Hi! To continue on from Friday's topic of exorcisms, which are typically a religious matter, I wanted to explore cover-ups of murders in the church. I guess because of what I've seen and heard in churches throughout my life, I no longer look at them as being the pious, righteous places of holiness that they are supposed to be seen as to the public. I know that while these places are supposed to be a haven and a safe place, they are also run by imperfect humans. In my experience, I have found that most times, those who preach the most of holiness and present themselves to be as such are often those who have the most to hide. There is a lot of sin and corruption in the church, and the paradox those things create is something that disturbs and intrigues me in equal amounts.
1. Maria Luisa
This is one of the older stories on today's list but I had to include it because it blew my mind. This tale involves murder, fraud, embezzlement, sex, and the involvement of many prominent figures in religion during the mid 1800s. To be more specific, it happened within a year of one of the other events on this list. But I'll get to that later. Maria Luisa was a once celebrated prophetess and vicaress in the Catholic community, but would soon reveal herself, as well as the founder of the convent and a handful of prominent individuals, to be hypocrites and frauds of the highest kind. A princess named Katharina moved to the Sant'Ambrogio convent, but was whisked away only 15 months later and after telling her story, it became the stuff of legends. As it turned out, Maria Luisa was a fraud, attempting (and succeeding 3 times) to kill her supposed accomplices, did not receive visions from Jesus and Mary as she told others, and was sexually molesting other nuns. Katharina found herself at the other end of Maria Luisa's acts after discovering the woman's treachery; the princess's food was poisoned with a lethal combination of tartar emetic, ground glass and opium but the princess survived. Scared for her life--and rightly so--she escaped to her cousin's home to recover. Maria Luisa was also having a lurid affair with a Jesuit priest, who the princess correctly accused of breaking the confidential confessional oath. If you can believe it, she was also guilty of skimming off the top of the convent's funds and keeping them for herself.
Katharina's account of the horrors visited upon her while at the Sant'Ambrogio convent did not stop with Maria Luisa, which is where the founder of the convent comes back into play. Maria Luisa had been sexually molesting some of the other nuns, telling them that her "liquid" had to be received through the other nun placing their mouths on her and forcing them to sleep naked with her just before being initiated as nuns. As it turns out, Maria Luisa said that despite her initiation of these activities with incoming nuns, she herself had once been subjected to the same activities by the founder, a Maria Firrao. The elder Maria, much like Maria Luisa, was formerly regarded as a pillar, a figure to be celebrated in the Catholic community, but was also outed as a fraud. Her extracurricular activities rivaled Maria Luisa's--among other things, she had a threesome with a confessor and another nun, had two abortions which were then covered up, encouraged her fellow nuns to have her ordained a living saint, and had slept with various confessors in the community. Believe it or not, this is not where the story ends, but the main thing I wanted to include Maria Luisa on here for was the murders she committed. Those were said to be committed because she wanted to prevent others from finding out about her, but Katharina's larger size was ultimately what saved her from the same fate and allowed the world to learn about this story, which now lives in infamy. To be poisoned with an emetic, opium and ground glass, and survive to tell THAT tale alone, much less blow the lid off of what was happening in the convent? Princess Katharina deserves to be the saint, bump the others. lol
Like I said, this is not where the story ends but there is a book out on everything that went on at Sant'Ambrogio, the cover of which is the photo I used for this section of the post. The research resources are long but trust me, they're worth reading. When I tell you that this was maybe 1/3 of the story....just go read.
Research resources:
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2. Sister Margaret
Sister Margaret Pahl was a nun at Toledo Mercy Hospital, where she served as caretaker over the hospital's chapel and ministered to the severely and terminally ill patients in the facility. One morning in 1980, she was preparing the chapel for Easter services when she was strangled and stabbed over 30 times. Nine of those wounds were to the upper body, where the shape of an inverted cross was found to be made with the stab wounds. She was found covered in an alter cloth, although the sources differ on exactly when the cloth was placed over her body. Her own blood was smeared over her forehead, in a final act of humiliation directed at her to mock the Last Rites passage normally said before a person's death. From the beginning, investigators suspected a local priest, Father Robinson, but the town was split as the priest was a pillar in the community. During the police investigation, it was revealed that Robinson and Sister Margaret had argued the night before the nun's murder; the two conflicted on Father Robinson's decision to hold a shorter-than-normal service for the holiday and Sister Margaret disappeared. One of the sources say that Robinson frequently argued with Sister Margaret due to the latter's meddling in church affairs, and it could be argued that the conflict pushed him to murder her.
A letter opener that the priest owned was said to fit some of the nun's wounds and was confiscated by police, but was never made visible to the public. Much later, this was said to be confirmed as the murder weapon; at the time of the initial investigation DNA technology and forensics were nowhere near what they are now so there was no way to test the weapon back then. The police had interference from the beginning of their investigation by their own, and this caused important information to go missing. Documents that would have been vital to the case were given to a superior officer and never seen again, and the deputy chief later testified that despite lower officers giving him the paperwork associated with the investigation, he was never involved directly. That would beg the question, where did the documents go? Despite the suspicions that Father Robinson as the murderer, most of the evidence was circumstantial; nothing was found at the scene and witness testimonies were too contradictory for a solid case to be built. The case went cold until 2003, when a woman came forward in 2003 with claims that she'd been sexually assaulted during religious rituals and named Father Robinson as one of her assailants. Shortly after those accusations went public, the investigation into Sister Margaret's murder was reopened. The advancement of forensic testing allowed investigators to find that the letter opener found in Father Robinson's desk was similar to the imprints found on the altar cloth that was covering the nun's body. This time around, there was enough evidence to convict Father Robinson of murder and he was sentenced to 15 years in prison, which he was still serving when he passed away three years ago. Some say that the Catholic Church attempted to bungle the investigation the first time around by covering it up. Others say that Father Robinson was the fall guy for a murder he didn't commit and the lack of evidence at the scene as well as his continued claims of innocence support that theory for them. What say you?
Research resources:
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3. Mountain Meadows Massacre
The first time I came across this story, it was because it was focusing on the date of this massacre, which coincidentally was September 11th. The article mentioned how the date 9/11 already had a negative connotation for Mormon people before the 9/11 attack on the WTC. I'd never heard of it so I checked it out and that was when I learned about the Mountain Meadows massacre in 1857. This event saw the murders of over 100 emigrant settlers by the Utah Territorial Militia on the Old Spanish Trail in Utah. The militia, which was mainly made up of LDS members, ambushed the group, who were traveling west to start new lives, and over the course of a few days gradually wore them down with constant attacks. The circle of travelers had settled down overnight and when the militia ambushed them the following morning, they were obviously caught off guard and a few of them died in the initial defense. Over the next five days, the militia wore the group down and depleted their ammunition. On the fifth day, the militia waved a white flag to signal a truce and coaxed the emigrants to leave the safety of their wagons in order to negotiate a truce. The emigrants agreed to the terms of the "truce," which were for them to give all of their livestock and supplies to the attackers, and they'd get to go on their way. After agreeing, the militia turned on the settlers, opening fire and encouraging the Paiute Indians, who'd assisted with the ambush, to kill the women and children. After slaughtering the group, with the exception of 17 children who were spared due to age, the bodies were robbed and tossed in shallow graves. Local Mormon families took in the children, most of whom were relocated after finding their actual relatives.
To this day, this event remains a stain on the Mormon/LDS community and there is evidence of an extensive cover-up. It is said that some of the Mormon militiamen were disguised as Native Americans in an effort to pin most of the blame on them, but somehow word got out that the militia was comprised of Mormons and its something the community has yet to fully live down with those in the know. The link between the massacre and the Mormons comes back to John Lee, a Mormon militia member and the adopted son of a Mormon prophet and pioneer, Brigham Young. Some accounts of the story go that Lee sent word to his father asking for his help on what to do with the travelers and that Young responded to leave them alone, but in actuality encouraged Lee to massacre them and just washed his hands of the event afterward. He was also said to have ordered an investigation into the massacre to clear the Mormon religion of any responsibility, but then became a source of interference for the investigation, creating the need for a second trial after the first failed. The sole individual charged and convicted of the crime was John Lee, who was executed by firing squad some years later. Legend would have it that at some point following the massacre, Young visited the burial site and gloated about his success, as the massacre was said to have taken place to rid the world of 'infidels.' I wasn't able to substantiate that in the other sources I used, so take that with a grain of salt. As the surviving children began to tell their stories, the duplicity of the Mormons began to emerge, as it came out that the Paiutes were involved solely for the intention of blaming the massacre on them. The children remembered seeing those who looked like Native Americans during the massacre wash themselves following the event and being white afterwards. This event has caused a lot of trouble for the Mormon community, as their failure to fully accept responsibility for the event has rubbed people the wrong way, but their decision to do so would cause the opinion of one of its pioneers to tumble, which for them would be unacceptable. The third research source I used is from an account of one of Brigham Young's descendants, who learned later in life about the atrocities her ancestor was said to have once committed.
Research resources:
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4. Sister Catherine
The subject for the Netflix documentary "The Keepers," Sister Catherine, was murdered in 1969 and I haven't finished watching the series just yet but from the articles I've read, the case is still unsolved today. Sister Catherine was a 26-year-old teacher who'd recently moved out of her local convent with another sister and into their own apartment. Both nuns used to teach at a nearby Catholic school but after leaving the convent, took on teaching jobs in city schools instead. Sister Catherine was seen leaving her apartment one day to cash a check and stop by a bakery, and was never seen alive again. After weeks of searching, her body was finally found, mutilated, half-naked, and crawling with maggots near an embankment. Physical evidence was found at the scene, suggesting the nun had been sexually assaulted before her murder, but with DNA not as good as it is today, it proved unhelpful. The case went cold for decades until the mid-90s, when a student approached detectives with a story about being taken to see Sister Catherine's corpse by a priest, who supposedly beat and murdered the nun over her knowledge of his molestation of his students. She recounted a detail that was not made public, which gave her story some credibility and convinced cold case detectives to reactivate the investigation. Other students claimed to have been molested by the priest, who was later identified as Joseph Maskell. Maskell took the student in question to view Sister Catherine's corpse as a threat of what would happen to her should she ever tell anyone about what he was doing. An autopsy would confirm that she likely died of blunt force trauma, which would corroborate the student's story that the priest beat Sister Catherine. No murder charges were ever filed against the priest, but he was removed from his position in the community after the molestation accusations went public.
As I'm seeing is a common thread with today's stories, there were obstacles and red herrings all over the place in this investigation. A Jesuit priest that was in love with Catherine was, for awhile, the main suspect but the police were pressured by superiors to either formally charge the man or let him go, so that avenue closed quickly. Other theories were shot down as well, from a robbery gone wrong to a rape and murder, to the nun's murder being connected to the murders of other young women in the area around the same time period. The robbery angle didn't hold water, as her valuables and car were left untouched. The money from the check she'd cashed was gone, but that was about it. The rape angle didn't last long, as by the time her body was found animals had mutilated her lower half, preventing a thorough investigation of her body. Her car was left in a no-parking zone, which was illegal and out of character for her to do, which lends to the theory that her body was dumped in the embankment it was found in and her killer likely left the car where it was recovered. A broken umbrella lent to the theory that she'd been abducted and struggled with her assailant, but a witness testified seeing the nun's car next to a similar one, which she followed. Maskell's grave was exhumed this year in an effort to test the bit of DNA that was recovered from the scene, but the sources I read had no updates on the outcome of the tests. Her friends believe she was killed by someone she knew, but everyone that was interviewed checked out at some point and were eventually cleared. An investigator looking over the case thinks it was purely a crime of opportunity by someone who did not know the nun, but most evidence seems to be pointing to Sister Catherine's murderer being someone she knew. Another thing I'm seeing repeatedly throughout these stories is that the lack of suspects could have come from the lack of information, which was said to be in part because the church ordered the police to destroy documents, citing confidentiality. The church denied any such activity but they also refused to comply with the investigation and continually interfered, and this put a major roadblock on the proceedings. The lack of cooperation would have me assuming that someone in the church either did it or knows who did and just won't say. Have you seen The Keepers yet, what are your thoughts?
Research resources:
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5. Sister Janina
I wanted to end today's post on a story that would leave the reader with questions, which brings me to the case of Sister Janina. This case is over 100 years old, but is still unsolved today and nearly everyone connected with the case has since died. A couple of the stories would have Sister Janina sounding old and frail because of her failing health, but she was only in her mid-30s. That's going to be relevant later. Anyway, Sister Janina, along with two other nuns, Sisters Angelina and Josephine, helped to run a convent inside of a school called Holy Rosary. All three nuns were said to be suffering from tuberculosis and moving from Detroit to the small town of Isadore, MI seemed to do them all some good. By many outside accounts, the life there was idyllic. Sister Janina served as Mother Superior to the school's convent and all three nuns helped the parish priest, Father Patrick Bieniawski, along with his younger sister, a chore boy, the rectory's housekeeper and her young daughter. The children of the school boarded there during winter, but they went home for summer break.
During the summer of 1907 when school let out for the year, instead of traveling back to the convent in Detroit, Angelina, Janina and Josephine opted to stay at the schoolhouse. There aren't many accounts of what happened on a daily basis during that summer, but a nearby doctor made frequent visits and eventually said Sister Janina's health was on the upswing. Shortly before summer ended, however, Sister Janina went missing. The nuns took daily afternoon naps and on the day Janina went missing, she was seen drawing her window shade in preparation for a nap, but by the time her fellow nuns awoke from their naps, Janina was gone. The schoolhouse's back door was open and the nun's prayer book was left open nearby. Father Patrick rounded up the rest of the household and a couple of neighbors, and they launched a search party but to no avail. A few days later, sets of female footprints were found in the swamp near the schoolhouse and a piece of brown wool, which was the color and material of Sister Janina's order, was found attached to a barbed wire fence in the area. There was still no sighting of the nun personally, but several residents reported hearing singing at night and seeing a lantern around the area. The press caught wind and tried to sensationalize the reason behind the nun's disappearance, but none of the leads or headlines ever amounted to anything and as a result, the case eventually went cold.
Over the next few years, all of the original housemates eventually either died or went their separate ways. Father Patrick moved away from the area as well and his successor, Father Podlaszewski, was later presented with some troubling information. A little over a decade following Janina's disappearance, a shallow grave with remains that later proved to be Sister Janina's were found in the basement. The former housekeeper was arrested and jailed for the murder. A detective was brought in to elicit a confession, which came from a supposed confession the housekeeper gave a priest, but it was retracted during the trial. A completely different story of what was going on at the schoolhouse emerged from witness testimonies; rather than an innocent running of a school with three nuns and a priest, a witness described things as more of a bigamist situation. Sisters Janina, Angelina and Josephine were described as the wives to Father Patrick and the housekeeper's jealousy/disgust was said to push her to murder Janina. Sounds like case closed, right? Nope. Three doctors examined the nun's remains and came up with two different answers as to the actual cause of death, one of which conflicted with the other two. For another thing, Janina's remains were discovered in a very shallow grave and she'd died during the summer, so how did the odor of decay not alert someone earlier? This points to the nun's body having originally been somewhere else and later moved to the shallow grave in the basement. Nothing ever came of the footprints in the swamp, the resident accounts of seeing lanterns and hearing singing around where she'd disappeared, or the piece of wool attached to the fence nearby. The housekeeper was pardoned after 7 years in prison, and the main story goes that the local community as well as the convent of nuns that took her in following her release felt she was innocent. All of the open doors and questions that were initially presented in this case are still open today, mainly because it would seem that the local community came together to both protect one of their own from further scandal and protect themselves as a town. The Catholic Church claims to know the truth as well but has not ever revealed it because it came out through way of confidential confession and the church honored that. All we have left are questions, because everyone connected to the case enough to know the truth is gone. Even the nun's bones are gone; those disappeared some time after the trial. What do you think happened?
Research resources:
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*Extra Reading: Who Killed Father Ryan? --Rather than a priest or someone in the church committing a murder, in this case a priest was the victim and a private citizen was fingered as the murderer. Problem is, it was physically impossible for him to have committed the crime. This case is said to be connected to the random suicide of a man who ingested a cyanide capsule while waiting to confess, but he has never been identified so the reasons behind his suicide are still a mystery. It's an interesting read.
I apologize that this post may be shorter than some of the others in this month's series; I didn't want to make this a super detailed post and potentially get it out super late like Friday's but I still wanted it to be informative for you, and I hope it was. Like I said before, it's always intriguing to me to explore just how dark human nature tends to get, especially when under the cover of light and innocence. It intrigues and scares me a bit, actually. As always, I hope you enjoyed this post despite my not being able to make more of the subject like I'd intended, and I'll see you later this week!
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