chest.
The instrument used was a blade at least three inches
long and a half inch wide. It didn't have a
flat blade like most knives. It had a blade with
(36:51):
four sides, kind of cross shaped, described as diamond or
a kite shape.
Speaker 1 (36:58):
Okay, so is Yeah, that kind of makes me.
Speaker 2 (37:01):
Think of like a like the like a screwdriver.
Speaker 1 (37:05):
Well, yeah, it makes me think of I ou't of
most if our listeners have ever seen an old Tommy nail.
It's almost square in shape. It's not flat, it's not smooth,
you know, you know, it's almost three or four sided
if you will.
Speaker 2 (37:21):
Yeah, okay, yeah. Now, detectives looked into the possibility that
a pair of scissors, like maybe sewing scissors could have
been used. The pathologists would not say with one hundred
percent certainty whether the scissors could have been the murder weapon,
just said, well it's a possibility. Now. The corner thought
the wounds to Sister Margaret's face were made with an
(37:43):
instrument much sharper than a pair of scissors, like they
the pathologist did not believe that a pair of scissors
could have done this kind of damage, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (37:52):
Because they typically have like a blunted end on them,
you know they do.
Speaker 2 (37:56):
Two days later, Sister Margert Ann's funeral was held at
Our Lay of the Pines Retreat Center at the Saint
Bernardine Chapel on April eighth of nineteen eighty. Over two
hundred people attended. Father Robinson, who had worked with Sister
Margaret Ann for six years, would lead the funeral service. Now,
during the service, a massive storm swept through northern Ohio region,
(38:18):
knocking out power to about twenty thousand homes. People described
this funeral service and this storm as like rattling the chapel,
like shaking the windows.
Speaker 1 (38:31):
Damn.
Speaker 2 (38:31):
The wind was blowing out of control at very high speeds.
Sister Margaret's brother in law, Paul case Bear said, quote,
it wouldn't have surprised me one bit if the roof
hadn't come off the church.
Speaker 1 (38:46):
So it's just as out of the ordinary strong storm, right.
Speaker 2 (38:50):
Yeah. Now she was buried at the Saint Bernardine Cemetery.
All of these sisters of mercy from the Midwest region
are buried there. Sister Margaret and Paul's body would remain
there for twenty four years until May of two thousand
and four, when investigators exhumed the body for DNA evidence. Now,
as the days passed in the investigation, and I know,
(39:11):
I'm kind of giving a little bit away here, but
we're really going to get into a lot of this
in the second part of the story. Now, as the
k I'm sorry. As the days passed into this investigation,
the trail seemed to grow cold. Even a twenty four
thousand dollars reward offered did little but just bring out
the crazies. People called in, accusing their bosses of the crime.
(39:33):
A spurned gay lover accused his ex boyfriend of hating
the Catholic Church, so he must be the killer.
Speaker 1 (39:40):
Cody did it. I know it. I know it in
my heart.
Speaker 2 (39:44):
I know it was LEVI. Now, the lack of evidence
was frustrating for investigators, but it seemed that all fingers
were pointing at Father Robinson. Finally, on April eighteenth, Detective
Marks paid Robinson a visit. He noted the priests had
very little to say. The initial greeting was brusque, and
(40:05):
the priest just I mean, he just didn't have a
very good personality. He seemed like a little bit of
a dickhead. Right now, Marx was grilled or Marx, I'm sorry,
grilled the priest for eight hours. Investigators noted inconsistencies in
his statements about his activities and whereabouts on the morning
of April fifth. Afterward, Robinson would claim that the detectives
(40:29):
had been quote forceful during the interview, but admitted they
had never like outright accused him of murder. Now, at
the end of the interview, Robinson was in a bit
of an agitated state, and he told Detective Marx that
someone had approached him on Wednesday and confessed that he
had killed the nun, this random person.
Speaker 1 (40:50):
So he offers this information up after only after being
questioned eight hours, right, I mean, that's ridiculous.
Speaker 2 (40:58):
Well, Detective Marx knew that anything divulged to a priest
during confession is held with the strictest confidence. A priest
would never reveal what was said during confession, and if
a priest did tell, he could be excommunicated. From the
Catholic Church. So, after being pressed by Detective Mars, Robinson
then admitted he had made the whole thing up. No
(41:20):
one had confessed he was lying. Detective Marx asked, father,
why would you make up such a story, and Father
Robinson replied, I was trying to protect myself. Okay, yeah, Now,
as the detectives went to search Robinson's apartment, father Swya Techi,
(41:40):
now they're walking to the apartment to go search it.
Father Swya Techi yells at the priest, quote, tell them
what you know, Just tell them the truth.
Speaker 1 (41:50):
Damn.
Speaker 2 (41:51):
Detectives kind of found this showcase to be a bit
more than strange.
Speaker 1 (41:58):
Yeah, I mean, could you imagine what you're thinking if
you are the investigators. I mean, this is like something
out out of a scripted movie.
Speaker 2 (42:05):
Well, of course, when the detectives are like, what was
that about Father Robinson's like, I don't know, I don't know.
The letter opener belonging to Robinson was taken into evidence. Now,
the crime lab revealed that the letter opener had been
wiped clean. They did some like chemical tests, you know,
trying to find blood or fingerprints all of that stuff,
(42:27):
and guess what, Dylan there were no fingerprints on it,
which is very out of the ordinary if someone is
using it regular to open letters. It was devoid of fingerprints, dust,
or any kind of contact. The letter opener was described
by the lab tech as quote being some some sometuously clean.
Speaker 1 (42:48):
Sometuously Yes.
Speaker 2 (42:50):
So it sounds like somebody like really took the time
to clean the fuck out of this.
Speaker 1 (42:53):
Letter opener, which is abnormal.
Speaker 2 (42:55):
Is the layman's terms here.
Speaker 1 (42:57):
Yeah, but that's something that lays around on someone's desk
or bureau or whatever. Yes, and it's typically not something
you would wipe down because no reason for it to
be dirty. No, you're just opening letters with it.
Speaker 2 (43:09):
Yes, so clear of any fingerprints. Strange, right, Yeah. Robinson
was subjected to two polygraph exams, both of which came
back like inconclusive. After the second polygraph, he was interviewed again,
and about an hour into this interview, the monsignior of
(43:31):
the I guess Toledo like Dianonyte.
Speaker 1 (43:35):
What is it?
Speaker 2 (43:35):
Dia the diocese diocese, the Dionysies is like a Greek
god or something. Oh, really, it's awesome diocese. That's the
term I was looking for. Yeah, along with an attorney arrived,
the deputy police chief interviewed, I'm sorry, interrupted this interview,
which is highly unusual. Like you typically, like protocol is
(43:58):
you don't barge in an interview room when detectives are
interrogating someone, right, right, So this deputy police chief arrives,
he barges in the interview room, grabs father Robinson and
escorts him out to meet the monsignor. These detectives are
just like what it seemed. The interview was officially over,
(44:22):
Robinson is whisked away, and with that the case goes
called for twenty four years and we are going to
pick this back up on part two.
Speaker 1 (44:31):
Oh my gosh, what do you think, Dylan? So the
investigators are just left with all these abnormal things happening,
their balls basically barging in, grabbing the suspect, turning him
over to someone else, and he's just gone, and it's
(44:52):
just the end of it.
Speaker 2 (44:53):
That's it, howls it.
Speaker 1 (44:55):
I mean, how what would you be thinking? If you
were the investigator, you'd be like.
Speaker 2 (44:59):
What, well, this is our top suspect so far it
seems yeah, you know, I mean we all know that
the polygraphic exams we've set up four junk science subjective.
But the fact that he's inconclusive on both of these
and he's acting weird. He's not past them with flying colors.
(45:20):
I mean, inconclusive shows like, yeah, we don't know, we
don't know if this guy did it or not. Right,
we can't tell if he's being honest or telling the truth.
You've got this letter opener which seems to have this
design that matches the wounds. Right, it's been wiped clean.
He never showed up to the crime scene. He's behaving suspiciously.
(45:42):
Everyone's whispering about this guy. Yeah, it seems that for
whatever reason, nobody liked him, and he's like the top
of everyone's list of like who could have done this,
and they're.
Speaker 1 (45:56):
Putting pressure on him, trying to you know, turn the screws,
if you will.
Speaker 2 (45:59):
And then the Catholic Church somehow is able to swoop
in and take him away and shield him under their
you know, robe of innocence or whatever they're veil of shadows.
That's it, Yes, gosh, okay, And we know I mean,
I'm not trying to disparage Catholicism or the Church, but
(46:21):
I mean, we know the Catholic Church is plagued with
problems of this variety, that members you know of the
clergy have been found guilty of crimes, and that there
have been mass cover ups. I mean we've all known
that it's been happening for years and years.
Speaker 1 (46:40):
Yeah, I mean, it's like any organization, except this one
just happens to be thousands of years old and just
insanely powerful. It's the questionable actions by the leadership or
certain have certainly been documented many many times over the years.
So really it would really makes you wonder.
Speaker 2 (47:00):
All right, Dylan Well will be back with a part two.
I know I've given a little bit away here in
part one, but I just want to entice you to
come back and listen to part two because it gets
even more interesting.
Speaker 1 (47:13):
Yeah. I need to know what happens now. Absolutely, Thanks
again to our new patrons.
Speaker 2 (47:18):
Thanks to our new patrons and our.
Speaker 1 (47:20):
Old patrons and all our listeners. Thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (47:23):
Yeah, and don't forget to check out our website Mountain
Murderspodcast dot com. From there you can access Patreon. We
also have links to our merch store. We have some
new merch designs, so you want to make you sure
you check that out. Got some really cute designs for
springing summer. You're looking for a little tank top action,
you need a cool shirt to wear over your beach
(47:44):
beach gear when you go to the pool or going
to the ocean, or you just don't want to be
really cool and Rep Mountain Merders got some great designs.
Speaker 1 (47:52):
Check that out. Check it out.
Speaker 2 (47:54):
All right, Dylan, it's been great talking to you. I
hope you have a fantastic week. And of our patrons,
and we love our listeners
Speaker 1 (48:02):
But all those things are true, and until next time,
Bye bye,
Dark Cast Network.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
Welcome to the dark side of podcasting.
Speaker 3 (00:12):
Witchcraft, the occult, extremist beliefs, murder. Tune in to Rogue
Darkness each Friday and join host Raven as I uncover
horrific crimes committed under the misconceptions and misunderstandings of witchcraft
and other belief systems. I'll cover a wide range of
(00:34):
crimes involving ritualistic killings and extremist beliefs, to cult persuasion
and supposed possession, anything and everything that borders the line
of horrifying. There's always three sides to a story. Side
A side B, and then the truth. Let's uncover the
truth together and explore the darkness of mankind, one crime
(00:55):
at a time. Available wherever you get your podcast fix,
simply by Chine Rogue Darkness. Devil is on his way.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
Devil is on his way.
Speaker 3 (01:25):
Devil is on his way. Mother, go the Devil gonna
make you pay.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
Fall to your knees.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
Devil is on his way. Fall to your knees.
Speaker 3 (01:35):
Devil gonna make you pay fall to your knees.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
Devil. Hey, y'all, welcome back to Mountain Murders. I'm Heather
and I'm Dylan, Hey, how's it going. It's going great,
It's going great. Yeah, you sound enthusiastic. Are you ready
to start the show.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
Let's go lying.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Look, dude, we have got some patrons to think so
I'm excited. I'm in a great mood. We have these
new patrons. Welcome y'all. We've got Kanya, Nicole and Angela.
Speaker 1 (02:13):
Thank you. Thank you so much for supporting us at
the patreons and we hope you enjoyed all that ad
free and extra content.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
Yeah, we're gonna get a new Patreon out this week
as well. We've we've gotten a few bonus episodes posted
there on Patreon. So if you've ever thought about joining
patreon dot com, now was a great time to do that.
It's patreon dot com slash Mountain Murders Podcast. Dylan, Are
you okay over there? You look like you're having a
moment of pain. Are you pained?
Speaker 1 (02:41):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (02:41):
Is listening to the sound of my voice painful for you?
Speaker 1 (02:44):
No? No, that warms my heart.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
Welcome to marriage.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
No, it's I'm sure I went too hard in the
gym yesterday.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
I'm mad at you because I had a bad dream
about you. Now it's made me feel kind of like
annoyed with you. So one of those dreams for you
cheated on me and then broke up with me, and
so then I woke up like pissed off at you
because you were a dick in my dream.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
But it's not real.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
Well I don't care.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
This is real life now.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
It's made my head feel messed up today, and I'm
viewing you through a skeptical LUNs.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
Well, when you go to sleep tonight, I hope I apologize.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
Well, you never do. That's the thing about dreams, You
never do. Are you ready to get into today's case?
This is going to be a two parter? Okay, all right,
you ready?
Speaker 1 (03:32):
I'm been ready, all right.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
Margaret Ann Paul was born on April sixth of nineteen
oh eight near the village of Edgerton, Ohio. It was
an area where farmers battled searing summer heat and stinging
cold winters.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
Oh that sounds great.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
There were drafts, floods, and challenges to those who lived
alongside the Saint Joseph River not far from the Indiana border,
and Dylan, I, I visited this area last summer and
can attest that summer heat is in fact.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
Seering so it's very very intense heat.
Speaker 2 (04:09):
I was surprised. I mean, I guess, you know, you
think of the Midwest, and if you are not really
familiar with the climate there, I didn't imagine it would
be hot as the devil's balls. But guess what it was.
It was very, very, very very hot.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
Well, I have to say, as being a Southerner all
my life, we have a I guess we make an assumption,
like you know people do about areas. We assume the
further you go north it gets cool.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
That's what you think.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
Yeah, but it's not true, no, because you.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
End up somewhere like Michigan and it's the devil's butthole
in the summer, like it's super hot. Yeah, it's hot
in Massachusetts. Yes, absolutely. I think we take for granted
like that we live in the only place that gets
steaming hot in the summer. Of course, we're also battling
that humidity that comes with the deep South.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
Now, there certainly are different kinds of heat. Yeah, and
when people say it's a dry heat, it is much
more bearable, I think because nice humid heat, Oh my gosh,
as soon as you step outside, you're just like clammy
and your sweat doesn't evaporate.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
We've had a little bit of that already this week. Yes,
where we live it seems to skip from winter straight
to summer weather. There's no spring. I kind of missed
the Mountain spring when you still have like cool mornings,
cool evenings.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
And always count on a nice breeze.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
Yeah, we don't have that anymore. And it was just
hot as fuck. So the Paul family lived a lot
like the Amish, like how the Amish lived now. They
had no electricity, no indoor plumbing, which I think you know,
back in the early nineteen hundreds this was pretty common.
Margaret was one of nine children.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (05:54):
The Paul family used horses and mules to plow the land,
and spring horse drawn reaper harvested the crops in the fall.
Frank and Catherine Paul owned two hundred acres of farmland
where they grew wheat, corn, raised livestock like chickens, horses,
and cows. The family used oil lanterns at night, and
the only heat source was a woodstove. So again, I
(06:17):
think a lot of families live this way at the
turn of the century.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
Well, yeah, I mean that's not someone roughing it. If
you will that's just how most people live, you know,
short of affluent.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
I was going to say, my family lived this way
in the mid century. I mean, this is the way
my grandma grew up. And this was like all the
way up until like the sixties, before they really had
electricity and indoor plumbing and some of the modern amenities
we know today.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
Well, just having running water in your house and there's
any deal. Yeah, many places in the world today in
twenty twenty five don't have that, and that really is
a luxury.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
It's hard to imagine.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
Right.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
As a child, Margaret was described as diat hard working
and determined. Every morning before school, the children would do
chores like milking cows. So can you imagine getting up
at the krakodawon milking three or four cows before you
go to school? Uh no, right, I mean that's again
it's a little unimaginable in today's society.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
All I'd be milking is my frosted flakes.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
Then they walked a mile and a half to a
one room schoolhouse after having gotten up and done some
hours of work before they go to school. They had
further farm chores in the afternoons. At harvest, the children
were expected to shock the grain. The polls were devout Catholics.
Relatives like cousins, were nuns and priests. Catherine Flee Flagel,
(07:47):
Margaret's sister, recalled that her parents quote didn't miss many services,
so church was a really big part of their life.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
Now.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
From an early age, Margaret had a deep seated belief
in God, and she might someday become a nun. Like
this was something that she just kind of, I guess felt,
I'm a call. She was an ordinary child. I mean,
she had friends, she played, she had a really good
sense of humor. Yet she had always felt this higher
calling to serve God. In September of nineteen twenty seven,
(08:21):
the Paul family drove ninety miles east to Our Lady
of the Pines, a convent and retreat center just south
of Fremont, Ohio. Nineteen year old Margaret Anne professed her
vows to join the Sisters of Mercy, a religious order
founded in Ireland in eighteen thirty one. Not to be
confused with the band we saw last year.
Speaker 1 (08:42):
I'm sure you would not confuse them. Covenant, a covenant,
a convent, a convent, that's right? Or witches?
Speaker 2 (08:51):
Yeah, now, Margaret had left behind all of her personal belongings,
neatly packed and labeled for her younger sisters. She was
always no is being neat and tidy, and her sister
described Margaret as someone that needed everything. Just so, I
think we've probably all known those people. She left her
sister Mary Casbert a bright red jewelry box. So this
(09:14):
is a young woman who has no qualms with leaving
behind all of her personal possessions gifting those to her
sisters to go join a convent.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
Wow, I mean that that that's a really bold, brave move.
I think you know, to be able to just walk away,
you're basically saying this high this calling, this higher purpose
I feel deep inside is more important to you than
all these worldly possessions.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
Absolutely, Sister Margaret Anne spent two years as a novitiate.
I'm not very good at this side, don't Is that
a rookie I don't speak Catholic basically, yeah, Dylan, it's
like a rookie nun, followed by three more years in
the convent before she professed her final vows. I know,
(10:03):
like when you want to become a nun, there are
kind of a series of steps you don't just become
a nun right off the bat. You kind of do
this early thing where you're the rookie nun and you
kind of make your way through like a little process,
and then in a few years you take your final
vowels and you're a full fledged nun. So, yeah, maybe
(10:23):
she's like a nun apprentice. At this time, she took
a vow of chastity, poverty, obedience in service of persons
who were sick, poor, and uneducated, which were the vowels
of the Sisters of Mercy. At first, she took the
name Sister Mary Annunciata and were a ring to symbolize
(10:45):
that she was betrothed to Jesus Christ. I had to
stop recording just then because I was like plagued with
a coughing fit, and I think it's God punishing me
because I don't know anything about the Catholic Church and
I'm mispronouncing it.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
Oh my god, it was choked up on the Lord.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
Margaret completed her nursing training at Saint Rita's Hospital in Lima, Ohio.
The hospital was opened by the Sisters of Mercy in
nineteen eighteen and was originally founded to treat victims of
the influenza epidemic that claimed twenty million lives worldwide. With
intelligence and a dependable personality, sister Margaret advanced quickly into
(11:21):
leadership positions. She was promoted to flora supervisor in nineteen
thirty three and was then transferred two years later to
Toledo's Mercy Hospital, where she was appointed assistant superintendent of nurses.
She then spent a year teaching high school science at
a Catholic school. At twenty nine, Margaret was named superintendent
(11:42):
of nurses at Mercy Hospital in Toledo, which is a
pretty big deal. During World War II, Margaret was sent
to Tiffan, Ohio, where she worked as a floor supervisor
at another Mercy hospital, and by nineteen forty eight, she
was promoted to the top position at the hospital, serving
as a supervisor and an administrator. In nineteen fifty nine,
she was transferred to Toledo to run Saint Charles' Hospital,
(12:05):
one of the city's largest medical facilities. Margaret was considered
old school and was a perfectionist. She set high standards
for herself and got the job done. She expected those
around her to meet expectations and was quick to let
staff know if they were not rising to the occasion.
Speaker 1 (12:26):
So she took her position, and she took it seriously.
It sounds like she did.
Speaker 2 (12:31):
She wanted things done exactly the way she wanted it.
Margaret prayed often, but also had a very big heart.
Yet she is also known for speaking her mind. I mean,
she didn't really mind stating her opinion at all. So
you know, there was kind of like these two sides
of Margaret. The only outside activity that Margaret seemed to
enjoy was visiting her family in Edgerton. She would drive
(12:55):
her nephew's corvette when she was in town visiting.
Speaker 1 (12:58):
Oh wow.
Speaker 2 (12:59):
She also so indulged with opera music, so you know,
that was kind of her outside interests beyond the church.
At the age of sixty three, which it was in
nineteen seventy one, Margaret returned to Mercy Hospital in Toledo. However,
she had stepped back from her role as an administrator
and focused on pastoral care, serving as the sachristian, the
(13:24):
person responsible for making preparations for mass in the hospital's chapel.
And though she was steadily losing her hearing, sister, Margaret
continued working diligently to keep the chapel clean and ready,
as she found it rewarding to rise early and clean
God's house. Every day, she made sure there was a
supply of communion wafers, wine, anointing oil, holy water, candles,
(13:49):
and chalices. On April fifth of nineteen eighty that was
a Holy Saturday, the day before Easter and her seventy
second birthday. On Holy Saturday, there was no early morning
mass at Mercy Hospital, just a late afternoon service. In
nineteen eighty, the seventh floor of Mercy Hospital served as
a convent that housed seventeen nuns who were all trained nurses.
(14:13):
The sisters lived and worked around the sick and dying.
Each sister had her own room, along with a small
chapel for daily prayer. There were two kitchens on the
seventh floor, a common area, and a large bathroom with
like multiple showers like a communal bathroom. Most days, Sister
Margaret was up before dawn preparing the chapel for religious services,
(14:36):
but Holy Saturday was different. On this morning, the only
task Sister Margaret had was to strip the altars of
religious decorations, a symbol of the somberness of the day
and a reflection of Christian's mourning over the death of
their savior. She was allowed an extra thirty minutes of sleep,
so Sister Margaret arose at five thirty am.
Speaker 1 (14:59):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
She got to s sleeping late Dylan and late. Being
five point thirty am, the petit woman showered and quickly
dressed in the Sisters of Mercy uniform, which was a
blue sleeveless jumper over a white blouse and a black
veil tucked over her hair. Due to the Easter weekend,
many nuns and student nurses were either sleeping late or
they had gone home for the weekend. The hospital was
(15:21):
minimally staffed for the holiday. The first floor wing of
the hospital, where the main chapel was located, was unusually quiet.
Sister Margaret walked to the nuns dining area, picked up
an empty tray, and carried it to the sacristy next
to the Saint Joseph's Chapel, the last room in the
west wing. In the small sacristy, she gathered supplies, placed
(15:44):
them on this tray, and then carried it into the chapel,
kind of sitting it like on a front pew, so
that these items would be easily accessible. While she was
doing her work readying the chapel, cleaning up, setting everything up.
Margaret returned to the dining room and ordered breakfast from
the only other person present, Audrey Garaway. Garroway was a
(16:07):
cafeteria worker from Jamaica. In silence, the nun hastily ate
her breakfast, which consisted of a Grapefruit brand, cereal and coffee.
At around six forty five, she finished breakfast up and
told Audrey it was time to go quote fix up
the chapel.
Speaker 1 (16:23):
How did I know her breakfast would be very, very plain?
Speaker 2 (16:27):
I don't know, Dylan.
Speaker 1 (16:29):
How'd you know Grapefruit brand, cereal and coffee?
Speaker 2 (16:33):
Yeah, okay, sounds healthy, sounds like a breakfast we should
be having.
Speaker 1 (16:37):
Yeah, I'm not gonna eat that.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
No, you're gonna go fry some sausage, jup, aren't you?
Speaker 1 (16:42):
Well yeah, see, I just tell myself that's protein. I'm
getting sausage and eggs. And you know, if I'm feeling
sassy or if it's a cheap breakfast, I would have
like a waffle or something with some maple syrup.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
If it's a cheap breakfast, cheat. Oh, I thought you
said a cheap breakfast, And I was like, since when
her waffle's cheap bud and time consuming.
Speaker 1 (17:04):
So much work and putting to.
Speaker 2 (17:05):
Get out a waffle maker, and they got to clean
it up so good. Though, Sister Margaret went about her
day of cleaning the chapel, and like I mentioned before,
she was hard of hearing, and though she was approaching retirement,
she kept putting it off because she found her work
as the sacristan very fulfilling. It kept her busy and
(17:26):
it was also like a little bit more relaxing than
the previous jobs she had held in nursing and administration.
Those were very stressful jobs and this one really wasn't
very stressful for her, but she found it rewarding, so
she kind of kept on working. Now, the hearing problem
was a growing concern because Sister Margaret was having trouble
carrying on basic conversations now due to this hearing issue.
(17:49):
Sister Margaret had no idea that someone had entered the
chapel and had kind of creeped into the sacristy, which
is kind of like a big room where she keeps
all of her supplies. Right now, as Sister Margaret stood
on her tiptoes, she's on a chair on her tiptoes
(18:10):
trying to reach a top shelf. She must have at
some point felt a piece of cloth drop over the
top of her head, and by now the cloth had
already tightened around her neck. The perpetrator snapped the cloth tight,
which broke two small bones in Sister Margaret's neck. Once
the nun went limp, the assailant lowered her onto the
(18:33):
terizo floor. Sister Margaret was still alive, barely damn point.
Speaker 1 (18:39):
So she's been attagged.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
Kneeling over her body, the assailant removed the cloth, which
was a large white linen ultarcloth, and laid it out
kind of folded over onto the woman's torso. A crucifix
was removed from the cabinet and placed over Sister Margaret's
heart upside down. The letter opener was used like a
(19:01):
dagger to plunge into the nuns chest. And we're going
to get into this letter opener and initially the crime.
The detectives they're not really sure what the weapon is,
but I've gone ahead and give you a little spoiler here.
It's a letter opener. It was used like a dagger
to plunge into the nuns chest. And when the blade
(19:22):
was pulled out, blood seeped through the altar cloth. She
was stabbed again, just above the collarbone. This woman was
stabbed a total of thirty one times.
Speaker 1 (19:33):
Damn. That's so. We've talked about this before. But stabbing
someone over and over and over, and even though I
guess sometimes likely post mortem is just it's just very
vicious and it takes a real monster to do something
like that.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
Now, after the killer had completed this task of mutilating
this woman.
Speaker 1 (19:58):
And posing her, well, what's the Oh, I'm sorry with
the cross and all that. I mean, that's pretty.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
Okay, I know, but she's just slow down for a minute.
The killer then rolled up the hem of the nun's
dress like to her bra. He yanked the girdle and
pantyhose down off of her until they dangled like from
her right ankle. Then he took the crucifix and violated
her corpse with it.
Speaker 1 (20:24):
Oh my god.
Speaker 2 (20:26):
Sister Madeline Marie Gordon was glad to get this extra
hour of sleep on a chili April morning, and after
readying herself, she went to the cafeteria for breakfast. She
spoke with Father Swyteki, a large, boisterous priest who was
kind of easy going and liked to talk. Sister Madeline
Marie was the chapel's organist. She explained to father's Swyteki
(20:50):
that after breakfast she would be checking the sheet music
for the service. When she approached the chapel, the door
was opened and the lights were on. When she approached,
a wight cloth was lying on the floor just kind
of outside the chapel door. She assumed housekeeping might have
dropped like a pillowcase by accident or whatever, so she
picked it up, and as she entered the chapel, she
(21:11):
had this kind of odd feeling sweep over her. On
the front pew, she saw Sister Philip, another nun, silently praying.
The decorations which were supposed to be taken down for
this holiday were only half like removed, and so the
job was only half done. And Sister Madeline thought this
(21:32):
was odd because she didn't see any sign of Sister Margaret,
and it looked like Sister Margaret had started the job
but hadn't finished it right, so again just a little strange.
She spotted a green tray with a lot of items
on it kind of resting at the front pew, so
she assumed for some reason, Sister Margaret had stopped working
kind of in the middle of the job for some reason.
(21:54):
She didn't really know what was happening. She pulled out
her rosary and began reciting the morning prayer. Afterwards, she
went over to the organ to check the sheet music
for the Saturday for the Holy Saturday service. Going over
the music list, there was nothing written down about a
closing song. Father Gerald Robinson, who was responsible for selecting music,
(22:15):
must have forgotten to write it down. It was eight
fifteen when Sister Madeleine went to find a phone she
needed to speak with Father Robinson regarding the music. The sacristy,
which was closest to the chapel, a room with a
phone that was closest to the chapel was locked, which
she thought was odd because again, if Sister Margaret's working,
(22:36):
she's kind of in and out of this room, like
why she got the door locked. So then of course
she thinks it's strange, and she's like, well, you know,
maybe she had to leave and she was afraid to
leave this door unlocked. For whatever reason, it just so
happened that Sister Madeleine had a key to the sacristy
and was able to unlock the door. When she entered
(22:58):
the room, it was dark, but she noticed something on
the floor. The hospital had been recently conducting like CPR classes,
and she thought someone had left the practice dummy in
the sacristy. The only light in the room was coming
kind of from from the chapel, so she bends down
(23:19):
to get a closer look at the mannequin, but screams
in horror when she realizes it's Sister Margaret Ann.
Speaker 1 (23:25):
Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2 (23:26):
Now, as soon as Sister Madeleine screamed, Sister Philip jumped
up from praying. Sister Madeleine shouted, Sister Margaret Anne has
been raped. Now at this point, Sister Philip has jumped up,
She's kind of run to the sacristy, and that's when
she finds the non lying on the floor. Her arms
were straight by her sides and the legs were flat
(23:47):
on the ground, kind of going straight out from the body.
A very strange position.
Speaker 1 (23:52):
It's a kind of an unnatural position.
Speaker 2 (23:53):
So when you mentioned posing, I was like, wait a minute,
there's more, because she's almost posed in this very unnatural way.
I mean, no one just dies and falls down in
this very straight position right. The victim's face was badly swollen.
Sister Madeline Marie was shouting kind of uncontrollably in the chapel.
(24:13):
I mean, who wouldn't be completely shocked and afraid and
you know, kind of overcome with emotion. With most of
the offices empty due to the holiday, there were only
a few nuns and father swaya techi who heard the commotion.
They jolted down the hallway from the dining area to
see what could be wrong. Sister Phyllis Ann Gerald, administrator
(24:36):
and CEO of Mercy Hospital, learned that Sister Margaret Anne
was dead on the sacristy floor. Her first instinct was
to perform CPR or try to save the nun's life,
but she quickly judged that it was too late. Though
she had worked saving patients' lives for decades and she
had seen many a patient expire, the scene in the
(24:58):
sacristy was unlike anything shed ever witnessed. It left her
with a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach.
She said, quote the horror, the horror, It was just
the weirdness of it. She described the body as being
in a ritualistic type of position. It seemed abnormal for
Sister Margaret Anne's arms and legs to be so straight.
(25:20):
She said, quote, people don't usually die very straight, and
she's right. Another peculiarity noted by the witnesses was the
lack of blood. Sister Margaret Anne had been stabbed over
thirty times, but there was very little blood. The majority
of the blood was about a nine inch pool just
(25:41):
around her head, but that was it. And so for
her to be stabbed thirty one times and there'd be
such a little amount of blood, that was very strange,
very weird.
Speaker 1 (25:51):
Well what did that mean to you? Because I have
an idea.
Speaker 2 (25:55):
That she was stabbed a post mortem.
Speaker 1 (25:56):
Yeah, that one of the first couple few strokes killed her,
stopped her heart, and then the rest of it was
post mortem. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:04):
Well, I mean the strangulation almost had her there, so
it didn't take much to christ poor lady. A mister
Swift call was announced over the hospital's alert system, which
indicated a patient needed serious help.
Speaker 1 (26:20):
So it's doctor, I'll come call.
Speaker 2 (26:23):
Yeah, come one, come on, we need your help. Two
police officers with the City of Toledo happened to be
finishing breakfast in the cafeteria when they received the telephone call,
but it was the end of their shift. They worked
like the midnight to eight shift, so they were almost
off duty. They were a little reluctant to answer this call.
(26:44):
One of them said he expected it to be something
quote screwy, like a fight in the waiting room between
drunk people.
Speaker 1 (26:53):
So they're just tired, they're ready to go home. Yeah,
we're ready to get some rest. Figure some run of
the mill bs.
Speaker 2 (26:59):
Yes, just something ridiculous that's gonna keep them there longer. However,
the call was alerting them that a nun had died
in the chapel, and the officer said, quote, right when
I hung up, a nurse came running into the cafeteria
and said, we've got a dead nun in the sacristy. Now,
(27:20):
it didn't take long for the officers to see that
they had a murdered nun on their hands. There was
nothing natural about this death. When one of the officers,
named Davidson, who was first on the scene, asked the
other nuns kind of like, who do you think would
have done this? Or you know, they're kind of talking
a little bit off record, chatting, several of them said
(27:43):
father Robinson or quote the priest.
Speaker 1 (27:46):
Oh gosh.
Speaker 2 (27:47):
Officer Davidson also had a concern that valuable evidence had
been destroyed by the rush of nuns and medical workers
who had tried to help. I mean, it was understandable
that they came in, they tried to help, they thought
they were doing something good here. But he's also like, oh, no,
this crime scene has been destroyed basically.
Speaker 1 (28:09):
Well, and you're dealing with people who are used to helping, right,
helping others, you know, you know, for whatever reason. So
it's just natural for them to you know, rush in
and this is one of their own, and this is
one of their.
Speaker 2 (28:23):
Definitely feeling like they need to step in here. But
if the killer had left fingerprints or footprints, I mean,
the integrity of the crime scene was definitely tampered with
at this point, right. The lead detective on the case
would be a man named Arthur Marx, who was known
for his mustache and snazzy dress.
Speaker 1 (28:45):
Oh wow, yeah, he.
Speaker 2 (28:47):
I guess moonlighted at a men's clothing store where he
was able to get discounted suits, so he was kind
of known as a fashionistaff Yes. Now, he told sister
Phyllis they needed to set up a command post inside
the hospital. She offered a boardroom just a few doors
away from the chapel where they could kind of set
up this command post. Detective Marx had investigated hundreds of
(29:10):
homicides and had your reputation as being no nonsense and
like a bit of a bulldog, tenacious, he's not going
to give up, and he's really good at what he does.
Others called him a cops cop. He was also one
of the few on the force who had used deadly
force when necessary. So, you know, again he's got a
bit of a reputation fucking around, find out kind of guy.
Speaker 1 (29:33):
Yeah, it sounds like a real a real cop, you know,
like a bosh or something, a man's man.
Speaker 2 (29:41):
Now, the murder of a nun hurt him deeply, and
he felt that she did not deserve this kind of fate. Now,
while they're, you know, kind of initially checking out this
crime scene, a call comes over the police radio that
less than a mile away at the Greyhound bus station,
there was a man acting suspiciously, so they were ordered
to go to the Greyhound station. When the officers arrived,
(30:06):
they found no person fitting the description of this alleged
suspicious person and knowing at the bus station had made
the call, so they wasted twenty minutes sort of investigating
this ruse.
Speaker 1 (30:21):
So who called it in? I want?
Speaker 2 (30:23):
Well, I don't know, Dylan, but you know, this is
what we call a red herring. Now, years later, Officer
Davidson will push to reopen Sister Margaret's cold case, and
we're going to discuss more of that in a few minutes,
and we're going to definitely get into that in our
part two. Now, Davidson theorized that police and the diocese
(30:44):
conspired to protect the Catholic Church and the true killer's identity.
So we have a lot to talk about in part two.
It's going to be amazing. So you're gonna want to
stick around.
Speaker 1 (30:54):
Well, no, no, look, that's ridiculous notion that the Catholic
Church would go out of its way to protect people
that have harmed others. Yeah, I mean, it's just I mean,
come on, it's never are you writing some kind of
a fantasy novel?
Speaker 2 (31:09):
At this point, I am now Immediately everyone at the
hospital starts pointing fingers at Father Gerald Robinson. It seemed
no one liked him. Everybody was saying kind of in
whispers that they knew the priest did it. Everyone at
Mercy seemed to hate Father Robinson. Wow, yeah, but moving along.
(31:32):
So evidence was collected, including fingerprints and hair, which was
sent to the crime lab. Detective Marx felt it was
safe to assume the killer was someone who had known
sister Margaret Anne. The nune was five to two and
weighed about one hundred and thirty five pounds, so it
didn't take much to murder this elderly woman. But the
crime was kind of bizarre in its overkill, right, he felt.
Speaker 1 (31:55):
Well, and that makes them think it's personal.
Speaker 2 (31:59):
The choking itself, elf, had been enough to murder the
old lady, but then the stabbing and the way the
killer had tried to degrade the woman in death by
pulling down her underclothes to expose her pubic area was
personal and curious. Detective Mark speculated the killer must have
really disliked the nun. The possible motive of robbery was
ruled out right away, as nothing had been stolen from
(32:21):
the sacristy, not even gold plated chalices or any of
the other valuables that were held there. Father Robinson, the
hospital's chaplain, was nowhere to be, nowhere to be found.
So sister Phyllis, now if you remember, she's like the
CEO of the hospital. She immediately calls his residence, which
(32:41):
is located in the hospital. The forty one year old priest,
who was a Toledo native, said he had just gotten
out of the shower when he was informed about the
possible rape and murder. Robinson said he would dress and
be there soon. But guess what, Dylan, he never did
show up at the scene.
Speaker 1 (32:59):
Say else is shocked, rushing to the scene, trying to
figure out what's happening, and this guy, this is very
suspicious behavior.
Speaker 2 (33:07):
The hospital employed fourteen hundred people. Detective Mars deduced that
he would not need to interview everyone, and instead he
wanted to focus on the employees who had been on
the night shift and the people working this weekend and
this specific holiday weekend, so that would trim down the
list a pretty good bit. I mean, can you imagine
if you had to go interview fourteen hundred people. That's
(33:29):
a lot. That is a lot and probably unnecessary. I mean,
I think he's on the right track here. Now. A
housekeeper named Valerie Burning was called in to clean up
the chapel in sacristy after police wrapped up their search
an initial investigation. Two days later, when she was set
(33:49):
to clean father Robinson's apartment, she's, you know, doing her
little thing, dusting, cleaning up, make the bed, and that's
when she spots a nine inch sword shaped letter opener
just sitting on top of his desk. And for some reason,
this letter opener sent chills down the twenty three year
(34:10):
old woman's spine. She had this bad feeling sweep over her.
She quickly left the apartment and never went back.
Speaker 1 (34:18):
Damn.
Speaker 2 (34:19):
Yeah, so that's interesting right. Over the next three weeks,
six hundred interviews were conducted. Most of the interviews were
not beneficial to the case. A one, doctor Jack Baron,
described to officers that he had rushed to the chapel
after hearing that mister Swift call and had accidentally taken
(34:44):
a wrong turn, like down another hallway, and that's when
he inspotted a priest who was maybe thirty five to
forty five years old, wearing clerical garb. The priest made
eye contact with the doctor quote in a stare that
went right through me. The description was a match for
father Robinson. Now, Dylan, you're taking this in Yeah, what
(35:07):
do you think? What are your thoughts so far?
Speaker 1 (35:11):
Well, with the information you've presented thus far, I think
you would have to be wandering about father Robinson, right.
Everyone kind of sounds like he's already not that popular.
People don't really like him. He's everyone else was up
(35:31):
and about, you know, it seems, and he's the one
who's still taking a shower. Oh, I'll be right over.
He doesn't show up. I mean, it seems very suspicious
to me, suspicious behavior.
Speaker 2 (35:42):
A lab technician named Grace Jones, not to be confused
with the Awesome eighties icon, she had seen a priest
walking out of the chapel carrying a Duffel bag. She
wasn't sure of the time, but knew it was sometime
like after seven am, when Robinson was fine. Only interviewed,
he told detectives he'd been in his two room apartment
(36:04):
residents at the hospital the entire morning. He was drying
off after a shower when sister Phyllis alerted him there
had been a murder. He claimed he had never left
the apartment until the call came in. Yet Detective Marx
and his team of detectives felt something was just not
quite right. With father Robinson. Now, the autopsy reports was
(36:29):
grim as you can imagine. Dylan sister Margaret had six
stab wounds to the left I believe it was the
left side of her face, fifteen wounds to the left
part of her neck, and nine wounds to the chest.
The instrument used was a blade at least three inches
long and a half inch wide. It didn't have a
flat blade like most knives. It had a blade with
(36:51):
four sides, kind of cross shaped, described as diamond or
a kite shape.
Speaker 1 (36:58):
Okay, so is Yeah, that kind of makes me.
Speaker 2 (37:01):
Think of like a like the like a screwdriver.
Speaker 1 (37:05):
Well, yeah, it makes me think of I ou't of
most if our listeners have ever seen an old Tommy nail.
It's almost square in shape. It's not flat, it's not smooth,
you know, you know, it's almost three or four sided
if you will.
Speaker 2 (37:21):
Yeah, okay, yeah. Now, detectives looked into the possibility that
a pair of scissors, like maybe sewing scissors could have
been used. The pathologists would not say with one hundred
percent certainty whether the scissors could have been the murder weapon,
just said, well it's a possibility. Now. The corner thought
the wounds to Sister Margaret's face were made with an
(37:43):
instrument much sharper than a pair of scissors, like they
the pathologist did not believe that a pair of scissors
could have done this kind of damage, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (37:52):
Because they typically have like a blunted end on them,
you know they do.
Speaker 2 (37:56):
Two days later, Sister Margert Ann's funeral was held at
Our Lay of the Pines Retreat Center at the Saint
Bernardine Chapel on April eighth of nineteen eighty. Over two
hundred people attended. Father Robinson, who had worked with Sister
Margaret Ann for six years, would lead the funeral service. Now,
during the service, a massive storm swept through northern Ohio region,
(38:18):
knocking out power to about twenty thousand homes. People described
this funeral service and this storm as like rattling the chapel,
like shaking the windows.
Speaker 1 (38:31):
Damn.
Speaker 2 (38:31):
The wind was blowing out of control at very high speeds.
Sister Margaret's brother in law, Paul case Bear said, quote,
it wouldn't have surprised me one bit if the roof
hadn't come off the church.
Speaker 1 (38:46):
So it's just as out of the ordinary strong storm, right.
Speaker 2 (38:50):
Yeah. Now she was buried at the Saint Bernardine Cemetery.
All of these sisters of mercy from the Midwest region
are buried there. Sister Margaret and Paul's body would remain
there for twenty four years until May of two thousand
and four, when investigators exhumed the body for DNA evidence. Now,
as the days passed in the investigation, and I know,
(39:11):
I'm kind of giving a little bit away here, but
we're really going to get into a lot of this
in the second part of the story. Now, as the
k I'm sorry. As the days passed into this investigation,
the trail seemed to grow cold. Even a twenty four
thousand dollars reward offered did little but just bring out
the crazies. People called in, accusing their bosses of the crime.
(39:33):
A spurned gay lover accused his ex boyfriend of hating
the Catholic Church, so he must be the killer.
Speaker 1 (39:40):
Cody did it. I know it. I know it in
my heart.
Speaker 2 (39:44):
I know it was LEVI. Now, the lack of evidence
was frustrating for investigators, but it seemed that all fingers
were pointing at Father Robinson. Finally, on April eighteenth, Detective
Marks paid Robinson a visit. He noted the priests had
very little to say. The initial greeting was brusque, and
(40:05):
the priest just I mean, he just didn't have a
very good personality. He seemed like a little bit of
a dickhead. Right now, Marx was grilled or Marx, I'm sorry,
grilled the priest for eight hours. Investigators noted inconsistencies in
his statements about his activities and whereabouts on the morning
of April fifth. Afterward, Robinson would claim that the detectives
(40:29):
had been quote forceful during the interview, but admitted they
had never like outright accused him of murder. Now, at
the end of the interview, Robinson was in a bit
of an agitated state, and he told Detective Marx that
someone had approached him on Wednesday and confessed that he
had killed the nun, this random person.
Speaker 1 (40:50):
So he offers this information up after only after being
questioned eight hours, right, I mean, that's ridiculous.
Speaker 2 (40:58):
Well, Detective Marx knew that anything divulged to a priest
during confession is held with the strictest confidence. A priest
would never reveal what was said during confession, and if
a priest did tell, he could be excommunicated. From the
Catholic Church. So, after being pressed by Detective Mars, Robinson
then admitted he had made the whole thing up. No
(41:20):
one had confessed he was lying. Detective Marx asked, father,
why would you make up such a story, and Father
Robinson replied, I was trying to protect myself. Okay, yeah, Now,
as the detectives went to search Robinson's apartment, father Swya Techi,
(41:40):
now they're walking to the apartment to go search it.
Father Swya Techi yells at the priest, quote, tell them
what you know, Just tell them the truth.
Speaker 1 (41:50):
Damn.
Speaker 2 (41:51):
Detectives kind of found this showcase to be a bit
more than strange.
Speaker 1 (41:58):
Yeah, I mean, could you imagine what you're thinking if
you are the investigators. I mean, this is like something
out out of a scripted movie.
Speaker 2 (42:05):
Well, of course, when the detectives are like, what was
that about Father Robinson's like, I don't know, I don't know.
The letter opener belonging to Robinson was taken into evidence. Now,
the crime lab revealed that the letter opener had been
wiped clean. They did some like chemical tests, you know,
trying to find blood or fingerprints all of that stuff,
(42:27):
and guess what, Dylan there were no fingerprints on it,
which is very out of the ordinary if someone is
using it regular to open letters. It was devoid of fingerprints, dust,
or any kind of contact. The letter opener was described
by the lab tech as quote being some some sometuously clean.
Speaker 1 (42:48):
Sometuously Yes.
Speaker 2 (42:50):
So it sounds like somebody like really took the time
to clean the fuck out of this.
Speaker 1 (42:53):
Letter opener, which is abnormal.
Speaker 2 (42:55):
Is the layman's terms here.
Speaker 1 (42:57):
Yeah, but that's something that lays around on someone's desk
or bureau or whatever. Yes, and it's typically not something
you would wipe down because no reason for it to
be dirty. No, you're just opening letters with it.
Speaker 2 (43:09):
Yes, so clear of any fingerprints. Strange, right, Yeah. Robinson
was subjected to two polygraph exams, both of which came
back like inconclusive. After the second polygraph, he was interviewed again,
and about an hour into this interview, the monsignior of
(43:31):
the I guess Toledo like Dianonyte.
Speaker 1 (43:35):
What is it?
Speaker 2 (43:35):
Dia the diocese diocese, the Dionysies is like a Greek
god or something. Oh, really, it's awesome diocese. That's the
term I was looking for. Yeah, along with an attorney arrived,
the deputy police chief interviewed, I'm sorry, interrupted this interview,
which is highly unusual. Like you typically, like protocol is
(43:58):
you don't barge in an interview room when detectives are
interrogating someone, right, right, So this deputy police chief arrives,
he barges in the interview room, grabs father Robinson and
escorts him out to meet the monsignor. These detectives are
just like what it seemed. The interview was officially over,
(44:22):
Robinson is whisked away, and with that the case goes
called for twenty four years and we are going to
pick this back up on part two.
Speaker 1 (44:31):
Oh my gosh, what do you think, Dylan? So the
investigators are just left with all these abnormal things happening,
their balls basically barging in, grabbing the suspect, turning him
over to someone else, and he's just gone, and it's
(44:52):
just the end of it.
Speaker 2 (44:53):
That's it, howls it.
Speaker 1 (44:55):
I mean, how what would you be thinking? If you
were the investigator, you'd be like.
Speaker 2 (44:59):
What, well, this is our top suspect so far it
seems yeah, you know, I mean we all know that
the polygraphic exams we've set up four junk science subjective.
But the fact that he's inconclusive on both of these
and he's acting weird. He's not past them with flying colors.
(45:20):
I mean, inconclusive shows like, yeah, we don't know, we
don't know if this guy did it or not. Right,
we can't tell if he's being honest or telling the truth.
You've got this letter opener which seems to have this
design that matches the wounds. Right, it's been wiped clean.
He never showed up to the crime scene. He's behaving suspiciously.
(45:42):
Everyone's whispering about this guy. Yeah, it seems that for
whatever reason, nobody liked him, and he's like the top
of everyone's list of like who could have done this,
and they're.
Speaker 1 (45:56):
Putting pressure on him, trying to you know, turn the screws,
if you will.
Speaker 2 (45:59):
And then the Catholic Church somehow is able to swoop
in and take him away and shield him under their
you know, robe of innocence or whatever they're veil of shadows.
That's it, Yes, gosh, okay, And we know I mean,
I'm not trying to disparage Catholicism or the Church, but
(46:21):
I mean, we know the Catholic Church is plagued with
problems of this variety, that members you know of the
clergy have been found guilty of crimes, and that there
have been mass cover ups. I mean we've all known
that it's been happening for years and years.
Speaker 1 (46:40):
Yeah, I mean, it's like any organization, except this one
just happens to be thousands of years old and just
insanely powerful. It's the questionable actions by the leadership or
certain have certainly been documented many many times over the years.
So really it would really makes you wonder.
Speaker 2 (47:00):
All right, Dylan Well will be back with a part two.
I know I've given a little bit away here in
part one, but I just want to entice you to
come back and listen to part two because it gets
even more interesting.
Speaker 1 (47:13):
Yeah. I need to know what happens now. Absolutely, Thanks
again to our new patrons.
Speaker 2 (47:18):
Thanks to our new patrons and our.
Speaker 1 (47:20):
Old patrons and all our listeners. Thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (47:23):
Yeah, and don't forget to check out our website Mountain
Murderspodcast dot com. From there you can access Patreon. We
also have links to our merch store. We have some
new merch designs, so you want to make you sure
you check that out. Got some really cute designs for
springing summer. You're looking for a little tank top action,
you need a cool shirt to wear over your beach
(47:44):
beach gear when you go to the pool or going
to the ocean, or you just don't want to be
really cool and Rep Mountain Merders got some great designs.
Speaker 1 (47:52):
Check that out. Check it out.
Speaker 2 (47:54):
All right, Dylan, it's been great talking to you. I
hope you have a fantastic week. And of our patrons,
and we love our listeners
Speaker 1 (48:02):
But all those things are true, and until next time,
Bye bye,
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