death cathy cesnik autopsy photos

', 'Before I knew it, there was a big man on top of me and then I thought that would be it and another policeman came in and I could hear Maskell in the distance talking and laughing. Sister Cathy was a teacher at Archbishop Keough High School and went missing in Baltimore in 1969. Cold cases", "About the BCoPD Cold Case Unit and the Sister Catherine Ann Cesnik Homicide", "Police: Exhumed Priest's DNA Does Not Match Evidence from Crime Scene Killing of Sister Cathy", "Priest's Body Exhumed from Randallstown Cemetery in Investigation of Baltimore Nun's Decades-Old Killing", "The Dead Nun, the School Sex Scandal, and the Amateur Detectives Fighting for Justice", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Murder_of_Catherine_Cesnik&oldid=1117759661, This page was last edited on 23 October 2022, at 12:23. A. Joseph Maskell after securing an order from the states attorney, according to Elise Armacost, director of public affairs for Baltimore County Police. ", Up Next: Netflix Hidden Gems For Sci-Fi And Fantasy Lovers. It's just a theory one that makes sense, but also one that the police actually can't prove. After Maskell died in 2001, the two women decided to go public, using their real names. Armacost says the timing of Maskells exhumation has nothing to do with the documentary, and opening the priests grave was simply a step that cold-case investigators felt needed to be taken to leave no stone unturned. CNN reported in 2017 that police had the okay to exhume his body for DNA testing, but even then, the DNA wasn't a match with what was found at the crime scene. Much like the government, the Catholic Church has their own internal system for keeping track of the people who make up their organization. But that charming faade was shattered in 1992. Maskell's DNA did not match the forensic profile from 1970, although investigators noted that this . 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. Leads dried up quickly and no one came forward with information about Cathy's whereabouts, and the search dragged on for months. 15:36 EST 18 May 2017 , updated Wehner, who reported her allegations about Maskell to the Baltimore Archdiocese in 1992, claimed that the only nun at the school who sought to help the abused girls was Sister Cathy. We are no longer accepting comments on this article. By 1994, they and several other students had filed a lawsuit alleging physical and sexual abuse by Maskell through the 1960s and 1970s, according to Armacost. The student let herself out right away but could tell that Maskell knew what was happening. Because of the condition of Cesnik's corpse, police were unable to tell if she had been sexually assaulted. One of the major theories that The Keepers hypothesizes is that Maskell either killed Sister Cathy or had her killed. Investigators dug up Maskell's grav to compare the DNA of Maskell, to evidence from the crime scene. An undated photo of Sister Cathy Cesnik, whose body was found at a dumping area Jan . Granted, there was the argument that this was, technically, still within three years Jean Wehner and Teresa Lancaster had just recovered those memories. Maybe that was why a homicide detective was told to drop the case in the 1970s, blocked from investigating because higher-ups were "protecting someone." Her account was brought into question by scientific evidence showing that it would have been impossible for maggots to be alive at that time of year. After that, it seemed like she paid a visit to Muhly's Bakery inside the Hecht Company store in Edmondson Village. The youngest I've talked to myself was three, Hoskins said. Sister Cathy's life and death have both deeply inspired and haunted Gemma in a number of ways, and she's made it her life s purpose to uncover what really happened on that November night in 1969. According to police, Joyce Helen Malecki, 20, disappeared from a shopping mall only days after Cesnik on November 11, 1969, in Glen Burnie, a suburb of Baltimore. Another woman, Teresa Lancaster, also came forward. Though the documentary includes much of the story, director Ryan White doesnt include every piece of evidence, and some of the most crucial information gets left out. 'After that we had to break away from him. Like a scene out of a horror movie, the high school junior was driven to a garbage dump by the school's 30-year-old spiritual counselor, Father Joseph Maskell - who died in 2001 - and reportedly told the 16-year-old student: 'You see what happens when you say bad things about people?'. In spite of the Freedom of Information Act, the federal government has continuously neglected to provide Gemma Hoskins with this information. Catherine Cesnik's disappearance scared a lot of people. Many believe a quiet cover-up orchestrated by the Catholic Church and . It came with the threat that he would tell her father that she'd been "whoring around," and that those consequences would be far worse. Except for that day, she said. I'm not going to name names right now but they know stuff. They have internal records on everyone including A. Joseph Maskell. May 11, 2017 at 2:54 pm. Gerard Koob it depends on the report) found her car unlocked around 4:40 a.m. on the day after her disappearance. The Murder. And it was the students who really benefited from that, as Huffpost describes. When Wehner could only nod in reply, Cesnik promised that she would take care of it (though Maskell did continue to abuse students after that, too). 'There were a lot of layers that if you peeled them back went a lot deeper. When he was removed from the ministry he fled to Ireland, where he lived for a time before returning to the Baltimore area, according to police. Not two decades. The current team of cold case detectives, assigned the Cesnik case in 2016, began discussing the exhumation of Maskell almost immediately, but it took time to get proper authorization. White tells us there is some dogged reporting happening right now in Ireland, digging deeper into the time that A. Joseph Maskell spent there, in addition to his time spent in the United States. The exact area couldn't actually be reached by car, meaning that she would've been forced to walk there, or possibly carried. Jan. 3, 1970, changed that. But, again, that didn't go anywhere, with Maskell always conveniently too busy to talk. [6], Immediately after Cesnik's disappearance, police searched the area for her body without success. Her cousin was soon to be married and Sister Cathy wanted to shop for an engagement gift, she told her roommate, Sister Helen Phillips, with whom she shared a small garden apartment in Southwest Baltimore, a blue-collar area of the city. But when he was questioned by the police, he had an ironclad alibi for the night of Sister Cathy's disappearance. The girl left but the next day, she later claimed, Maskell waved a gun at her, warning he'd kill her and her family if she revealed the abuse. 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. One of them, Jean Wehner, was the student who claimed Maskell had taken her to view Cesnik's body in the dump. Peter McKeon (possibly with Sister Helen Phillips and Rev. 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. . Former students of the Catholic school have maintained that the priest was somehow involved in Sister Cathy's murder. Updated Investigating detectives found no leads on Cesnik's death, and the investigation was later abandoned. Father Neil Magnus Is A Possible Suspect On 'The Keepers'. A search of the park turned up nothing, and there was no lead on her whereabouts for almost two months. She was valedictorian at the graduation of her high school class in 1960, after being the May Queen and the president of the senior class and the student council. By 1994, over a dozen allegations had been filed against Maskell by different women, some of whom had been abused, and others who had managed to fend off Maskell's advances. The women have since been more vocal about the abuses they suffered at Joseph Maskell's hands, and all the stories are universally awful (via Huffpost). So-called Grandma Nancy Drew Gemma Hoskins has spent years asking for the federal case files on Joyce Maleckis murder. The plaintiffs appealed. Potential suspects seem like they should shed some light on a case, but that wasn't the case here, as Huffpost documents. Instead, it made more sense if someone Catherine Cesnik already knew coerced her from the car. The autopsy concluded her cause of death . ', He claimed that the detectives were told to either charge the priest 'or let him go. Photo of Sister Cathy Cesnik (Image Source: Daily Mail) On November 7, 1969, Sister Catherine Ann Cesnik disappeared. As the next morning rolled around, Catherine Cesnik still hadn't returned to the apartment, and her roommate became very concerned. In the 1990s, sexual assault and abuse allegations began to surface against Maskell, who had served as a chaplain at Archbishop Keough High School in Baltimore. I think this is it, Hoskins said, in a recent interview. Savvy internet sleuths have found evidence that James Maskell, a former patrolman, got a woman named Sarah Nell sentenced to a year in prison for biting him while he attempted to assault her. What we do know is that the FBIs continuing failure to contribute meaningfully to this case has negatively impacted any chance at an ending to the story. The first clue in the disappearance was found pretty early her car ended up giving some insight into what happened but mostly brought more confusion. It was apparently a fixation for Maskell, who would then perform his own mock "exams" on the girls, flaunting his authority and power. She left for Baltimore at 18 to join the School Sisters of Notre Dame, eventually going on to teach at Archbishop Keough High School. Ghosts of the past might've followed her, though, punishing her for what she knew and the good she did. Baltimore Detective Lt. Sam Bowerman always believed Sister Cathy was killed by a man who either lived in, or was familiar with, the area around the Carriage House Apartments, knew the location off Monument Avenue where her body was dumped, and that the murder was unplanned. memorial page for Sr Catherine Anne "Cathy" Cesnik (17 Nov 1942-7 Nov 1969), Find a Grave Memorial ID 61142401, citing . But I can whole-heartedly say, Cathy has been very much a part of all this.. But investigators found only a few inconsistencies in some statements, and detectives were unable to find any damning evidence against the priest. In 2013, Facebook page was started by an alum of the school, and more women told of their abuse at the hands of Maskell and others. They already knew the murderer, but looking further would unearth information he wasn't supposed to know. Regardless of why the school is closing, the walls will never be able to talk now. Fans of The Keepers may be surprised to hear that Keough High School, where Sister Cathy and A. Joseph Maskell both taught, closed in July of 2017, following confirmation from the Archdiocese of Baltimore that they paid settlements out to students who had been sexually abused by Maskell. Nicole Mello is an author of horrors, romances, and comedies. (Aside from reports that Maskell invited uniformed officers to assault the girls). Catherine (Cathy) Cesnik was a Catholic sister and taught English and drama at Archbishop Keough (later renamed Seton Keough), an all-girls Catholic high school in Baltimore. More than a month later, her partly clad body was found near a garbage dump in a Baltimore suburb. Wehner alleged that there was frequent sexual abuse at Sister Cathy's school. [11] Cesnik's body was not found until January 3, 1970, and its discovery by two hunters was not in the wooded location near Fort Meade, but on the open hill trash dump of a small business property in Lansdowne. One night, he invited Wehner into his car, only to take her to see Cesnik's dead body, long before it was discovered. On November 7, 1969, Cesnik disappeared. 16:14 EST 18 May 2017, A New York Times bestselling author Jerry Oppenheimer latest book, 'The Kardashians: An American Drama,' will be published in September. "The Keepers" premieres on Netflix May 19. [4] Cesnik had three siblings. It's one of those terrible truths of the world that bad things happen to good people. Catherine Anne Cesnik SSND (born November 17, 1942; disappeared November 7, 1969) was an American Catholic religious sister who taught English and drama at Archbishop Keough High School in Baltimore, Maryland. One of the major theories that The Keepers hypothesizes is that Maskell either killed Sister Cathy or had her killed. So it probably wasn't the result of some random act of violence. Unfortunately, Russell is . The Baltimore Sun explained that Rev. [13], Netflix produced a seven-part documentary series about the case called The Keepers, which debuted on May 19, 2017. The service at the at Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Pinehurst, North Carolina lasted 1 hour. Joseph Cesnik in 1930 Census; Census Place: Pittsburgh, Allegheny, Pennsylvania; 1930 United States Federal Census; National Archives and Records Administration. Or does White know more than hes telling his audience? 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. There is no word on whether the Attorney General's investigators will gain access to those records. As police proceeded with their investigation, Father Maskell who was said to have taken a female student to the site where she claimed she saw Sister Cathy's lifeless body came under suspicion. Jerry Oppenheimer For Dailymail.com For all the press and notoriety that this case would get in the long run, it started out exceedingly normal. Details. And she has not stopped looking into the murder of her former teacher. She had moved to an apartment outside the convent with another nun and began teaching at Western High School in Baltimore on November 7, 1969, when she left her apartment to run an errand at Edmondson Village Shopping Center in Baltimore, according to Armacost. After the series premiered, messages started to arrive from around the world with new information. [10], Wehner says that, two months before Cesnik's body was discovered, and only a day or two after Cesnik disappeared on November 1969, Maskell drove her to a wooded site near Fort Meade and showed her the body. See more ideas about catherine, documentaries, unsolved murders. Now, WJZ has learned Baltimore County Police may be closer than ever to solving the murder of 26-year-old Sister Cathy Cesnik. Whats worse than considering the fact that A. Joseph Maskell terrorized one community? They got in touch with the local police, reporting that Cesnik had gone missing. 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. The show is responsible for initiating a deeper look into the case of A. Joseph Maskell and Sister Cathy Cesnik, as Baltimore County Police start investigating again due to a public outcry. 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