Episode 204 - On God

Bless me, Father, for I have sinned... and so have they. Join Rachel and Vicky as they uncover the shocking true crimes committed by those sworn to righteousness.

You can check out the We're All Just Pretending Podcast here!

Research links below!

The New York Times - "Gerald Robinson, Priest Convicted of Killing Ohio Nun, Dies at 76"
Cleveland.com - "Ohio priest Gerald Robinson, convicted of strangling nun and stabbing her 31 times, dies in prison"
Bishop Accountability - "A Family Remembers Its Sister"
The Blade - "Slain nun's piety obscured in details of bizarre death"
Getty Images - "Margaret Ann Pahl"

Daily News - "'Holy-crazy' priest who dumped body parts in Hudson is only chaplain to get the chair in U.S."
Digital Collections - "People of the State of New York v Hans Schmidt [Trial #3228]"
Ephemeral New York - "A Priest, a maid, and a Second Avenue murder"
All That's Interesting - "The Gruesome Crimes Of Hans Schmidt, The Only Catholic Priest Ever Executed In US History"
The Evening World - "Hans Schmidt, Slayer of Anna Aumueller, Faces Death Chair"
The Sun - "Schmidt Tells Tale of Shielding Muret"

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Yeah, why their arrivals unspeakable? I'm not do they did.

(00:22):
It's got to worry about.

Speaker 2 (00:26):
Something.

Speaker 1 (00:26):
If I couldn't keep them there with me whole, at
least I felt that I could keep their skeletons.

Speaker 3 (00:34):
Hello and welcome to the Bad Taste Crime Podcast.

Speaker 2 (00:37):
I'm Rachel, I'm Vicky.

Speaker 3 (00:39):
We're sounding confused because charging cable slithered. I was like,
what are these?

Speaker 2 (00:43):
Is this a cat? Like? What are these noises? It's
never a ghost. I always think.

Speaker 3 (00:48):
Ghosts because sometimes it might be it's really not the
ghosts needed to charge its phone. How do you know?

Speaker 2 (00:55):
How do you know? Because well, first of all, was
the ghost from the year two thousand or after?

Speaker 3 (01:03):
How do we know?

Speaker 2 (01:04):
Well, I've never I've never seen one after two thousand
referenced anywhere, seen one period. I agree what I'm saying.
When they are they're like eighteen ghosts and evil.

Speaker 3 (01:15):
Girl in a white nightgown or a woman in a
Victorian dress?

Speaker 2 (01:19):
What's up with that?

Speaker 3 (01:20):
Yeah it's bullshit.

Speaker 2 (01:21):
Yeah, yeah, exrazly Rachel. I believe in Goes eighteen hundred,
ghosts would not understand what a cell phone is or
what a charging cable is.

Speaker 3 (01:29):
Maybe they're really smart.

Speaker 2 (01:30):
They're not that smart.

Speaker 3 (01:31):
It's Nicola Tesla.

Speaker 2 (01:32):
They're not that smart.

Speaker 3 (01:34):
He would know, he'd be like a cell phone of
some song.

Speaker 2 (01:36):
No, he really.

Speaker 1 (01:40):
O.

Speaker 2 (01:40):
My god. Well, if this is your first time listening,
a special hello to you. A great episode for you
this week. Yes, but first let's head over to the newsroom.

Speaker 3 (01:54):
Watching today we.

Speaker 1 (01:58):
Had fifty.

Speaker 2 (02:05):
Our news this week comes from Japan, where a naked
man got arrested for breaking into a school. Yeah, so
they have I had to look this up before we started,
but they have these things called CRAM schools that are
like intensive schools for standardized testing. They do a lot

(02:27):
of like testing and stuff in Japan. Yeah. Yeah, yeah,
So this guy, Daisuke Nishimura, who's forty eight years old,
he was arrested on suspicion of breaking into a CRAM
school in Saitama Prefecture. Okay, so there were There's also

(02:50):
like some car accidents associated, so basically they're according to police,
there are multiple reports of a completely naked man with
tattoos stealing a vehicle in Saitama City and causing a
hit and run accident in which a man on a
motorcyclist was killed. Later he reportedly stole a taxi. The
guy had two passengers in the back seat, and he

(03:15):
stole the taxi with the passengers still inside, crashed outside
of the Cram school, and all this while naked, and
then he ran into the school. They tried to you know,
what's the sort of encountered that's not confront That's what
they tried to confront him at the school, and when
they did, he punched the guy on the side of
the head without saying anything. So they called police and

(03:37):
they took him into custody. But it was just like,
what are you doing, sir.

Speaker 1 (03:43):
Or something?

Speaker 2 (03:44):
Who knows? Yeah, where are your pants? The fact that
he was just like carjacking people and causing accidents somebody
died going into the school seems very erratic.

Speaker 3 (03:53):
Yeah, very weird. It's a very weird.

Speaker 2 (03:56):
To do list.

Speaker 3 (03:57):
Yeah, and patents wasn't on the to do list.

Speaker 2 (04:00):
Pants was not on the to do list.

Speaker 3 (04:02):
It's weird.

Speaker 2 (04:03):
Yeah, yeah, weird story of could you ever do it?

Speaker 3 (04:06):
When we're recording where you say something weird and you're like,
I wonder if that'll be the title of the episode.

Speaker 2 (04:11):
No, so I don't think about it that hard because
I don't decide till later pants, but I can tell
you it's almost never anything in the intro sections, so
it will notice that it won't be that yet. Yeah,
all right, we're gonna move on to Netflix and Hill.
This week we're talking about The hatchet Wielding Hitchhiker side

(04:34):
I know that's what I think of. So The hatchet
Wielding Hitchhiker is a documentary film. It's about an hour
and wait, is it episodes?

Speaker 3 (04:46):
I love documentary movie.

Speaker 2 (04:48):
I'm pretty sure it's an actual documentary. I can't remember
if there was episodes or not. I think it was
just one documentary. Cool that looks at the story of
Caleb Kai mcgilvy, who is this unhoused man who uh
saved a woman from a violent attack this guy. He
had hitchhiked and gotten picked up by this guy who

(05:10):
then drove into somebody and was trying to get out
of the car and attack this woman and Kai, the
unhoused man, luckily had a hatchet with him. Wow, he
attacked the guy who was attacking the woman, thus saving
her life. He became this sort of he did these
interviews on TV and then he kind of became a

(05:33):
meme a little bit and then he all of a
sudden became famous. But then these people who were trying
to like they were like, dude, you can do a lot,
like let us manage your career whatever. They started taking
all these interviews. Right, he was very unpredictable. He would be.
He was very erratic, Like did he drank a lot?

(05:57):
He was like, when you listen to him talk.

Speaker 3 (06:02):
It's very okay.

Speaker 2 (06:07):
Yes, Like the way he speaks and the things that
he talks about are out there like a stream of
ideas kind of yeah. God yeah, Like he definitely seemed unstable.
And then it turned out that he was a suspect
and a murder case.

Speaker 3 (06:23):
Aw man, come on.

Speaker 2 (06:24):
Dude, yeah did he have that hatchet?

Speaker 3 (06:27):
Good question?

Speaker 2 (06:28):
What did he have that hatchet? And he very much
was like, yo, I just want to like smoke weed
and surf and like, you know whatever. But yeah, he
was charged in the death of New Jersey attorney Joseph Galfie.
He allegedly. Ki has claimed that the guy was going

(06:53):
to help him with place to stay, but when he
got there, he was drugged and raped. Police have said,
actually the encounter was can centual and the murder was premeditated. Yeah,
And it's this, and he would like post things on
social media that were really troubling, and then people because
he was like a meme. He was like the hatchet

(07:13):
guy meme. They were like, just go hatchet this guy.
And oh so it's like encouraging some of this probably
psychosis a little bit.

Speaker 3 (07:21):
It doesn't seem like it was a good environment for him.
He yeah, that's a lot.

Speaker 2 (07:26):
Yeah. So he was found guilty the trial itself. I
mean there was like outbursts during the trial. He also
had to leave the courtral. But he was found guilty
of murder. He was sentenced to fifty seven years in
prison and he has to serve eighty five percent before parole.

Speaker 3 (07:43):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (07:44):
But it will be interesting because so he will be
just seventy three when he is eligible for parole twenties
twenty sixty one. It'll be interesting to see what happens
because I want, if they are going to I would
assume they do some sort of mental health assessment while
they're there and see what they can do about that.

(08:06):
And also he'll be sober, so.

Speaker 3 (08:09):
I'm sure it'll make a difference, right, right.

Speaker 2 (08:12):
So we'll see. But it's just this kind of wild story.

Speaker 3 (08:15):
I remember all that a.

Speaker 2 (08:16):
Perfect example of you never really know what's happening, and
the people who were trying to capitalize on his some
fame didn't really understand the situation. You know. I think
there were probably some beige flags that were ignored, and
you know, some things that maybe some pink flags, right.

Speaker 3 (08:38):
Like maybe light red. See I don't know that. Maybe
you show and everything, you're hitch hiking and you have
a hatchet that's already like.

Speaker 2 (08:48):
I'm good, but even watching like the interview that he
did after the incident seems a little off, like you
can kind of but again it's like, so is this
guy just like unhoused and kind of wacky, or like
is this a sign of something deeper? So it's an interesting,
interesting documentary again, like you never know anybody for sure.

(09:10):
It's called The Hatchet Wielding Hitchhiker. Its on Netflix, the
hash Swinging the Slash Slash Crash. Anyway, this is that
part of the show where you say content may not
be appropriate for all listeners.

Speaker 3 (09:22):
Ooh's crazy.

Speaker 2 (09:24):
We're going to be talking about murder and yeah, a
lot of stuff, A lot of stuff.

Speaker 3 (09:33):
Yeah, mine definitely has murder and mine sex. Yeah, mine
has some some sexual assaults.

Speaker 2 (09:39):
I would say some child sexual abuse too, Yeah, yeah,
which will be under when I reveal this topic right now. Yes,
this was my topic and were you inspired by recent events?

Speaker 3 (09:53):
I picked it before. So my topic is naughty priest,
crazy members of the clergy, and I picked it before
the Pope died.

Speaker 2 (10:04):
Okay, so I didn't even know. Maybe it's your fault.
It wasn't Jade Vance, it was you. Yeah. No, So
for reference, the Pope just died a couple of weeks ago.
By the time this comes out, I would assume conclave
is probably done. Probably hard to tell, but yeah, yeah,
so yeah, interesting interesting timing on that. Rachel didn't even timing. Yeah, okay,

(10:30):
all right, so naughty priests, Peace be with you and
also with you. Yeah, my Lutheran upbringing. I know if you, yes, you,
dear listeners, risen, he has risen.

Speaker 3 (10:44):
Indeed he has riz Indeed, if you fit like VICKI
here finished my classic churchy column response, you probably have
been inside a church. Oh yeah, maybe you went to
a wedding or a funeral. Maybe you were dragged there
as a child, as many of us were. God knows,
I had better things to do on Sunday mornings.

Speaker 2 (11:04):
I've been to one Catholic wedding. I've been in multiple weddings,
but one like Catholic wedding in a church. We went
to the same one, No, different one. No, no, it's
not the same one. Which one did we go to?
I didn't go to that one? You did it? I
wasn't there. Yeah, no, Jed my friend Jim. They actually
got married at the church in the cow and the beauty,

(11:27):
like the beautiful old school church. No, it was like
Catholic wedding. Luckily they didn't do a mass, which I
was like, cool, but there was still this the whole
like kneeling on the flip thing down and then you
kneel and I went to so boring, tragic. It was
so bad, so boring. I was so ready to get drunk.
It was fine, oh my god, you know anyway, terrible. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (11:50):
I had way better things to do Sunday mornings, like
literally anything, double worship, virgin sacrifice, I don't know, whatever.
But more than likely, even if you never were the
church going type, you've ran into the leaders of the congregations. Now.
They go by many names, pastors, preachers, fathers, depending on

(12:10):
the denomination of your congregation. But whatever the title, these
so called holy men get up to some pretty unholy
stuff behind the pulpit. And that is exactly our topic is. Yes,
naughty priests. Now, just to clarify, I mean naughty as
in crime committing, not naughty as in a sexy Have

(12:30):
you ever seen The Flea Bag?

Speaker 2 (12:32):
No?

Speaker 3 (12:32):
Please, okay, please watch Flea Bag. Please watch it. It's
an Amazon Prime show.

Speaker 2 (12:38):
It's two seasons.

Speaker 3 (12:39):
It's Phoebe waller Bridge is incredible, and Andrew Scott and they, Uh,
there's like a priest romance in it. Okay, it is
life changing. Please it sounds boring, it's so not please
watch it.

Speaker 2 (12:54):
Okay, please watch Leabag. Listen. Do you know how many
things I've asked you to watch it? I don't app time.

Speaker 3 (13:01):
I really don't. I can't watch regular TV with my children.
It's not equal personally, I don't really. I can't really
get behind the sexy priest thing. Like I know it's
such a trope, but I'm like, yeah, well, I think, oh,

(13:22):
there's ghostly footsteps up.

Speaker 2 (13:24):
No, that's definitely probably.

Speaker 3 (13:28):
It's a ghost.

Speaker 2 (13:29):
I think that more so like the sexy none thing
is more of a trope or it's like it is
oh no, totally, totally, but I think I see more
sexy none ri or it's like the priest fucking then
or something, you know what I mean if we're talking
in terms of porn right right, right, and yeah, I

(13:52):
don't know, Like I feel like they'd smell like communion wafers.

Speaker 3 (13:56):
That's not sexy to me.

Speaker 2 (13:57):
Yeah, but also the people who are playing the sexy
priests are clearly not.

Speaker 3 (14:01):
Like million years like a septum ring.

Speaker 2 (14:05):
I'm like, yeah, you the Catholic Church would have been
like absolutely not sinner. Get out.

Speaker 3 (14:11):
Yeah, the two ann are eight.

Speaker 2 (14:13):
Yeah, speaking of not sexy, you know what's really undesirable
the blatant corruption of the Catholic Church and how in
today's case, they use that power to attempt to influence
the outcome of a grizzly murder, even going over the
heads of top detectives to try and rewrite the truth.
That sounds about right, I know, shot all tracks what

(14:36):
this is the case of the very Naughty Father Gregory Robinson. Okay,
now I say it's his case. But first I'd like
to talk about a woman named Margaret. Margaret and Paul
was born April sixth, nineteen oh eight in Edgerton, Ohio.
Her parents, Frank and Catherine Paul, ended up having nine children,

(14:56):
and Margaret was number four. Okay, this was pretty common
because they were a farming family. So I feel like,
back in the day, farming families tend to have a
lot of kids. Yeah, that's as oh my god. Yeah yeah.

Speaker 3 (15:09):
But according to her eight siblings, Margaret always knew she
was destined for more more in her case being the
so called sisterhood, she always wanted to be a nun.
The family was super Catholic, but she was the catholic
est and at the tender age of nineteen, she was like, hey,
are you there, God, it's me Margaret, And God was like,

(15:30):
oh yeah, I get that fine ass over here and
join my order, Order of the Sisters of Mercy.

Speaker 2 (15:36):
Okay, Now, I don't know anybody who's like, I want
to be a nun when I grow up. Well, it
is like nineteen oh eaight right, I get She's like, okay,
but to get married, to have a million child, a
million children and have to look at pigs and sheep
again my whole life, or honestly, I probably would have
devoted my life to the church too. At that point,

(15:57):
I would have been like a really cute farmer. No,
I would have rather never had sex again than to
have any children.

Speaker 3 (16:05):
I would have had like a platonic female roommate.

Speaker 2 (16:08):
Yeah, strictly, strictly platonics. Strictly platonic.

Speaker 3 (16:14):
I've never been platonic in my life. Now, this particular
order had a specific job, which was not to sing
all day, like in one of my favorite movies, The
Sister Act or in my other favorite movie, The Sound
of Music, which is like sot down. But the Sisters
of Mercy actually had a pretty cool missive. They opened
hospitals to help treat the poor, sick, and needy. Okay,

(16:37):
and that is exactly what Sister Margaret did. So when
you were a nun in that order, then you would
help at the hospital.

Speaker 2 (16:43):
Okay.

Speaker 3 (16:44):
So they would provide religious services and resources to the
patients and their families. Okay, so like you know, you
need a funeral, you need someone to read you your
last rites. Yeah, we're gonna decorate the hospital, etcetera, etcetera.

Speaker 2 (16:58):
And this is more for this is needy families, right,
this is like, yes, not the wealthy people. Covenant, be like,
do mesh it? Okay, So that's that was their whole
thing is like, actually, low income, I think is the
word I'm looking for. Yes, you are so, and like
my brain's having a hard time at any thinking of words.

Speaker 3 (17:18):
We've been in this room for Oh my gosh, that's
the ghost. Such an unselfish life, even if you don't
support all the Catholic Church's actions, which you shouldn't, has
to be admired.

Speaker 2 (17:32):
Yeah. I'm not religious at all, but I've always really
liked it when because it's not the case with all nuns,
I feel, and not all religious people, but when it's
like you're getting together with a goal and you're going
to help people, you're going to open a soup kitchen.

Speaker 3 (17:48):
You're hospital, it's like, okay, that's cool. You know who
am I to say no to that?

Speaker 2 (17:51):
Sure?

Speaker 3 (17:53):
Sister Margaret was truly committed to the bit, the habit,
because she's a nun habit.

Speaker 2 (18:00):
I'm not laughing out of Princeville.

Speaker 3 (18:05):
If you're laughing at home, call in let me hear
your laughter. This was her life's work, and she thrived
in the often chaotic environment of the many hospitals she
worked at. Providing a stable and peaceful figure for all
who knew her, except for one person, yeah, father Gregory Robinson,
who I mentioned briefly earlier, who also provided services to

(18:26):
the hospital. Now, what was their beef? Fighting over turf
or bitches? Probably fighting over a God loves me, loves
me more, he loves me the best. But actually it
was more like what sounded like regular old workplace complaints.

Speaker 2 (18:41):
Okay, it's a thing like workplace frustrations are pretty much
the same, no matter universal, right, Like there's always going
to be somebody you don't like. Yep, there's always gonna
be some headbutting. There's always gonna be something that's kind
of annoying. It's just like which level, Yeah, but it
is if you're working in a police depart or teaching

(19:01):
or being a nun, they are the same.

Speaker 3 (19:04):
It's like, oh my god, I hate that bitch, yes,
very much so. Yeah, And that was the thing, Like,
based on what I know now about this crime, you
would have thought it would have been something like way crazier,
but like she was known for being. I mean, this
was her whole life. She started at nineteen. By the
time this incident happened, she was in her seventies. She
had done this her whole life. She was known for

(19:26):
being like kind of nitpicky. People spoke very highly of her,
but I mean, of course she was nitpicky. What else
did she have?

Speaker 2 (19:34):
Seventy year old Catholic nun like, right, that's kind of
par for the course, I think right.

Speaker 3 (19:41):
In fact, upon one ordinary Good Friday, sister Margaret apparently
scolded Father Gregory for ending his Good Friday mass early
instead of making it last the traditional Catholic span of
seven kajillion hours. Indeed, Father greg had again labeled her
ways as nitpicking, which, like again greg she is isn't
even allowed to whack off or go to the movies.

(20:02):
She has nothing else to fucking do.

Speaker 2 (20:04):
Was he younger than her too? By the time he like, yes, okay,
see that's another thing. Yeah, it's a very like her.
Oh my god, this is like the stereotype you see
in the movie of like true Catholic priest coming in
and the old nun that's been there for a long
time who thinks she knows how to do everything and
she wants things done a certain way. Yeah, I know exactly.

Speaker 3 (20:26):
What I watch. I don't know.

Speaker 2 (20:29):
Have you ever seen called The Midwife. I've seen bits
and pieces, I've never like sat down and watched it.

Speaker 3 (20:34):
It's so good. Yeah, but she it's like a whole
thing where like the Nuns. It'sn't that show is in
the sixties, but the nuns are like, we are the
religious order. And when priests would come in like to help,
We're gonna help at your your hospital or whatever, they
were like ew, like what do they know? It was
very like why would.

Speaker 2 (20:55):
A man be here? It's like very matronly like yeahy
very much.

Speaker 3 (20:58):
So I'm sure there was somebody. It was never reported
as anything like super sis.

Speaker 2 (21:03):
No, no, no, but that is I know the vibe
you're talking about too. Yeah, I get a picture.

Speaker 3 (21:09):
On Saturday, April sixth, nineteen eighty, the day after their
little spat, Sister Margaret was chilling in the chapel, probably
listening to Chapel Roan, except that she wasn't because she's
a nun and this is the eighties, so I just
lie to you. She was preparing for the upcoming Easter festivities,
and as she was like head honcho of the parish,
she had a lot of work to do. This Saturday

(21:31):
was probably extremely special to the sister as it fell
upon what would have been her seventy second.

Speaker 2 (21:37):
Birthday, Oh birthday, Margaret Easter weekend right.

Speaker 3 (21:41):
Unfortunately, Sister Margaret would not make it to this particular
Easter service, nor would she ever prepare for another one.

Speaker 2 (21:47):
Damn okay yup, for.

Speaker 3 (21:49):
On that bustling Saturday morning, Sister Margaret would be found dead.
And it wasn't from natural causes. In fact, some might
describe the circumstances aspernatural. Now, this area of Ohio, stay
with me, was considered extremely rigid and conservative, with Catholicism
at the forefront of most people's lives. So this was

(22:12):
in Toledo. So as I was writing this, I was like, oh,
I'm going to like write down like a Holy Toledo
joke because like you know, ha ha ha. That's why
they say that that Toledo has a sister city in Spain,
which is like an important holy city somehow, and that's
why they say Holy Toledo. That's where that comes from.

(22:32):
That's very funny. I love that. So the next time
for more Toledo.

Speaker 2 (22:37):
Oh God, that's actually the only one that I know.
Ohio kind of sucks.

Speaker 3 (22:40):
Ohio sucks, ass I am never going there. You're from Ohio. Unsubscribed,
No fuck that.

Speaker 2 (22:49):
We love you. I love you Ohio.

Speaker 3 (22:51):
I want to go to Cedar Point.

Speaker 2 (22:52):
It was fun.

Speaker 3 (22:53):
Oh you've been there? Oh yeah, it looks so fun.

Speaker 2 (22:56):
Caitlin, my roommate in college, is originally from Ohio, Okay,
And so when she when she had her wedding, Wanie
actually went with me as my plus one and we
went to her wedding and then on our way home
on the next day, we went to We did Cedar
Point all day in the morning.

Speaker 3 (23:08):
Yeah, that sounds so fun.

Speaker 2 (23:10):
But actually I went in high school too. That was
the second time I've done because we went on a
band trip.

Speaker 3 (23:14):
I don't think I've ever been to Ohio.

Speaker 2 (23:15):
I played in Cedar Point for marching Yeah, bigy Lore.

Speaker 3 (23:22):
Yeah anyways, yeah, very Christian area, so religious imagery was
like everywhere and was seen as like very sacred. Yeah,
but there was nothing sacred about the state in which
an unfortunate organist would find the body of Sister Margaret Paul.
In fact, when she discovered the unholy scene, her horrified
screams could be heard throughout the enormous hospital, drawing spectators

(23:45):
to see what had happened. Okay, now, I said on
holy scene, and unfortunately I was not exaggerating. For what
the detectives discovered would haunt them for the rest of
their lives. Sister Margaret's lifeless body was slightly hidden by
an altarcloth that was draped over her, which was drenched
in her blood.

Speaker 2 (24:01):
Oh geez.

Speaker 3 (24:02):
When they drew back the cover, they noticed that her
body was posed extremely suggestively with the dress pulled up
and her undergarments pulled down, suggesting a sexual assault. Now
there was like a little like iffiness about that where
they were like, well, we don't know she was sexually assaulted,
but they do know. They did a whole odden say

(24:23):
she had trauma to the area, and she was a
seventy year old nun. So yes, she was right. So
if articles say that they're lying to you, they didn't
do enough research, unlike me. Now, that's certainly horrible enough,
but that's not all for As the experts examined Margaret's injuries,
they noticed that the multiple stab wounds on her chest
lined up to a particular shape, the inverted cross.

Speaker 2 (24:46):
Oh satanic. Yes.

Speaker 3 (24:49):
There was also a smear of blood across her forehead
that ked eerily similar to the ash that Catholics use
to anoint their foreheads on the just past holiday ash Wednesday, right,
so this is the day after Good Friday, right, so
before Friday becomes you know, Wednesday, and that's when they
have the ash.

Speaker 2 (25:06):
Ash Wednesday and Monday, Thursday, yep, Good Friday, and regular
old Saturday, yea.

Speaker 3 (25:11):
Saturday, regular old Saturday, and then Sunday Day. Whoever had
done this to poor sister Margaret had very clearly wanted
their devilish intentions to be very apparent. Can you imagine
like the shock waves that the sort of crime sent
through this close knit religious community in the eighties paitanic panic,
Oh my god?

Speaker 2 (25:31):
Yeah, oh, like at its prime.

Speaker 3 (25:35):
So obviously Toledo police got to work questioning the hundreds
of employees at the hospital to see if anyone knew
anything useful. As for physical searches, they didn't have to
look long before coming across something interesting. The murder weapon.

Speaker 2 (25:48):
Oh how hockey, Yeah so nice.

Speaker 3 (25:51):
See. The medical examiners were medically examining Margaret's sister Margaret's
stab wounds, of which, by the way, there were at
least thirty one massive overkill Yeah yeah, and they so
the police were like in contact with them, like, Okay,
what are we looking for? This is probably like what
a butcher knife, And they were like, no, it's like
a weirdly shaped object. It's not a knife, it's not

(26:13):
a screwdriver, but it's some it's a sharp implement. But
whatever you're looking for is like kind of unusually shaped.

Speaker 2 (26:20):
Okay, okay.

Speaker 3 (26:22):
But when they found it they knew right away. So
it was a a letter opener. It was shaped like
a sword.

Speaker 1 (26:30):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (26:31):
Those are very very common in offices because frankly, they
do a better job at opening envelopes than like the
one like right, the little plastic ones. Those are much better,
very little heavy, but also fully could kill somebody, oh yeah,
oh yeah, and did yes.

Speaker 3 (26:47):
So they they discover this later, but like they they
were like, this looks right, and it didn't have any
blood on it. Later they would take it apart, and
they did find blood, like when they took off like
the decorative parts and like took off.

Speaker 2 (27:02):
I'm sure if you take like the hilt piece out,
there's like the little word inserts.

Speaker 3 (27:06):
That's exactly exactly. So they found it later, but they
were like, this looks right, like They were just kind
of taking in anything that could work, and later the
medical examiner took the other side of the blade. There's
like a little pommel on the head that's like a tiny,
little like shape, and it fit so perfectly into a

(27:28):
wound on Margaret's body that they said it was like
a key into a lock.

Speaker 4 (27:31):
Oh geez.

Speaker 3 (27:32):
They were like, this is the murder. Yeah, Now where
did they find this absolutely crucial piece of evidence. Oh,
it was in the desk drawer of one father Robinson, of.

Speaker 2 (27:43):
Course, so he just chose not to get rid of it. Yeah,
he was like, oh my god, I guess it would
be weird if The day after he was like, so listen,
I'm gonna need a new letter my old one. Can
you one of those things?

Speaker 3 (27:56):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (27:57):
I broke the other one. I don't know what happened.
I came and it was broken.

Speaker 3 (28:01):
They also found something else kind of weird in his possession.
You'll have to tell me if you think this is weird.
A book describing how to perform the Satanic black mass.

Speaker 2 (28:12):
They just found that that's normal, right, Honestly, I don't
know that it would be that unusual. You could make
the argument he could if he wanted to he could
make the argument that he's like doing research knowing my
enemy exactly exactly. You could. I'm not saying it's a
strong argument.

Speaker 3 (28:34):
It's not like you could. And that's kind of what
I thought too, was like, well, you know, or like
I confiscated this from.

Speaker 2 (28:41):
Someone, especially if there had been a crime in the
area or nearby that had recently been attributed to like
a Satan worshiping something, but like you'd have to have
all the things lighting up just right for that to
be possible.

Speaker 3 (28:55):
You did not have any of the things. So when
they quest they pulled him in to the police department,
where like we're just gonna question you. Uh, you're not
under arrest, you just detained whatever. It was a long
interrogation and he was only like somewhat like cooperative, not
like being a but sort of like I don't know, yeah,

(29:16):
I don't really knowing. Yeah, And the the initial investigation,
which was like right after this had occurred, they ended
up letting him go. But there was this weird thing
where like at the end of the interrogation he was like, oh,

(29:38):
I guess I should tell you somebody like came into
the church and like told me that they killed her.
But since I'm a priest, I like, can't tell you
who it is.

Speaker 2 (29:47):
How how can be? They told me during confession, I
can't reveal how convene yet.

Speaker 3 (29:53):
Right, And they were like, okay, well that's you don't
have to tell us who it is. Just like tell us,
like what time is it? They were like, because you
know they've they've the police have dealt with that before.
And then he's a legitimate legal defense. So they were like, okay,
just tell us when it was.

Speaker 2 (30:06):
And then he was like, oh, I don't know, So
that's actually I made that up because I want to
go home.

Speaker 3 (30:13):
I don't want to be here anymore. I want to
go home.

Speaker 2 (30:15):
Oh my god.

Speaker 3 (30:16):
Okay, I guess we should let you go now. Yeah, stupid.

Speaker 2 (30:19):
Yeah, Well he was just there for questioning, I know,
But I'm like, don't you think that's the show? He's
a priest, who cares that carry that carries with that
extra Yes, it does, VICKI credibility, And I'm leading up
to that right now.

Speaker 3 (30:34):
You're gonna hate this so much.

Speaker 2 (30:36):
I'm sure. I'm sure.

Speaker 3 (30:37):
So he was questioned and then released and then they
like two weeks later they had done like the medical
investigation on her, and they've gotten all this other information,
including witnesses such as the organist who found poor sister
Margaret's body was like, yeah, Father Robinson was like right outside.

(30:57):
She's like I like said, She's like, it was so
weird because just normally not there, and like I think
there there was even a thing like yeah, there was
another nurse who said the same thing, and she felt
really terrible because she hadn't told them at first, but
she was like he's a priest and it's a it's
a religious hospital. But she's like, you're right. He wasn't
normally there. He's not really supposed to be over here.

(31:17):
I don't know what he was doing over here. So
it was just like little like things like that that
were like easily explainable if he could easily explain it,
which he couldn't, of course, So they brought him back
in and were again like, okay, we're just going to
question you. Everything's chill. So Dean Mandros, who was the
chief of the like criminal division, was like, okay, we're

(31:39):
sitting down, we're questioning him. All of a sudden, Deputy
police Chief Ray Vetter broke off. He went into the office,
which is like, what are you doing in here? Broke
off the interview and allowed a monsenior to escort They
like frog marched him out. God, okay, Ray Vetter. The

(32:03):
guy who just interrupted the interview was a staunch Catholic.

Speaker 2 (32:06):
Yeah, very high.

Speaker 3 (32:08):
So they literally were like, no, we're going to take
him out of here now. Quote. This upset the detectives
to no end.

Speaker 2 (32:18):
Where was this at?

Speaker 1 (32:19):
What?

Speaker 3 (32:20):
Ohio?

Speaker 2 (32:21):
Okay? Okay, okay, yeah, which is parts of Ohio are
very conservative. There's also a lot of I want to
say a lot of but there's also quite a bit
of mob action. Actually absolutely, Like there was mentions of
that and a lot of the articles.

Speaker 3 (32:38):
I couldn't quite tie it to this case.

Speaker 2 (32:40):
But like, you know, but like that something like that,
because then you get into these levels of police corruption
and like that is not actually.

Speaker 3 (32:47):
That's absolutely but yeah, they were like anyway, also, this
guy took their reports on the case. He was like,
you have to give these to me, and then the reports,
any of them, were never seen again, like they were
obviously God or whatever.

Speaker 2 (33:04):
Dude, yep, Like, well you can have a copy, right,
but like you're going to do that.

Speaker 3 (33:09):
This was his deputy police chief. So it's like he
has to he's just a detective, you know, so he
has to get it to him.

Speaker 2 (33:16):
I know. Such that wouldn't happen now without somebody making
a record of it. I think people would, I think
be smart enough to be at least to write it
down like on this day this happened. I'm not saying
it wouldn't happen, but like I think I think there,
I think there would be a it would be harder
to yeah, yeah, yeah, you're not going to.

Speaker 3 (33:35):
Just be able to get somebody out of the police
station with the r like anyway. Yea, they wouldn't even
have any of their possessions.

Speaker 2 (33:41):
They have to Yeah, I agree, Yeah.

Speaker 3 (33:43):
So product of the times and obviously have a very
corrupt right right right, So for that little bit that
was kind of it. They couldn't move forward because he
was obviously the fucking murderer, couldn't touch him, so they
were like, well, I mean, okay, So the case went
cold and everyone kind of moved on with their lives

(34:04):
until two thousand and three when a woman who her
identity was never revealed. They did the police did find her,
but her identity has never been revealed to the public.
She goes by survivor Doe. She wrote, they say a letter.
It was really more of an expose to the police department,

(34:25):
claiming that several priests when she was a child in
like the Catholic school system, had sexually abused her and
taken advantage of her, and Robinson was front and center.
Not only was it, I almost said, I hate to say,
I don't hate to say, they didn't the very well

(34:46):
known Catholic sexual abuse, so I don't want to call
it run of the mill, but it's like we're all
expecting it. Not only was that bad enough, but she
claimed that it was like cults activity very much back
to you watched True Detective Finally, didn't you? Yeah, yeah,

(35:06):
very that very like the priests. And she said there
were women there who weren't nuns but would dress up
as nuns and they would do rituals and animal sacrifice
and sexually assault children. There was even claims that were unsubstantiated,
but very I'm like, I hope somebody looked into this
that they killed a three year old child like in

(35:29):
front of her.

Speaker 2 (35:29):
Okay, okay, so they.

Speaker 3 (35:31):
Were involving her in all of these dark satanic rituals
and dripping blood everywhere, you know, very Hollywood and gross.
So that was her expose and so she was like
this father Robinson did this to me that the case. Eventually,
her case eventually was dismissed because it missed the statute

(35:52):
of limitations.

Speaker 2 (35:52):
Yeah, which is boosh and less of a problem now,
I will say, because a lot of places have changed
that to eliminated you have limitations and that kind of
which I do too.

Speaker 3 (36:02):
I do too, so dumb, but yes, that's I'm glad
that's like becoming a thing in the past because it's
so frustrating. It's like you go too late, Like what
the fuck is that? Yeah, who cares how long ago
they did it? Yeah, it's that same thing of like
when they find like a hundred year old people who
it turns out were guards in the concentration camps and
people were like, don't put them in jail, they're old,
and like put them under the jail.

Speaker 2 (36:24):
But also they're convicting those people in Germany and they
do not give a fuck over there. Yeah, because there
was that one guy who got put on trouble. Oh
I love that, I love but they do not fucking
care how they put you through the whole thing, which
is great. Yeah, I agree, I completely agree with you.

Speaker 3 (36:39):
So all of this came out, and even though they
ended up not being able to prosecute him for that case,
it was like suspicious and weird enough that they were like,
now we have enough where we can take another look
at you.

Speaker 2 (36:51):
Yeah, they went over the whole thing with the letter
opener fitting into like the part of her bone like
a key in a lock. They actually when they brought
this to trial, they brought the piece of sister Margaret's
bone because they exhumed her body. Now yeah, and we're
like re medically examining making sure that it was the
letter opener. So in court, not only did they hold

(37:13):
up like the bloody altar cloth, which is really scary,
but they held up the piece of her bone and
fit the head of the letter opener into it, which
was a very it's very dramatic moment.

Speaker 3 (37:25):
I do love those, Yeah, I do. There's some engross, but.

Speaker 2 (37:29):
I'm like, I know, I've been watching the Karen Reid trial.
Yeah that serted, and I'm just like hoping I get
one of them. Like, I'm just like I want to
see a big court moment where everyone's like, oh my gosh,
it's probably not gonna happen because this is the second trial,
but I'm still waiting for it.

Speaker 3 (37:47):
You never know.

Speaker 2 (37:48):
I know, I do love those big fingers for dramatic
courtroom moments.

Speaker 3 (37:54):
Police and prosecutors found. I was talking about the witnesses
who saw him like skulking around outside of the of
the chapel that went into It's a pretty circumstantial case,
I will say. Okay, And it happened so much longer
that I was like, I don't know if they're going
to be able to convict. But luckily he was found

(38:15):
guilty on all counts. O good on May eleventh, two
thousand and six. Okay, this was the second conviction for
homicide of a Catholic priest in the United States. Okay,
the last one was in nineteen sixteen.

Speaker 2 (38:29):
We'll talk about that in a minute.

Speaker 3 (38:33):
We all shol oh, my God, like, yeah, you plan
it before. Now we don't know, We really don't.

Speaker 2 (38:43):
We really don't.

Speaker 3 (38:47):
On So there was a bunch of like appeal stuff.
He tried to appeal several times, but it was always
turned down because in two thousand and eight, the reaffirmed
his conviction, okay, and then in because so that was
in July and then in December. Because I guess, as

(39:10):
you know, I'm not an expert in these things even
a little bit. I guess it went up to the
Ohio Supreme Court because they were trying to see, like
if everything was cool, and they were like, we don't
even want to fucking hear it. They denied to hear
his appeal.

Speaker 2 (39:23):
Yeah, a lot of times if it's a staycase, so
you can appeal it. But then if it goes to
an appeals court, you get an automatic but you get
an automatic appeal to the Supreme Court.

Speaker 3 (39:35):
But they decide whether or not they want to hear it. Yes,
based on the Okay, that makes sense.

Speaker 2 (39:40):
Trying to remember if that's a very cool friend. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (39:43):
Then he appealed again in twenty twelve.

Speaker 2 (39:46):
But typically Supreme Court handles not whether not guilt or innocence,
but more procedural.

Speaker 3 (39:55):
Oh okay, like how long they got and stuff.

Speaker 2 (39:58):
No, like if the arrest was valid, if they're claiming
like First Amendment rights were violated or like you know
that kind of you know what I'm saying, Like less
like sense guilt or innocence based on the evidence, but
more like the jury instructured properly or are they claiming
that the jury received improper instructions. Yeah, it's more because

(40:19):
then if something needs to be changed, the romantic back
down to the lower courts and that's when like they
would retry it or you know whatever that is. So
the Supreme Court is yeah, the Supreme Court is more.
I don't, I don't. I hate to say procedural stuff,
but it is makes sense. It's more.

Speaker 3 (40:34):
Uh, they're like the ultimate court, so they're the ones
who can like comb through.

Speaker 2 (40:39):
It's more rights based than like deciding guilt or innocence
because I decided in the lower court.

Speaker 3 (40:47):
That makes sense.

Speaker 2 (40:50):
Sorry, no, no, no, no, no, no, that was correcting myself.

Speaker 3 (40:53):
No, I'm sad. I'm glad to hear that. Whatever these
things are, like, I don't really know what the fuck
that means. Yeah, so they He continued to try to
appeal all the way up until his death. He really
never spoke on it. He was like, no, I didn't, no,
he didn't do that. Finally, in May twenty fourteen, in

(41:13):
the midst of still trying to fucking appeal, he had
a heart attack. He was transferred to hospice like prison hospice,
and then died on the fourth of July.

Speaker 2 (41:25):
Wow, freedom, I know, like freedom from this monster.

Speaker 3 (41:30):
Sister Margaret was loved by all who knew her, picky
or no, she was a pretty fabulous nun. And that's creepy.

Speaker 2 (41:41):
Yeah, I love all the.

Speaker 3 (41:43):
Cult stuff is only like barely it's like barely mentioned.
I'm like, who the hell were all these other people?

Speaker 2 (41:48):
Yeah, Like but I wonder, oh, how real that was
being real because there was a lot of that, Like
not saying that's what happened in this case, but there's
a lot of that, like false member implantation. There's a
lot of exaggeration because people wanted things to be a
Satanic ritual ord with like they wanted it to be

(42:11):
that because that also made things like very pro Christianity, right,
Like that sent a lot of people running back to
the church and can remember things differently.

Speaker 1 (42:20):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (42:21):
Yeah, Now, granted I'm not saying in this case that.

Speaker 3 (42:23):
The will I'm not memories or whatever, but that is
a thing that happens.

Speaker 2 (42:26):
Yeah, that was or just exaggerated or she was confused. Yeah,
like descriptions of sacrifice and stuff like I always I
always take that with a grain of salt, right, and.

Speaker 3 (42:40):
I think that's why. Yeah, And that's the thing with
it being I don't blame her at all, but her
being a Jane Doe, a survivor, though, it's like it's
hard to like, I I believe her because this guy's
an asshole. Yeah, but yeah, I mean I believe the
sexual assault stuff, right, but like the sacrifice and the
all that other stuff, like it wasn't that level, was

(43:03):
it happening?

Speaker 2 (43:04):
Yeah? Yeah, sexual s Yeah that sounds that sounds a
bad yea, But yep, he's he's.

Speaker 3 (43:09):
In hell and that's it.

Speaker 2 (43:12):
Cool. Yeah, so you just mentioned the other guy, Hey,

(43:34):
did you look into his case at all?

Speaker 1 (43:35):
Or not?

Speaker 2 (43:36):
Good? Because it's fucking crazy.

Speaker 3 (43:38):
I'm so excited. It's wild.

Speaker 2 (43:40):
Yeah, And honestly, by the end of the story, you're
gonna be like, how did this guy ever become a
priest in the first place?

Speaker 1 (43:45):
What?

Speaker 2 (43:45):
Because it was not like an escalation. It was like, okay, yes,
but I had to give the German Catholics some representation
because you know me be and I'm like, let's give
the homies some representations. So I am covering Hans Schmidt.

(44:08):
So Schmidt was born in and I'm going to apologize
because I might be German and heritage bit but I
cannot sist. No. So he was born in ah Schaffenburg,
Germany in eighteen eighty one. Okay, almost almost immediately, it

(44:31):
was pretty clear that something was kind of off about him. Okay,
something that seemed frankly unavoidable because there's this very, very
very long history of mental illness in his family. Later,
they talk about presenting a family tree in Core and
they're talking like sixty people in total having some sort

(44:53):
of like wow, mental illness, mental health struggle. And this
is in the late eighteen hundreds into early nineteen hundreds.
So like the fact that they're even recognizing that, yeah,
means that it was extreme. But also I'm like, was
all of that real mental illness or was that like
labeling the women with hysteria and that, you know what

(45:15):
I'm saying. So, but it was present. It definitely was
present in some way, shape or form, right, crazy, I know,
I know, I thought you were going to say they
showed the family tree and it only had like three branches.
I was like, oh shit, yeah, right right, it's two
branches and everybody coming down off of one. Lots of
incests explained, Yeah, right. I will also say too, like

(45:38):
again we're talking about the late eighteen hundreds to early
nineteen hundreds, mental illness was handled in a completely different
way a lot of times very poorly in eighteen hundred years, right, right,
or like you know, go to a spa, right, Like
you know, I am a big fan of like going

(45:59):
to the seaside for your Yeah, I want to do that.
I need to give my humors balance.

Speaker 3 (46:03):
Absolutely.

Speaker 2 (46:04):
Yeah. So his childhood was not great. Father was wicked, abusive,
often beating him and then he would like beat his
mom while he watched, like it was not good. I
saw a story about when Schmid was a child that

(46:25):
he would spend the afternoons at the local slaughterhouse because
he loved to go and watch the cows and the
pigs get slaughtered. That was his favorite pastime. Normal, very,
this is the so many stories give me very Jeffrey
Dahmer vibes.

Speaker 3 (46:41):
Absolutely talking about that in the other episode too.

Speaker 2 (46:45):
A lot of this is especially like his childhood and
his upbringing. Yeah, very very Jeffrey Dahmer vibes, Oh god, Yeah, Yeah,
there was There's also talk about being obsessed with dismembering
ands and drinking blood. So he got sort of interested
in the.

Speaker 3 (47:05):
Occult a little bit.

Speaker 2 (47:06):
Yeah, even though his family was very religious, but there
was still this Now we're going, Richard Ramier a cult thing.
There's also this sort of unhealthy blending of deep religious
commitment and bisexuality.

Speaker 3 (47:25):
Ah.

Speaker 2 (47:26):
And so this is what I'm talking about, Like he
kind of he's dabbling in Catholicism, he's sort of dabbling
in the occult, he's exploring his sexuality, and all of
these things are happening during his adolescence where ideas are
getting confused and mixed together. You know what I'm saying, Like,
when this this happening during your formative years, like those ideas,

(47:47):
and especially when it comes to sexuality, like associating some
of these things with sexual pleasure or whatever it is,
like becomes very the speaker at that confusing reading we
just went to, Yes, talking about that.

Speaker 3 (48:00):
Yeah, went and saw a former FBI profiler.

Speaker 2 (48:04):
Yeah, I forget what his name is. It was really
good though. Put in the doctor Scott something, Bold, Scott
Janish something. Yeah, it was really it was really interesting.
But yes, like and I've heard because I've been watching
Hollywood Demons, oh recently, and Doctor Drew is on that.
I love Doctor Drew, but he talks about like as

(48:26):
you're going through puberty and these things coming up, especially
sexual abuse, like kind of like rewires your brain into
your sexual pleasure shows rewire yeah pleasure, yeah, yeah, yeah,
yeah crazy. So I think there was a little bit
of that happening. That makes two, like all of this
happening once. So he decides to enter seminary in Germany.

(48:50):
This is sort of where his trouble starts. In nineteen
oh five, Schmid was arrested for forging diplomas for failing students.
Oh but thanks to a lawyer hired by his father,
Schmidt managed to get these charges dropped for mental defect.

Speaker 3 (49:05):
What He's like, I was just stupid.

Speaker 2 (49:08):
I was being insane about it.

Speaker 3 (49:10):
I don't know, I don't know.

Speaker 2 (49:13):
But also, like you could say mental defect and they'd
be like all right, right, like there was not like
a go on teaching. Then yeah, they're like, oh, you're right.
He does seem a little off. It's fine, like that's
just this guy. Yeah. It seems to me that like
Schmidt must have just given off these sort of like

(49:34):
weird dude vibes, Like, you know how you want to
be like that dude. He just seems a little like, yes, weird.
He must have given off these vibes because there were
a lot of people who were skeptical that he would
even finish college right at all. Right, but despite this,
Schmid was ordained by Bishop Kirstine of Mainz in December

(49:54):
nineteen oh four at the age of twenty five. Almost immediately,
Schmidt began having conflicts with folks in charge, like higher
up church officials. His first parish assignments took him to
Burgle and Ceiling Stot, where he worked for about four years.
These are like little villages and he was there for

(50:15):
about four years. During this time, he had multiple affairs
with women, retained the services of sex workers, and molested
altar boys. So really hitting all the Catholic priest hotspots.

Speaker 3 (50:29):
Oh my god, that's awful.

Speaker 2 (50:32):
Yeah. He was also kind of known for having these
more like eccentric, out there sermons, which is a huge
no no for the ultra conservative Catholic Church.

Speaker 3 (50:41):
Yeah, Catholics are like by the book or not at all.

Speaker 2 (50:44):
Yeah. Yeah, And I don't imagine it was like, you know,
like the gospel preaching of Baptists, right, you know, I
don't think it was like that extreme, but like even
one little toe out of line in that like in
the order you do your services. So people were complaining,
like the congregation was like, we don't like this, along
with all this other reviews priest. Yet so all of

(51:10):
this bad behavior and ignoring the church rules led Schmidt
to be reassigned as they like to do. Yeah, I
was gonna say, they don't fire, they just put him
somewhere now. And this is something that in recent years,
I think people have realized as a pattern, especially since
the Boston Globe spotlight article, that when something happens, rather

(51:33):
than handling defrocking or whatever they need to do, they
just else reassigned to hide them and then they continue offending,
especially in cases of sexual assaults. That seems to be
the pattern.

Speaker 3 (51:47):
And that's why that's part of the reason why it
was so widespread, because they were just like, oh, this
is a new priest.

Speaker 2 (51:54):
What's where'd he come from. Don't even worry about it.
You don't even worry about it. I'm going to tell
you it was totally fine, though, we promise you're leave
him with your children. I'm god. Okay, so he gets reassigned.
In nineteen to eight, Schmid was reassigned to Saint John's
Parish in Louisville, Kentucky, marking his first time in the

(52:15):
United States. Okay, this is when he first comes over.

Speaker 3 (52:18):
They were like, get out of the country.

Speaker 2 (52:20):
And that's what they do. They will just move countries
a lot of times because now country authorities are looking
for Yeah, it's the whole thing anyway, disgusting. The problems continued,
of course, and when conflict between Schmidt and a senior
and senior leaders in Kentucky became too much, he was
once again reassigned to Saint Boniface Church in Manhattan. It

(52:41):
was there where Schmidt met Anna al Muller, another recent
New York transplant from the Austro She was from like
the Austro Hungarian Emperiri. This was he was also from there.
But like, right, that is not really a thing anymore.

Speaker 3 (52:55):
We're like, oh, you're a parade.

Speaker 2 (52:57):
Yeah, but yeah, they both come from the Austro Hungarian Empire,
which is no longer a thing anymore. But they strike
up this friendship. She is working at Saint Boniface as
a housekeeper in the rectory, so she had just come over.
She gets this job as a housekeeper. They strike up

(53:19):
a friendship, but like Schmidt, quickly gets into his weird antics.
In later conversations, Schmidt would claim that he heard the
voice of God commanding him to love Anna. Oh sure,
and the two secretly began having an affair her this

(53:41):
is my command. So yeah, so they start the secret affair. Basically, now,
it sounds like he had pursued Anna for a while
and she kind of like rebuffed his Yeah, yeah, yeah,

(54:02):
it's not right. But it also sounds like eventually she
took him up on his offer and that it was consensual. Okay,
but how consensual is that with that type of power
and balance.

Speaker 3 (54:15):
That's exactly what I.

Speaker 2 (54:16):
Especially when a person is like pursuing, pursuing, pursuing, and
you just keep like putting them off, putting them off,
and they don't stop, right, Like no means fucking it
seems like it was consensual. But like I do want
to point that out because.

Speaker 3 (54:30):
Especially with the times too, and that kind of thing
wasn't taken seriously, like, oh, give him a chance, he's
probably nice. No, he's especially as a priest, animal's blood, right,
especially as a priest.

Speaker 2 (54:39):
Who is comes against comes with some sort of credibility
just embedded into that title. So I I wonder, like
I agree with you how much she was actually in
that relationship or like if she was just like, well
if I do this, then he'll just leave me alone
type of thing. But they did. It was like an
ongoing affair.

Speaker 3 (55:00):
Yeah, no, that's important to think about.

Speaker 2 (55:03):
Yeah, this is and I will say too, like that's
all speculation. I did not say, I don't think that,
but yeah, yeah, So it seems like a single woman
could not say sheate Schmidt's sexual appetite because while he
was having his affair with Anna, he also began a
secret homosexual relationship with a man named Ernest Murray who

(55:26):
worked in New York.

Speaker 3 (55:27):
As a dentists.

Speaker 2 (55:28):
Let's not forget bisexual, right, He's like, oh, I never
little of this, little of that. I'm like, this story
is everything Rachel wants it a love love priest, it's fine,
and this time it's actually really two men kissing, right it. Yeah,

(55:49):
So he's like he's having he's having an affair with Anna,
who works at church behind her back. He's having an
affair with this man, Ernest Murray, who's a dentist. Ernest has,
like I think this is part of the reason why
he was attracted to him. Ernest has a side job
that was counterfeiting. Oh my god, which obviously Schmidt had

(56:09):
experience in. Later there is a speculation that he was
involved in this sort of counterfeiting forging operation that Ernest
was running out of his apartment. Yeah, so that's all
happening sort of in the background. He's a great cat.

Speaker 3 (56:23):
Oh my god.

Speaker 2 (56:25):
You as you're telling the story, it's very easy to
forget that this guy is a priest.

Speaker 1 (56:28):
Real.

Speaker 3 (56:29):
I'm like, wait, I'm just imagining him with the little
collar on, committing all.

Speaker 2 (56:32):
These yeah, right right. Sometime into their relationship, Schmidt was
once again relocated to Saint Joseph's Church, Saint Joseph's Church
in West Harlem. It is speculated that the church Saint
Boniface found out about Schmid's relationship with Anna, like the

(56:54):
two of them, and that they were having an affair
and wanted to move them in order to sort of
keep it quiet before it got out. That makes sense,
but it didn't deter the couple from seeing each other,
and in February nineteen thirteen, the two got married in
a secret ceremony that Schmidt performed himself.

Speaker 3 (57:13):
Get out of here. He's like, I take my beloved wife.

Speaker 2 (57:16):
I do. Yeah, He's like, he's like, I performed the marriage.
He wrote up the marriage certificate, he signed all the things,
and they did it in secret because I think you
can do that. Obviously he's a priest. Yeah, and the
Catholic Church definitely does not It does not condone pre
marital sex, and it definitely does not condone one of

(57:39):
their priests getting married. Like, oh, they are specifically celibate.

Speaker 3 (57:43):
Yeah, period. Yeah, so.

Speaker 2 (57:47):
Wild. He's like, well, we're just gonna go here. They'd
even rented an apartment as a married couple. Wow, yeah,
Scandalo Scandalo indeed, dang. But both of their were worlds
were about to change because Anna was pregnant.

Speaker 3 (58:04):
No fuck anti Christ.

Speaker 2 (58:07):
Yes. So she did tell this to Schmidt, and he
immediately knew, like this was not good for him because
not only am I having sex now they're married, but
they were not before, but also he's supposed to be celibate.
He's not supposed to be married definitely not supposed to
be living with the woman. No, not to mention, not

(58:28):
to mention the gay stuff that's happened, to counterfeiting, and
like yay, yeah gross. So to solve his problem, Schmidt
decided to take matters into his own hands. On September second,
nineteen thirteen, Schmidt went to their apartment and while Anna
was sleeping, he slashed her throat. He then dismembered Anna's body,

(58:51):
wrapping some pieces in newspaper, putting some pieces into like pillowcases,
and God takes all of these pieces hops on a
faery ride on the Hudson River, where he disposed of
Banna's body.

Speaker 3 (59:04):
Dare I say that's pretty smart.

Speaker 2 (59:05):
He then returned to church and performed a mask like
everything was fine, nothing to see here, all good because
also they didn't know that they were in this relationship, right,
Anna Schmidt. Right, But then pieces of Anna's body, of
her torso started washing up at Cliffside Park and in

(59:27):
Weehawk in New Jersey. They're just like, oh my gosh,
started showing up on the shore. Police at that point
knew they had a little bit of a situation on
their hands. Right. One of the pieces that had washed
up was wrapped in one of the pillowcases, and lucky
for them, the pillowcase still had an intact price tag attached,

(59:48):
which led them to a factory in Newark.

Speaker 3 (59:51):
I love stuff like this.

Speaker 2 (59:52):
This is You're gonna love this. You're gonna love this.
So they go to the factory in Newark. The factory
only sold to a single furniture dealer named George Sachs.
Authorities went to the dealers store and after looking through
some receipts, he found one for a bedspring, mattress, pillows
and pillowcases that were delivered to someone named A Vandyke

(01:00:17):
on August twenty sixth, nineteen thirteen, and he had the
delivery address, so he gave the delivery address to police.
They immediately went there questioned the building superintendent. He told
authorities that a married couple had lived in the unit
in question and the man had given his name as H. Schmidt.
He also called the man had a heavy German accent.

Speaker 3 (01:00:41):
Weird, Oh my god.

Speaker 2 (01:00:42):
So then they were like, well, let's take out the
building because right now this is all like circumstantial. Right,
They're just like, but they're following the trail like this
is Okay, how a good policing for early nineteen hundreds
where they're just like, that's my favorite thing. Yes, yeah,
one thing.

Speaker 3 (01:00:55):
Leads to another thing, leads to another thing, and just
following the trail.

Speaker 2 (01:00:59):
So they they decided to stake it out to see
who was like coming and going from this apartment because
the people weren't home at the time. They waited for
like three or four days and they didn't see anybody
going out, like there was no activity. So they were like,
fuck it, let's just break down the door and see
what's inside. They opened the door, they discovered dried blood

(01:01:24):
all over the walls. Well, yeah, the floor had dried
blood that was very obviously like tried to be cleaned up,
like somebody had tried to wash the floor, but you
could still sort of see some of the bloodstains on
the floor. I know, I know. They found a large
bloodstained knife in the kitchen, as well as men's clothing
with the name given at the furniture store sewn into.

Speaker 3 (01:01:48):
It Bengo, right.

Speaker 2 (01:01:50):
But there was more. There was much more letters written
to Hans Schmidt in both English and German. Further investigation
of the letters found that many were from women in Germany,
but most were from a woman named Anna Omuler. They
continued following the trial of evidence, visiting the address from

(01:02:13):
which Anna had sent the letters to Schmidt. There they
were told that Anna had left after taking a housekeeper
job at Saint Boniface's church, so that was the next
home you go. They went to the church and after
questioning the senior pastor, found that she had worked there
but was transferred to Saint Joseph's. They also took this

(01:02:35):
opportunity to ask them, hey, do you know this guy
named Hans Schmidt, has he ever worked here whatever, and
discovered the same thing had happened to him. Oh, he
also gets transferred to the same church. So they went
to Saint Joseph's, where they discovered a sleeping Hans Schmidt.

Speaker 3 (01:02:53):
Me me, me, yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:02:54):
It was like they found the senior pastor, They're like,
do you know this guy? Can we talk to him?
He's like okay, I think he's in here, and they
opened the door. He's like sleeping. They wake him up
and almost immediately he confessed to the murder, proclaiming I
killed her because I loved her. Oh yeah. Schmid was
immediately rested. Yeah, but what a trail to follow, like perfect. Yeah, obviously,

(01:03:18):
the Catholic Church heard about this almost immediately, and honestly,
I think, realizing they couldn't like relocate their way out
of this one, suspended Schmidt indefinitely. They just let him
hang on his own. This was also at a time
when media would have eaten this shit up, Like yellow

(01:03:41):
journalism was very prominent at this time, and they had
a complete field day in the press because this is
a very unusual crime. And like you said, this is
one of like two actual murder cases from priests. Yeah,
so let me see, Okay. Schmid went to trial in

(01:04:01):
nineteen thirteen, and his defense team went hard in the
paint with an insanity plea, hoping to avoid the death penalty.
They claimed because Schmidt was hearing voices whatever and was bisexual,
he clearly suffered from psychosis. Which I love that they
include bisexuality as part of an insanity cuts You can

(01:04:25):
commit murder, Rachel, because I do I like, but I'm
just bisexual.

Speaker 3 (01:04:28):
It's just bisexually around.

Speaker 2 (01:04:31):
Sorry, it's the bisexual. You have to respect my rights
to murder. Yeah, I just thought that they included that.
Bury nineteen hundreds it's perfense. Yeah. So they also presented
evidence of mental illness within Schmid's family. This is when
they presented the family tree. I bet that was crazy. However,

(01:04:53):
the prosecution brought in alienists. Do you know what an
alienist is? No, So, an alienist is essentially the early
day psychiatrist. Oh, they went by a different name. There's
actually a great series called The Alienists where they talked
about solving TV. So, yeah, the TV show Solving Crime
And have you watched it?

Speaker 3 (01:05:10):
Oh no, I haven't.

Speaker 2 (01:05:11):
It's really good because it's like solving crime using psychology.
I love that. But they were called alienists. So they
brought one in and this is still sort of the
early days of that where that is becoming a more accepted.
People still kind of thought psychology was like, right, shrink
your head. Yeah, like very woo who science. So the
fact that they brought one into court is kind of amazing,

(01:05:34):
big deal. Yeah. Uh so the alienists came in and
said this guy's crazy. No, no, they came in and
repeated these claims, saying he was completely sane. Oh great. Yeah.
By the end of it all, the trial concluded with
a hung jury in December nineteen thirteen. So he goes
to trial again a second time, like two weeks later,

(01:05:55):
and the defense presented a slightly different defenses time, saying
that just before Anna's murder, Schmidt had found another German
immigrant woman to pose as Anna and go and purchase
a five thousand dollars life insurance policy. Oh and so
then the theory became that he did this for the

(01:06:16):
life insurance money. Although I'm not sure why that makes
it better, right, it doesn't matter, or if it was
supposed to more support the psychosis defense or whatever, I'm
not sure.

Speaker 3 (01:06:26):
Anyways, makes it more premeditative.

Speaker 2 (01:06:27):
Yeah, well, it only took three hours of deliberation. The
jury returned a guilty verdict on first degree murder in
February nineteen fourteen, and Schmidt was sentenced to death. There
were appeals and things filed which extended his stand death
throa at Sing Sing prison. In one attempt at a
new trial, Schmidt admitted that he was faking his insanity

(01:06:48):
during trial, but claimed he was doing it all for love.

Speaker 3 (01:06:51):
Oh yeah, all for love.

Speaker 2 (01:06:53):
Because so that second affair that he was having with
the dentist Ernest Murray, remember that. Well, now Schmidt was
claiming that Ernest had accidentally killed Anna during a botched abortion,
and everything he did after that was to protect his lover. Like,
I love this man so much, I wanted to take

(01:07:14):
the fall for the murder.

Speaker 3 (01:07:15):
And I'm sure Ernest was like me, again, ignore the
dismember bit because like, right, ignore that. Yeah, yeah, I
get out of here.

Speaker 2 (01:07:26):
I know, I know, liar. Yeah. So Ernest and Bertha Zech,
who was the woman that Schmidt claimed that he hired
to a person at Anna, they came forward to the
authorities and they were like, absolutely not, none of this
happened that he was that he's talking about. This never happened,
essentially tanking Schmid's appeal efforts. So on February eighteenth, nineteen sixteen,

(01:07:50):
Schmidt was executed via the electric chair at sing Sing Prison.

Speaker 3 (01:07:55):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (01:07:56):
His final words were, I want to say one word
before where I go. I beg forgiveness of all I
have offended or scandalized, and I forgive all who have
offended against me. Yeah, And then just before they threw
the switch, he said, my last word is to say
goodbye to my dear old mother. Schmidt became the first
and only priest to be executed in the United States. Wow,

(01:08:20):
as far as I can tell, that's still the case. Wow,
Because frankly, the priest murder thing is not a super
common thing. I have heard of it. I've heard of
it in some other countries. We've had some things where
it's like suspected murder, but I don't think anything's been
charged or you know, but it's not like as normal
as like child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church, which

(01:08:42):
is very normal unfortunately. So yeah, so he's, as far
as I can tell, still the first and only to
ever be executed. Attempts were made to get Schmid's body
back to Germany. However, they're like smackedawn in the middle
of World War One. They're like, we have other things
to do. Yeah, yeah, so transport was impossible. The family

(01:09:02):
did agree to have Schmidt buried in a secret, undisclosed location,
which is fair enough. After his execution, Smit was suspected
in a few other unsolved murders. Really, yeah, so I
wouldn't be surprised. I remember, on your first murder is
kind of crazy, right, isn't that wild?

Speaker 3 (01:09:23):
Yeah? And the fact that he never like freaked out
or anything, right, he just went back here.

Speaker 2 (01:09:28):
Let's be real, like how many times he was relocated
and moved around Like He's very easy to not connect
these things.

Speaker 3 (01:09:34):
That's why I think he was. He's the only priest
who's been executed, yes country, not because priests don't be murdering,
but because they just put him in a new town.

Speaker 2 (01:09:42):
Right, exactly, I'm in a little bit of trouble, Okay,
have fun in another country. So there are some claims
that before he had gone to New York, he was
seen with two women who he claimed were his wife.
Like both of them he claimed were his wife on
separate occasions, okay, and neither of them had been seen
since their time with Schmidt. Kind of big question mark there. Right.

(01:10:05):
There were also a couple children who had gone missing
he may or may not have had something to do
with and one instant this is the most compelling one
to me. In one instance, he was witnessed bringing a
five year old boy to his apartment, claiming that it
was his son named August van Dijk.

Speaker 3 (01:10:24):
The name from earlier.

Speaker 2 (01:10:25):
So I'm wondering if and this this boy was not
seen after that. Let me finish with that. But I'm
wondering if because this would have been before Anna's murder.
So I'm wondering if that was just the name that
he picked up yep, from that boy, or if that
was just a name that he used as his alias
all the time, because it probably was not the boy. Right,

(01:10:50):
he said that was his son's name, but he probably
wasn't giving a real name, so like absolutely yeah. Crazy. Finally,
Schmidt was an alternate suspect in the murder of nine
year old Alma Kellner. So her body was discovered in
the basement of Saint John's Church, where he had been
transferred to in Kentucky. H that was like his first

(01:11:14):
relocation from Germany was this Saint Joseph's in excuse me,
Saint John's in Kentucky. So Joseph Wendling, a janitor at
the church, was actually arrested and convicted in that case
based on circumstantial evidence and given a life sentence. Interesting
because if I remember correctly, her body obviously being very bloody,

(01:11:37):
but they saw attempts to dismember her body, although her
body was not dismembered, but they could see the marks
on the body.

Speaker 3 (01:11:46):
Wow, very weird.

Speaker 2 (01:11:49):
Now, I will say, because it was circumstantial evidence and
there's a lot and maybe we'll we'll talk about this
on a show at a different time. But there was
a lot of questions surrounding his actual guilt. There was
a big push for the from the family, and Wenling
was actually pardoned by Virginia State and deported back to

(01:12:12):
his home country of France in nineteen thirty five. A freeman. Wow, Yeah,
which I found to be interesting, very interesting because being
pardoned and not being commuted.

Speaker 1 (01:12:25):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:12:25):
Yeah, yeah, that's like a huge which is a big difference.
Pardon and commutation are two totally different things, and they're
very big difference. I don't know about all that interesting
she so, yeah, So anyway, that is a story of
Hans Schmitz, A good one. Crazy what because he like
literally out the gate, was acting wild and they're like,

(01:12:48):
you can still be a priest though, it's fine, but
they have no standards. I mean, are we surprised? No? No, yes,
Before you decide to join the Catholic Church, why don't
you check out this podcast or do anything else? Just
literally anything else.

Speaker 4 (01:13:04):
Hi, I'm Lany, host of the new podcast. We're all
just pretending. It's a podcast that has elements of Dear
Abby with a twist of postsecret. Every episode, I'll read
listener questions and provide advice and insight as a friend.
My own pod friends will even join in and offer
their advice on parenting relationships and even give you really

(01:13:26):
bad advice on purpose, since we all have secrets to share.
There'll also be a segment focusing on letting the skeletons
out of your closet. If you're looking for advice or
want to share a secret, head to all Pretending pod
dot com and remember we're all just pretending here, all right, friends.

Speaker 2 (01:13:45):
That has been our episode for this week. I'm so
excited to take a nap.

Speaker 3 (01:13:50):
Was that technically a white collar crime episode? Because they're
Catholic priests and newere white collars?

Speaker 2 (01:13:55):
Yeah, but they're under black collars. It's like white color
under black collar.

Speaker 3 (01:13:59):
I literally thought of that at the beginning, and I'm like,
I can't, You're so dumb say that it's so funny,
And she didn't even laugh.

Speaker 2 (01:14:05):
No, I don't laugh at any of your jokes.

Speaker 3 (01:14:07):
It's because you're done, and so it's true.

Speaker 2 (01:14:09):
That is accurate.

Speaker 3 (01:14:11):
I don't appreciate.

Speaker 2 (01:14:12):
It's because I'm done inside. Do you have any final.

Speaker 3 (01:14:15):
Thoughts before we go no, that was it.

Speaker 2 (01:14:17):
Okay, I love you. Enjoyed this episode. You can find
more just like this at bad Taste podcast dot com.
Our sound and editing is by tiff Fulman. Our music
is by Jason Zakschewsky. Do you Enigma. This has been
the Bad Taste crime Podcast. We will see you in
two weeks. Goodbye, goodbye. He's risen. Oh god, he's rising.

Speaker 3 (01:14:43):
Oh god.

Speaker 1 (01:14:44):
That down there, the highway, it.

Speaker 3 (01:14:52):
Was as if the way of the people washed over
with town

Speaker 1 (01:14:57):
All or another