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Gerald KoobA close friend of Sister Cathys, who says his relationship with her was almost romantic. I think that the impact of The Keepers has far exceeded our expectations, Hargrave said. Sister Cathy's battered body - she had been beaten over the head - was discovered . The biggest hurdle was that the case was so old, that it was 45 years old. We did it slowly it took three years. As time would tell, she had good reason to keep quiet. She doesnt recognize that of course she lives small. What the show doesnt get into is that the FBI has pushed back the date even further now. Netflix's documentary series "The Keepers" dives into the case and uncovers a web of abuse that may . White is unconvinced that the DNA found at the scene on a cigarette butt would match A. Joseph Maskells DNA, but he remains positive that, eventually, someone will catch whoever murdered Sister Cathy and theyll finally figure out why. But reading through her mothers things the 2015 Huffington Post story was the first clipping she found Radakovic learned about the swirl of rumors and theories that still surrounds Cesniks death. Just a few days before she vanished, the priest reportedly called her and, once again expressing his love, had asked her to marry him. There is no word on whether the Attorney General's investigators will gain access to those records. It would be two months later, on January 3, 1970, that a couple of hunters came upon Sister Cathy's decomposed, frozen and mutilated body, and notified police. Baltimore's Metro Crime Stoppers has republished the reward for information about the murder of Sister Cathy Cesnik. Father Joseph Maskell's body was exhumed from a Baltimore cemetery earlier this year as part of the investigation into the unsolved slaying. That was the first time I had learned of any of this.. Cesnik was born in 1942 and grew up to become a nun at the all-girls Archbishop Keough High School in Baltimore, where . 'The Keepers': Sister Cathy's Medical Examiner Also Worked on JFK, JonBenet Ramsey Cases, director Ryan White told TheWrap there are at least 40 victims in total, The Baltimore Archdiocese reached a $35,000 settlement with VonDenBosch in 2016. White: My access point was personal connection: My aunt went to Archbishop Keough High School and was Sister Cathys student, so she always had a personal connection. There, on the ground, still clad, her face covered with maggots, was the body of Sister Cathy. I was raised Catholic and I had a very positive experience. I mean, its a survivor story at its core. 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The church first learned of the allegations in 1992 and removed Maskell as a priest in 1994, as soon as it had corroborating accounts of his abuse, according to Sean Caine, a spokesman for the Archdiocese of Baltimore. Among the other errands she ran that night, Cesnik was also looking to buy a present for her sister. He was well connected to the local community and to the police departments, at both the county and state levels. She was the eldest child of Joseph and Anna Omulac Cesnik. Everything Ive done, Ive really tried since that time which is just a little over a year ago for me Ive tried to give them all the information that Ive learned, she says of working with authorities. However, the material was never entered into evidence. [6] Residents at the apartment complex noticed Cesnik in her car at approximately 8:30 that night, and others spotted her car illegally parked across the street about two hours later. The Keepers was an intense docu-series on Netflix about an unsolved murder, and here are some bits of evidence the show has left out. I think it's pretty undeniable by the end of The Keepers that they are, and Jean is the nexus of that, White said. It deals with, among other subjects, the unsolved brutal murder on November 7, 1969, of a popular nun, Sister Catherine Ann Cesnik, known to many as simply Sister Cathy.. Jane Doe (Jean Wehner) is quoted as recalling a man she knew only as Brother Bob, who she can hardly remember from being traumatized so badly by him, whispering to her that he was the one who had killed Sister Cathy. After Maskell died in 2001, the two women decided to go public, using their real names. TheWrap: What was the process ofgetting this documentary together? Abbie SchaubAnother former student of Sister Cathys, Schaub and Hoskins combined forces to try to uncover what happened to Sister Cathy in 1969. Catherine Anne Cesnik was born on November 17, 1942, in the Lawrenceville neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Because no criminal charges were leveled against Maskell, Wehner and Lancaster became plaintiffs in the 1994 lawsuit against Maskell and the archdiocese. It started with a freelance journalist, Tom Nugent. Sister Catherine CesnikA nun and teacher at Archbishop Keough High School in 1968, Sister Cathy was murdered in Nov. 1969, although her body wasnt discovered until Jan. 3, 1970. Months later, Radakovic became engaged (to the man who is still her husband) and she called Cesnik to ask her to be her maid of honor and discuss details of the wedding. And the oldest was in her 20's.. "The Keepers" explores the murder of Sister Catherine Cesnik, who disappeared in November 1969 and whose body was discovered in January of 1970. [13][14] Police spokeswoman Elise Armacost announced that this discovery does not exclude Maskell from being a suspect in the case. [12] After obtaining permission from the state's attorney's office, the BCPD exhumed the body of Maskell, who died of a major stroke in 2001, but did not find a DNA match to evidence from the crime scene. When you visit this site, it may store or retrieve information on your browser, mostly in the form of cookies. The case remains open and unsolved. We would go to Baltimore every two months for the last three years, so people started to feel comfortable around us Survivors would reach out to us on Facebook. In another scenario, James Maskell arrested a man named Phillip Shane after the two of them got into an altercation and Maskell lied about how they came to blows. During his interview in "The Keepers," however, he denied any involvement. The fall before she died, Cesnik transferred from Keough to a local public school in Baltimore and had asked for a leave of absence from her order. 2021 Updates on The 50-Year-Old Unsolved Murder Case of Sister Cathy Cesnik | by Rameen Zeeshan | Lessons from History | Medium 500 Apologies, but something went wrong on our end. That documentary series, The Keepers, premiered on Netflix on Friday with Radakovic as a key participant. I would hang on to her, and she was like, Youre gonna get me thrown out! , And shed tell Cesnik, Thats what Im trying to do, Cathy, Im trying to do. Id say to my dad, Get the car, well steal her. . The plaintiffs appealed. ', He claimed that the detectives were told to either charge the priest 'or let him go. In 2016, the Baltimore County Police Department (BCPD) reassigned the case due to retiring officers, prompting new interviews and further investigation into the alleged sexual abuse at Keough. Though they had an age difference of about six years, the two girls were very close growing up, even sharing the same bedroom. Maskell left Baltimore for Ireland where he obtained amployment as a psychologist. However, White did still get to talk to them he even got to talk to the anonymous student he mentions in the series. Today, almost a half-century later, the murder of Sister Cathy who was once compared to Julie Andrews' character in 'The Sound of Music' because of her beauty and bubbly personality is still one of law enforcement's most mysterious cold cases. She was found dead two months later. ", All the people you need to know to follow Netflixs sprawling documentary series The Keepers. [6] At 4:40am the next morning, Russell's friends, Peter McKeon and Gerard J. Koob, both Catholic priests, found Cesnik's car, in muddy condition, and illegally parked across from her apartment complex. The call led Hoskins and Keough graduate, Abbie Schaub, to start their own research into Sister Cathy's murder. Cesnik felt called by God to be a nun, her sister says, and she had a gift for teaching. The Keepers/Netflix On its website, the department offers a timeline of Cesnik's death and the case involving allegations against Maskell, who died in 2001. In fact, people around the world were so distraught at learning about Sister Cathys case that they started flooding the Baltimore County Police with calls. We know this speculation about the circumstances is not false, because Jean Hargadon Wehner tells us in the show that she has evidence proving otherwise. He had been a chaplain and counselor at Archbishop Keough while she taught there. Father Maskell was a counselor and chaplain at Archbishop Keough from 1967 to 1975. The plaintiffs suits are thus barred by the statute of limitation. One of the major theories that The Keepers hypothesizes is that Maskell either killed Sister Cathy or had her killed. Father Joseph Maskell, who died in 2001, was widely accused of sexually abusing girls at the school where Sister Cathy worked and is believed to be involved in her murder. [8], In 1995, Teresa Lancaster and Jean Wehner (ne Hargadon), former students at Keough who say they were sexually abused by Maskell, filed a lawsuit against him, the school, gynecologist Christian Richter, the School Sisters of Notre Dame, the Archdiocese of Baltimore, and William H. Keeler. According to the autopsy, she had been struck on the back of her head by either a hammer or a brick, there was a hole the size of a quarter in her skull , and there were strangulation marks on her neck. In her first interview about Cesnik, Radakovic speaks to PEOPLE about who her sister really was, what the decades after her death have been like and her renewed quest for answers. I have deep gratitude for the detectiveswho sat down with me and had complete transparency in opening their crime scene photos and investigation. Possibly Missing: 1)An engagement gift 2) $255 cash (minus the rolls and gift?) Sister Cesnik had been reported as a missing person on November 7, 1969, from her residence at the Carriage House Apartments in Baltimore City, 21229. It just means that there's no link between Maskell and the crime scene. I thought they would have been more participatory. v. A. Joseph Maskell et al. Every bit of it, vividly. She was a member of the Keough class of 1970. In addition to the six abuse victims featured in the documentary, director Ryan White told TheWrap there are at least 40 victims in total, some from after Maskell's stint at Keough. White, the Keepers director, said nearly the same thing in a separate interview. ', After Maskell's death, Jean Wehner came forward and revealed she was the student who the priest had taken to view Cesnik's body at the dump before her remains were officially found, Wehner claims the only nun at the school who sought to help the abused girls was Sister Cathy, The crime haunted the local community for decades. We still remain optimistic that its possible for us to clear this case, Armacost says. Find out what it is in TheWraps Q&A with White below.