WEBVTT - The Nuns 0:00:01.440 --> 0:00:06.480 Warning. This episode contains references to sexual violence. Listener discretion 0:00:06.600 --> 0:00:19.919 is advised. There are thousands of bodies buried in the 0:00:19.960 --> 0:00:25.080 fertile soils of El Salvador, deep beneath the volcanic ash 0:00:25.440 --> 0:00:30.120 feeding the coffee plantations in the mountains. The practice of 0:00:30.160 --> 0:00:33.920 burying multiple bodies in a common grave goes back centuries 0:00:34.920 --> 0:00:38.879 when the conquistador is killed with swords and plagues when 0:00:38.920 --> 0:00:42.080 the government massacred our indigenous people in the nineteen thirties. 0:00:43.600 --> 0:00:47.040 Often common graves are marked with nothing more than two 0:00:47.120 --> 0:00:51.000 sticks in the shape of a cross, a simple memorial 0:00:51.240 --> 0:00:52.160 to lives lost. 0:00:54.120 --> 0:00:58.280 After pushing the bodies into the grave, the villagers covered 0:00:58.320 --> 0:01:01.200 it and placed a simple cross us made out of 0:01:01.240 --> 0:01:04.679 tree branches on the grave. I always thought it was 0:01:04.720 --> 0:01:09.440 just some little twig cross, and it was big three 0:01:09.440 --> 0:01:12.520 feet tall, this cross. And I think it was very 0:01:12.520 --> 0:01:16.679 obvious that the compasinos wanted this grave to be found, 0:01:16.720 --> 0:01:18.839 otherwise they wouldn't have marked it that way. 0:01:18.880 --> 0:01:20.600 That's my opinion on that. 0:01:22.560 --> 0:01:27.440 That's sister Cynthia glavic an Ursulae nun from Cleveland, Ohio, 0:01:27.520 --> 0:01:30.560 and she's talking about a common grave that was discovered 0:01:30.640 --> 0:01:35.640 in the afternoon of December fourth, nineteen eighty four women's 0:01:35.640 --> 0:01:38.720 bodies had been found sprawled along the roadside in the 0:01:38.800 --> 0:01:43.880 village of Santiago Nonualco. Local campasinos had found the women 0:01:44.440 --> 0:01:49.160 and buried them together in a shallow grave. This is 0:01:49.280 --> 0:01:55.120 nine months after Oscar Romero's assassination. By this time, the 0:01:55.160 --> 0:01:57.440 country was teetering on the brink of all out war 0:01:58.480 --> 0:02:01.640 and finding bodies along the road side was becoming more 0:02:01.680 --> 0:02:06.000 and more common. But one detail about these women stood 0:02:06.040 --> 0:02:09.880 out so much so that one of the villagers who 0:02:09.960 --> 0:02:12.800 was there went back and told his priest about it. 0:02:14.200 --> 0:02:19.760 The sandals was an interesting detail because the Salvadoran women 0:02:20.639 --> 0:02:23.880 didn't wear any shoes, so the fact that these women 0:02:24.000 --> 0:02:29.359 had sandals, it was like an identifying item that they 0:02:29.400 --> 0:02:32.000 were who they were, that these were the missionaries. 0:02:40.600 --> 0:02:45.680 Four American missionaries had gone missing. They'd been coming back 0:02:45.720 --> 0:02:49.280 from the airport in a big white van when they 0:02:49.360 --> 0:02:54.400 just disappeared. So when the priest heard about the women 0:02:54.480 --> 0:02:58.960 in sandals, he immediately raised the alarm. He called the 0:02:58.960 --> 0:03:02.720 American embassy and the US ambassador Robert White. We heard 0:03:02.720 --> 0:03:06.080 about in the last episode. White went to the grave 0:03:06.120 --> 0:03:09.480 site and asked the local authorities to dig up the bodies. 0:03:10.919 --> 0:03:14.280 The bodies were unearthed and pulled out of the shallow 0:03:14.280 --> 0:03:18.880 grave one by one with ropes, first, then more than Dorothy, 0:03:19.040 --> 0:03:20.799 and finally Ita. 0:03:22.000 --> 0:03:25.320 This graphic moment was caught on film by reporters and 0:03:25.440 --> 0:03:31.360 broadcast all over the US. Sister Cynthia was one of 0:03:31.360 --> 0:03:32.840 the people watching on TV. 0:03:33.760 --> 0:03:36.720 Those bodies being pulled out of the grave over and 0:03:36.800 --> 0:03:41.640 over again on TV. I think that just reinforced the 0:03:41.680 --> 0:03:43.680 brutality of this the whole thing. 0:03:45.160 --> 0:03:49.520 For Sister Cynthia, this footage hit especially hard because she 0:03:49.640 --> 0:03:52.360 recognized some of these women from back home. 0:03:53.360 --> 0:03:56.400 We were especially shocked in Cleveland because Dorothy and Jean 0:03:56.480 --> 0:03:59.520 had lived among us, so when they were found in 0:03:59.560 --> 0:04:05.000 a shallow grave in this deserted cow pasture, this news 0:04:05.160 --> 0:04:09.760 made headlines in every local and national news program and 0:04:09.800 --> 0:04:14.960 in every newspaper. Their deaths brought the tiny country of 0:04:15.000 --> 0:04:18.520 El Salvador and its problems to the intention of the 0:04:18.680 --> 0:04:19.440 entire world. 0:04:27.960 --> 0:04:31.760 The news that four American churchwomen had been killed execution 0:04:31.960 --> 0:04:35.400 style in El Salvador broke in the United States like 0:04:35.440 --> 0:04:38.640 a bomb. It was the first time that the general 0:04:38.680 --> 0:04:42.040 public in the US had heard any detail about what 0:04:42.160 --> 0:04:46.640 was happening in El Salvador. Oscar Romero had been murdered 0:04:46.720 --> 0:04:50.080 earlier that same year, but the murder of these four 0:04:50.160 --> 0:04:54.320 churchwomen would bring a whole new level of international scrutiny. 0:04:55.480 --> 0:04:58.839 This moment became a litmus test for the United States 0:05:00.080 --> 0:05:03.400 what they do about this heinous crime. Were they willing 0:05:03.480 --> 0:05:06.840 to keep funding a war that had killed its own citizens? 0:05:07.680 --> 0:05:11.560 The answer would reveal a murky cover up and would 0:05:11.600 --> 0:05:18.359 threaten the relationship between these two countries. I'm Jasmine Romero, 0:05:18.720 --> 0:05:22.920 and this is sacred Scandal. Nation of Saints, Episode four. 0:05:24.000 --> 0:05:40.360 The nuns. I don't know about you, but when I 0:05:40.400 --> 0:05:44.360 think about nuns, I generally picture them walking around in 0:05:44.400 --> 0:05:49.480 clusters around a cathedral, heads bowed and counting their rosary beads. 0:05:50.640 --> 0:05:53.120 What I don't picture is nuns canoeing. 0:05:54.760 --> 0:05:57.920 I just have this memory of us laughing, kind of 0:05:57.960 --> 0:06:01.359 screaming on the river wherever we were. We were in 0:06:01.440 --> 0:06:04.480 some park and trying to maneuver the canoes. 0:06:06.440 --> 0:06:10.240 But that's how Sister Cynthia remembers her time with Dorothy Kasel, 0:06:10.520 --> 0:06:13.120 one of the four churchwomen who were sent to El Salvador, 0:06:14.480 --> 0:06:17.479 not as a nun, but as the vibrant and dynamic 0:06:17.520 --> 0:06:18.320 woman she was. 0:06:21.000 --> 0:06:26.440 She was very outgoing. She had a huge smile, a. 0:06:26.400 --> 0:06:30.200 Lot of energy, the ability to make you feel special. 0:06:31.360 --> 0:06:34.160 Cynthia first met Dorothy when she joined the Ursuline Sisters 0:06:34.200 --> 0:06:37.800 of Cleveland in nineteen seventy three, but it turns out 0:06:37.880 --> 0:06:40.560 that Dorothy and Cynthia had actually grown up in the 0:06:40.600 --> 0:06:41.240 same place. 0:06:42.560 --> 0:06:46.000 Her family lived on the same street as I did, 0:06:46.040 --> 0:06:49.800 Shoreview Avenue, in Ublite, Ohio. They lived six doors away, 0:06:50.440 --> 0:06:55.320 so I knew her parents pretty well. So when I 0:06:55.400 --> 0:06:59.960 told her that I was from Shoreview Avenue, she called 0:07:00.120 --> 0:07:04.400 us the Blondes from Shoreview because she always had nicknames 0:07:04.400 --> 0:07:04.960 for people. 0:07:06.480 --> 0:07:09.120 Sister Cynthia is now the director of Archives for the 0:07:09.240 --> 0:07:12.640 Ursuline Sisters of Cleveland, and she wrote a book about 0:07:12.680 --> 0:07:18.000 Dorothy after her death. It's called In the Fullness of Life, 0:07:18.080 --> 0:07:21.000 and in the process of writing her book, she researched 0:07:21.040 --> 0:07:23.720 deeply how her fellow sister came to be in El 0:07:23.760 --> 0:07:31.960 Salvador and what her time there was like. In the 0:07:32.040 --> 0:07:36.080 nineteen sixties, the Pope had asked religious congregations to send 0:07:36.120 --> 0:07:40.040 missionaries to Latin America to support the new vision for 0:07:40.080 --> 0:07:45.240 the Catholic Church. Dorothy immediately knew that she wanted to 0:07:45.240 --> 0:07:45.840 be involved. 0:07:47.680 --> 0:07:51.800 Sister Dorothy wrote a letter volunteering and she mentioned that 0:07:52.400 --> 0:07:55.560 she had always had this desire since she was a 0:07:55.680 --> 0:08:00.280 child to serve the Spanish and Indian people, that she 0:08:00.360 --> 0:08:03.200 wanted to stay there and get to know them and 0:08:03.320 --> 0:08:03.840 help them. 0:08:05.480 --> 0:08:09.000 In the summer of nineteen seventy four, Dorothy landed in 0:08:09.080 --> 0:08:14.400 El Salvador. This was well before Oscar Romero was named archbishop, 0:08:15.560 --> 0:08:19.119 before Rorito, that we saw and had death squads, before 0:08:19.160 --> 0:08:22.240 the pressures of the country would boil over into all 0:08:22.280 --> 0:08:22.720 out war. 0:08:24.280 --> 0:08:29.320 Wednesday around enjoying thirty first, I think, and we arrived 0:08:29.360 --> 0:08:32.280 here on Monday afternoon. A plane came in early, it 0:08:32.320 --> 0:08:36.120 was about four o'clock. We had a beautiful flight. The 0:08:36.160 --> 0:08:38.200 flight down was really nice. 0:08:38.640 --> 0:08:43.240 Throughout her time there, Dorothy Kasel recorded audio cassette letters 0:08:43.960 --> 0:08:45.439 that she sent back to Cleveland. 0:08:46.400 --> 0:08:50.600 The country is really exquisite. It's mountainous and green, very 0:08:50.640 --> 0:08:53.640 green right now, and you really have to see it 0:08:53.720 --> 0:08:55.679 to appreciate it. It really is beautiful. 0:08:57.440 --> 0:09:02.079 Tapes that describe her new life in El Salvador. Listening 0:09:02.120 --> 0:09:04.680 to her, it kind of reminds me of my own 0:09:04.760 --> 0:09:09.760 reactions when I arrived, taking in the beauty but also 0:09:10.240 --> 0:09:11.920 the poverty of this place. 0:09:13.559 --> 0:09:16.120 When you pull into Cherry Library, you just pull onside 0:09:16.160 --> 0:09:17.520 too a dirt road which. 0:09:17.320 --> 0:09:23.080 Is really rocky and pitted. So we went around a village. 0:09:23.080 --> 0:09:26.680 And if they say it's great powerty stricken, it's just 0:09:26.920 --> 0:09:29.000 something you. 0:09:28.240 --> 0:09:31.560 Get used to living with and used to looking at it. 0:09:31.600 --> 0:09:34.520 Really, it is amusing to see these pigs tranding around 0:09:34.520 --> 0:09:37.800 those too, big pigs, little pigs, big counse, little counts, 0:09:37.880 --> 0:09:40.679 big bulls all over the place. 0:09:41.920 --> 0:09:42.520 It's different. 0:09:46.040 --> 0:09:49.680 Dorothy worked with priests administering to the community. She worked 0:09:49.679 --> 0:09:52.720 in three different parishes and was eventually sent to the 0:09:52.720 --> 0:09:55.000 Immaculate Conception parish in La Libertad. 0:09:57.559 --> 0:10:01.440 They planned an organized celebrate rations of the Eucharist and 0:10:01.520 --> 0:10:06.240 other liturgies. They played music and conducted choirs for the liturgies. 0:10:06.280 --> 0:10:10.679 They prepared adults and children for the reception of the sacraments. 0:10:11.120 --> 0:10:12.600 They also visited the sick. 0:10:13.679 --> 0:10:18.599 She also trained Salvadorans to be religious teachers. She distributed 0:10:18.640 --> 0:10:21.360 food to mothers and young children as part of Catholic 0:10:21.400 --> 0:10:25.200 relief programs. She and the other nuns they became a 0:10:25.240 --> 0:10:26.520 real presence in the area. 0:10:27.559 --> 0:10:32.360 Now whereas a priest could only visit his entire area 0:10:32.480 --> 0:10:36.640 once a month, the sisters and laywomen visited their areas 0:10:37.000 --> 0:10:41.080 all ten or more villages weekly alone and usually on 0:10:41.240 --> 0:10:45.800 horseback or by motorbike because of the rough terrain. So 0:10:46.559 --> 0:10:49.640 since the women served as such a vital link of 0:10:49.760 --> 0:10:54.880 communication between the parishes and its prisoners, the sisters really 0:10:54.920 --> 0:10:56.560 guided the work of the parish. 0:10:58.000 --> 0:11:01.240 Dorothy committed to stay six year years in El Salvador 0:11:01.840 --> 0:11:06.920 from nineteen seventy four to nineteen eighty. In those six years, 0:11:07.360 --> 0:11:11.640 she became part of the community. She slowly learned Spanish, 0:11:11.960 --> 0:11:14.440 learning the names of the towns that she was working in, 0:11:15.080 --> 0:11:17.320 and she grew to love the people that she was helping, 0:11:18.400 --> 0:11:22.880 and they too loved her. She became known as Madre 0:11:22.920 --> 0:11:28.120 de Rothera. In nineteen eighty, her term was ending and 0:11:28.160 --> 0:11:31.560 she was due to go back to Cleveland, but then 0:11:32.559 --> 0:11:34.040 Oscar Romero was killed. 0:11:35.280 --> 0:11:38.280 Everybody's just in a stage of shot, because you know, 0:11:38.400 --> 0:11:41.920 it's just he had just given us beautiful, beautiful homily 0:11:42.000 --> 0:11:45.520 and Sunday very strong. It was very his message was 0:11:45.720 --> 0:11:48.240 very strong, you know, he says, and to the soldiers, 0:11:48.240 --> 0:11:50.720 I have a specialness. And she says, I beg of you. 0:11:50.840 --> 0:11:53.960 I pleaded with you in the name of God, stop 0:11:54.120 --> 0:11:54.920 the repression. 0:11:55.160 --> 0:12:00.520 Don't kill Oh it was you know and in your years. 0:12:03.640 --> 0:12:07.240 Dorothy was at Romero's funeral. You can see her in 0:12:07.280 --> 0:12:10.319 the photos that were published from that day, standing by 0:12:10.320 --> 0:12:15.040 his casket. She was inside the cathedral while the bombing 0:12:15.080 --> 0:12:18.960 and the shooting was happening outside. In letters back home, 0:12:19.520 --> 0:12:23.120 she describes the horror of that day, watching the bodies 0:12:23.120 --> 0:12:32.960 of those killed be carried into the cathedral. Soon, Dorothy 0:12:33.000 --> 0:12:36.680 would be faced with a choice, one that directly tied 0:12:37.280 --> 0:12:53.680 to Oscar Romero's assassination. That's after the break, it was 0:12:53.760 --> 0:12:57.280 clear that the situation in El Salvador was rapidly deteriorating. 0:12:58.720 --> 0:13:02.800 The Bishop of Cleveland worried about Dorothy and her safety, 0:13:02.880 --> 0:13:05.640 but he also knew how much good the missionaries were doing. 0:13:07.840 --> 0:13:11.600 After Romero was assassinated, the bishop asked Dorothy if she 0:13:11.640 --> 0:13:14.240 wanted to come home or stay for another year. 0:13:15.920 --> 0:13:18.040 She so, well, of course I will stay, you. 0:13:18.040 --> 0:13:21.600 Know, But this wasn't the same El Salvador that she 0:13:21.640 --> 0:13:26.120 had arrived to in her six year stay. The political 0:13:26.200 --> 0:13:31.920 landscape had completely changed that Wisun's TV programs and death 0:13:31.960 --> 0:13:37.240 squads were fully operational in two months. The leftis Gerrias 0:13:37.400 --> 0:13:43.000 the FMLN will declare war on the Salvadoran government. Suddenly, 0:13:43.480 --> 0:13:46.600 Dorothy and the missionaries are not just spreading the word 0:13:46.600 --> 0:13:51.480 of Jesus. They're tending to wounded civilians and assisting people 0:13:51.520 --> 0:13:54.360 who had become refugees within their own country. 0:13:56.200 --> 0:13:59.000 A call would come for one of the gringas to 0:13:59.160 --> 0:14:03.760 transport refugees from a bombed out village to a refugee center. 0:14:05.320 --> 0:14:09.600 The women helped refugees find whatever they needed, medicine, shelter. 0:14:11.040 --> 0:14:13.280 All four of the churchwomen who were murdered in El 0:14:13.360 --> 0:14:17.240 Salvador were involved in this kind of humanitarian work, including 0:14:17.240 --> 0:14:20.720 Mary Noll's sisters Mara Clark and Eda Ford, and lay 0:14:20.800 --> 0:14:22.240 missionary Jane Donovan. 0:14:23.480 --> 0:14:27.280 So anyway, with their white Toyota van, Dorothy and Jean, 0:14:27.840 --> 0:14:30.920 who had been called the rescue squad by more and Ida, 0:14:31.040 --> 0:14:35.240 traveled through the hills, moving food supplies and refugees to 0:14:35.320 --> 0:14:39.760 refugee centers. They distributed medicine to the sick and wounded people, 0:14:39.880 --> 0:14:41.440 took them to medical clinics. 0:14:41.960 --> 0:14:43.400 They couldn't take the people to. 0:14:43.440 --> 0:14:46.880 Government hospitals for fear the people would be killed there. 0:14:49.560 --> 0:14:52.280 It was clear to the sisters how bad things were getting, 0:14:53.480 --> 0:14:56.160 especially as they were working in and around towns with 0:14:56.200 --> 0:14:59.960 heavy Geria presences. They saw a lot of death. 0:15:02.160 --> 0:15:05.440 On Friday, the next day and the twenty third, they 0:15:05.480 --> 0:15:08.840 found their bodies and I thought they were hacked. One 0:15:08.840 --> 0:15:11.640 of them was decapitated. I mean, it was just gruesome, 0:15:12.080 --> 0:15:19.640 just gruesome. So you know, it's just why why. 0:15:18.720 --> 0:15:21.840 I couldn't believe, you know, how these people can endure 0:15:22.040 --> 0:15:22.520 all of this. 0:15:23.680 --> 0:15:27.360 It's just been, you know, something's been happening like every week, 0:15:27.760 --> 0:15:31.400 you know, every day in the paper, ten bodies found 0:15:31.480 --> 0:15:34.600 in Santa on a five, and Ali Chapon with E M. 0:15:34.640 --> 0:15:39.080 The Squadron written on another twelve, and Son Miguel. It 0:15:39.200 --> 0:15:42.760 just gets to be too much. Sometimes it's so sad 0:15:42.880 --> 0:15:45.160 and it's just like so out of control. 0:15:46.560 --> 0:15:49.880 But Dorothy was determined in her decision to stay. 0:15:50.920 --> 0:15:54.840 She wrote, I could not leave Salvador, especially now, because 0:15:55.160 --> 0:15:57.840 I am committed to the persecuted church here. 0:15:59.800 --> 0:16:03.560 Now. I don't doubt for a moment Sister Dorothy's resolve 0:16:03.920 --> 0:16:07.400 and her desire to help. But there's also something else 0:16:07.840 --> 0:16:09.680 that influenced her decision to stay. 0:16:10.680 --> 0:16:14.000 They were well aware of the danger of doing that 0:16:14.200 --> 0:16:17.760 type of work, and they were fearful. But because they 0:16:17.760 --> 0:16:21.400 look so American with their blonde hair and blue eyes, 0:16:21.440 --> 0:16:25.200 Dorothy and Jean believed that they were safe. 0:16:25.520 --> 0:16:31.440 Whiteness americanness. It was a kind of unspoken protection that 0:16:31.480 --> 0:16:35.520 they carried. Dorothy wrote in her letters that even the 0:16:35.520 --> 0:16:38.320 local priests liked to have the American women with them 0:16:38.320 --> 0:16:41.280 when they walked around because they knew it was a 0:16:41.360 --> 0:16:42.040 kind of armor. 0:16:43.240 --> 0:16:46.920 Gane used to say, they the military don't shoot blonde, 0:16:46.920 --> 0:16:50.800 blue eyed North Americans, and Dorothy said, being a gringa 0:16:51.200 --> 0:16:54.120 is an asset. They wouldn't do anything to hurt you. 0:16:55.480 --> 0:17:01.480 But that protection only went so Fardnesday, November twenty sixth 0:17:01.480 --> 0:17:05.280 of nineteen eighty, Dorothy and Jean were invited to visit 0:17:05.320 --> 0:17:08.800 the US Ambassador Robert White at his home. 0:17:10.160 --> 0:17:14.040 They had met at a Thanksgiving ecumenical service the week 0:17:14.119 --> 0:17:19.000 before Thursday before, and they were talking about the political situation, 0:17:19.640 --> 0:17:23.720 and White said, well, why don't you come, We'll continue 0:17:23.760 --> 0:17:27.160 this conversation. Why don't you come to the American embassy. However, 0:17:27.320 --> 0:17:31.359 because of the curfew, please bring an overnight back, you know, 0:17:31.440 --> 0:17:33.560 so you could stay overnight. 0:17:34.119 --> 0:17:37.640 They spent the night, and the next day sister Dorothy 0:17:37.720 --> 0:17:40.840 and Jean went to the airport to pick up sisters 0:17:40.920 --> 0:17:43.639 Mara Clark and Eta Ford, who had been at a 0:17:43.640 --> 0:17:46.200 conference in Nicaragua. 0:17:47.040 --> 0:17:50.800 So the plane landed at seven o'clock. Dorothy and Jean 0:17:51.320 --> 0:17:55.600 greeted more and Ida, and they proceeded to the baggage 0:17:55.600 --> 0:17:58.600 claim to pick up their baggage there. And while they 0:17:58.600 --> 0:18:01.000 were waiting for their baggage, which they chatted with a 0:18:01.040 --> 0:18:03.680 group of Canadians who were arriving and. 0:18:03.720 --> 0:18:04.960 Kind of milling around there. 0:18:05.680 --> 0:18:08.520 The Canadians then got their luggage and said goodbye. 0:18:09.800 --> 0:18:13.080 That's really the last time that anyone saw the four 0:18:13.119 --> 0:18:21.120 women alive. The next day, the pastor at Dorothy's parish 0:18:21.359 --> 0:18:25.080 went to Dorothy and Jean's apartment. He was confused when 0:18:25.119 --> 0:18:29.920 they weren't there. He and others in the surrounding parishes 0:18:29.960 --> 0:18:33.679 started to make phone calls searching for the women. The 0:18:33.720 --> 0:18:37.440 American Ambassador, Robert White and the Minister of Defense were alerted, 0:18:38.240 --> 0:18:42.080 and several of the sisters themselves started to search. Two 0:18:42.160 --> 0:18:46.040 of them drove to the airport. On their way, they 0:18:46.080 --> 0:18:51.399 spotted a burnt out vehicle, a wreck surrounded by police 0:18:51.800 --> 0:18:57.760 a large white van that looked familiar. When they got 0:18:57.760 --> 0:19:00.919 to the airport, they asked around about the nuns, showing 0:19:00.920 --> 0:19:07.040 their photographs. Witnesses confirmed that they had been there. When 0:19:07.080 --> 0:19:10.119 the sisters got home, they looked up that white van's 0:19:10.160 --> 0:19:12.800 serial numbers, and. 0:19:12.920 --> 0:19:17.480 The numbers listed on the van's registration papers matched the 0:19:17.560 --> 0:19:21.359 numbers stamped on the motor block of the abandoned, burned 0:19:21.400 --> 0:19:24.960 out van, so they knew that that was their van. 0:19:29.160 --> 0:19:31.800 The women's bodies would be found the day after they 0:19:31.800 --> 0:19:37.159 went missing, but now the question was who had taken 0:19:37.200 --> 0:19:47.320 them and why. That's after the break the bodies were 0:19:47.320 --> 0:19:51.240 buried in the red clay earth of Santiago Nonualco in 0:19:51.280 --> 0:19:56.399 the Salvadorn Hills. Local Gumpasinos were ordered to reopen the 0:19:56.440 --> 0:19:59.719 grave and pull up the bodies of the four churchwomen. 0:20:01.320 --> 0:20:06.000 When they were exhumed. US Ambassador Robert White was there. 0:20:06.840 --> 0:20:10.000 Just three days before he had dined with the women. 0:20:11.359 --> 0:20:15.600 Now he watched their bodies being pulled from their shallow grave. 0:20:17.440 --> 0:20:22.719 It was apparent they had been executed military style. When 0:20:22.800 --> 0:20:26.880 the back, they were probably forced to lie on the ground, 0:20:27.560 --> 0:20:30.439 face down, and they were shot by the way Dorothy 0:20:30.560 --> 0:20:33.600 was shot twice. She was shot in the shoulder, they 0:20:33.640 --> 0:20:37.400 missed her head. I know that sounds horrible, and she moved. 0:20:39.440 --> 0:20:42.600 The investigations that followed showed that the women were not 0:20:42.760 --> 0:20:49.000 only murdered, they were also raped. Almost immediately. Robert White 0:20:49.080 --> 0:20:53.920 suspected that the Salvadoran government and the National Guard were involved. 0:20:55.520 --> 0:20:58.399 Sister Cynthia interviewed Robert White for her book in nineteen 0:20:58.440 --> 0:21:01.800 ninety three, and he told her that he began to 0:21:01.800 --> 0:21:04.080 think that something was fishy when he talked to the 0:21:04.119 --> 0:21:08.320 Minister of Defense hened al josegi More Garcia on the phone. 0:21:10.520 --> 0:21:13.760 He told Garcia that the women were missing. The first 0:21:13.800 --> 0:21:19.399 thing Garcia asked was were they wearing habits. Ambassador White 0:21:19.880 --> 0:21:23.000 then said that he had a very very bad feeling. 0:21:23.160 --> 0:21:26.000 This is in his own words, because that's the kind 0:21:26.040 --> 0:21:28.240 of standard defense that they make. 0:21:30.320 --> 0:21:34.560 As if not wearing habits, not being recognizable could have 0:21:34.640 --> 0:21:38.960 led to their deaths. This question, it got to the 0:21:39.080 --> 0:21:43.040 very core of the religious persecution in El Salvador. What 0:21:43.119 --> 0:21:47.960 he was really asking was were these traditional nuns who 0:21:47.960 --> 0:21:51.160 wore habits and stood with the elites, or were these 0:21:51.240 --> 0:21:54.560 part of the new and radical church that, in their 0:21:54.640 --> 0:21:57.200 eyes stood with the communists. 0:21:58.280 --> 0:22:01.000 But I do think that because they were working with 0:22:01.080 --> 0:22:04.000 the poor, this seemed to be the pattern with the military, 0:22:04.640 --> 0:22:09.040 that they were considered subversives and they were maybe even 0:22:09.119 --> 0:22:14.040 being watched. I think that, you know, maybe that was it. 0:22:16.240 --> 0:22:20.280 Whatever the reason, the killing of four Americans in Alsalvador 0:22:20.920 --> 0:22:23.680 was an undeniable shock to the United States. 0:22:25.440 --> 0:22:29.680 Up until that time, American citizens had not been killed. 0:22:31.320 --> 0:22:35.439 When the women were killed, Jimmy Carter was president. Like 0:22:35.480 --> 0:22:38.760 we mentioned in the last episode, Carter was concerned about 0:22:38.800 --> 0:22:43.040 human rights abuses, but he was also hesitant to clamp 0:22:43.080 --> 0:22:47.359 down on the Salvadoran government. Up until this point, he 0:22:47.400 --> 0:22:52.520 had resisted any calls to suspend AID, including a letter 0:22:52.560 --> 0:22:56.399 from Archbishop Romero himself, sent a few weeks before his death. 0:22:57.040 --> 0:23:00.200 In the letter, he pleaded with Carter to stop supporting 0:23:00.240 --> 0:23:03.880 the Salvadoran government. But the murder of the churchwomen would 0:23:03.920 --> 0:23:07.720 finally wake up the American public and force President Jimmy 0:23:07.760 --> 0:23:08.960 Carter to take action. 0:23:10.480 --> 0:23:14.680 After the bodies of the women were found, the United States, 0:23:14.840 --> 0:23:17.919 and this was under President Jimmy Carter announced that it 0:23:18.000 --> 0:23:24.080 was suspending military and economic assistance pending clarification of the 0:23:24.119 --> 0:23:27.080 circumstances of the killings of the women. 0:23:27.800 --> 0:23:31.280 Following the announcement of the churchwomen's murders, the US government 0:23:31.359 --> 0:23:35.280 sent two State Department officials to conduct a preliminary investigation. 0:23:36.440 --> 0:23:39.000 They would look into the killings of the churchwomen and 0:23:39.080 --> 0:23:44.520 whether the Salvadoran government had been involved. They sent FBI 0:23:44.600 --> 0:23:49.600 specialists to look at the evidence, fingerprints and bullet fragments. 0:23:49.720 --> 0:23:54.000 All the evidence pointed towards it being Salvadoran National guardsmen 0:23:54.840 --> 0:24:00.920 who were responsible for these murders. To this stay, there 0:24:00.920 --> 0:24:04.840 are still holes in the timeline, but here's sister Cynthia 0:24:05.160 --> 0:24:06.800 paraphrasing the FBI's report. 0:24:08.000 --> 0:24:11.359 The women got into their white Toyota van and proceeded 0:24:11.400 --> 0:24:14.800 to leave the airport and at the first toll station 0:24:15.440 --> 0:24:16.120 outside the. 0:24:16.119 --> 0:24:18.400 Airport, National guardsmen. 0:24:18.320 --> 0:24:23.120 Sergeant Louise Antonio Kalndra Aloman and four other guardsmen ordered 0:24:23.119 --> 0:24:26.560 the women to vacate the van, and then after they 0:24:26.600 --> 0:24:30.000 interrogated the women, the guardsmen ordered them back in the van, 0:24:30.600 --> 0:24:33.920 got into the van with them and proceeded to drive 0:24:33.960 --> 0:24:37.240 the van in the direction of the town of Santiago 0:24:37.400 --> 0:24:41.520 Nannualco to a deserted area a dirt lane by an 0:24:41.560 --> 0:24:45.600 empty field and Klendre Aloman then ordered the women out 0:24:45.640 --> 0:24:50.200 of the van. The guardsmen then proceeded to rape the women. Afterwards, 0:24:50.600 --> 0:24:54.399 they killed the women execution style and left the bodies 0:24:54.760 --> 0:24:58.560 along the roadside. 0:24:59.200 --> 0:25:02.720 Afterwards, the women's van was driven outside of La Libertad. 0:25:03.320 --> 0:25:06.080 Their personal items were removed, and so were the license 0:25:06.119 --> 0:25:10.360 plates on the van. The killers then. 0:25:10.440 --> 0:25:14.080 Took a can of gasoline and poured gasoline on the 0:25:14.119 --> 0:25:17.000 inside and outside of the van and set the van 0:25:17.200 --> 0:25:18.280 on fire. 0:25:20.800 --> 0:25:25.480 This information was all based on US led investigations. The 0:25:25.600 --> 0:25:28.920 US State Department wanted the Salvadoran authorities to conduct their 0:25:28.960 --> 0:25:32.920 own independent investigation and find out if these National guardsmen 0:25:32.960 --> 0:25:37.919 had acted on their own or on higher orders. The 0:25:37.960 --> 0:25:41.520 Salvadoran government assured the US that it was doing everything 0:25:41.560 --> 0:25:45.480 it could to figure out what had happened, but really 0:25:45.960 --> 0:25:50.440 there was already a rushed cover up happening. The guardsmen 0:25:50.480 --> 0:25:53.720 had been transferred away from their airport post right after 0:25:53.760 --> 0:25:58.439 the murders, and they'd had their rifles exchanged so that 0:25:58.480 --> 0:26:04.520 the ballistics couldn't be traced for months. Salvadorn authorities reassured 0:26:04.520 --> 0:26:09.600 the US and continued to hide the truth, but the 0:26:09.600 --> 0:26:13.280 families of the women, and US Ambassador White would continue 0:26:13.320 --> 0:26:16.080 to speak out and insist that there was a bigger 0:26:16.119 --> 0:26:18.800 cover up at play. You know. 0:26:18.960 --> 0:26:23.720 The argument was always that these lower National guardsmen would 0:26:23.720 --> 0:26:26.960 never have done this, They never would have singled out 0:26:27.040 --> 0:26:31.119 for American women to kill. From the beginning too, the 0:26:31.160 --> 0:26:37.280 Salvadoran government wanted to make clear that those guardsmen acted 0:26:37.359 --> 0:26:40.840 on their own see, because they wanted military aid. 0:26:41.840 --> 0:26:46.600 Military aid. Jimmy Carter, a president committed to human rights, 0:26:47.080 --> 0:26:51.480 had suspended the aid immediately after their deaths, but that 0:26:51.600 --> 0:26:56.680 pause didn't last long. And how quickly does the aid resume? 0:26:57.600 --> 0:27:01.400 It was resumed On December seventeenth. 0:27:00.880 --> 0:27:04.679 Two weeks after the women were found dead. Twenty million 0:27:04.720 --> 0:27:06.920 dollars in economic aid resumed. 0:27:07.600 --> 0:27:11.200 So and there was outrage in the United States. 0:27:11.800 --> 0:27:14.959 Cynthia went to Washington, d C. To protest with an 0:27:15.040 --> 0:27:17.320 organization called the Religious Task Force. 0:27:18.440 --> 0:27:22.800 We went on a bus, the big bus went from Cleveland, 0:27:22.920 --> 0:27:26.080 you know, filled with people, to go to this protest. 0:27:26.720 --> 0:27:29.320 And I remember it so well because it was just 0:27:29.400 --> 0:27:34.359 so moving with seeing so many people, you know, the crowds, 0:27:34.400 --> 0:27:38.960 and we carried coffins, cardboard coffins of the four women 0:27:39.600 --> 0:27:42.680 and had their names on the side, and we had 0:27:42.680 --> 0:27:46.160 a huge assembly at the Washington Monument. 0:27:46.920 --> 0:27:48.880 Now by then, you know, Carter was out. 0:27:48.960 --> 0:27:52.520 This was before Reagan was inaugurated. 0:27:53.520 --> 0:27:57.520 The women had been murdered in December while Carter was 0:27:57.560 --> 0:28:02.040