Speaker 1: Do you think he's gonna pick up? I don't know,
Speaker 1: I hope. So after leaving Ukraine, we felt like there
Speaker 1: was one last person we still had to talk to,
Speaker 1: Father Damien. We kept texting back and forth with Petro
Speaker 1: after our interview with him and Father went and thought
Speaker 1: maybe he could get us in touch with the priest
Speaker 1: in North Carolina. But once we asked if he could
Speaker 1: connect us, Petro stopped applying to our messages. So not
Speaker 1: long after we found a phone number for Father Damien,
Speaker 1: or at least when we thought was his. Your call
Speaker 1: has been forwarded to an automated messaging system with no answer,
Speaker 1: we decided to try sending him a message, well, Father Damien,
Speaker 1: my name is. We hoped knowing that talked to Father
Speaker 1: Went and Petro would make him comfortable speaking with us.
Speaker 1: We feel they would be unfair to finalize the theories
Speaker 1: without your voice and your perspective and everything that happened. Okay,
Speaker 1: So we just sent him the message, um, okay, oh
Speaker 1: my god, and I have two blue checkmarks, so that
Speaker 1: means that means you read it. He's reading it right now.
Speaker 1: It says online, oh my god, I'm dying. Okay. Almost
Speaker 1: a full day later, we got a response, thank you
Speaker 1: for your offer, but I do not wish to participate
Speaker 1: in your podcast. We sent a follow up, but as
Speaker 1: of right now we still have not heard back. I'm
Speaker 1: Paula Burrows and I'm Melanie Bartley, and this is sacred scandal.
Speaker 1: He's in a difficult position. He's fairly intelligent, he can
Speaker 1: somewhat manipulative. That's why I hesitate because I just didn't
Speaker 1: see the level of detail. It just reeks power corrupts,
Speaker 1: and I sensed that there was some corruption. I don't
Speaker 1: know what the story is. I don't think anybody ever will.
Speaker 1: When we got back from Ukraine, it felt like we
Speaker 1: didn't get the definitive answers we were looking for. Our
Speaker 1: conversation with Father went was strange, and at times he
Speaker 1: felt so evasive, like when we asked if he thought
Speaker 1: father Damien may have been abusing Mike, and his was
Speaker 1: bonds was that he asked Mike, a teenager and the
Speaker 1: potential victim, if his relationship with Damien was okay, but
Speaker 1: Mike didn't bring up that he was being abused, or
Speaker 1: how he asked Petro if he was the subject of
Speaker 1: pedophile activity rather than just outright saying he never harmed anyone.
Speaker 1: It was strange. In the end, we got answers but
Speaker 1: not clear ones. Maybe he was doing his best to
Speaker 1: both break the two decades of silence but still not
Speaker 1: incriminate anyone, and were worried that maybe we didn't push
Speaker 1: hard enough on those questions about sex abuse. When we
Speaker 1: asked went about them sharing a bed, that was the
Speaker 1: only moment of the night where I felt him getting
Speaker 1: really upset. Yeah, when he basically said, let me ask
Speaker 1: the question that you're trying to ask, and let me
Speaker 1: ask him directly, were you ever a subject of pedophile activity?
Speaker 1: And he says no, definitely, law his patience. Yeah, why though,
Speaker 1: Like why why why was that so triggered? Like because
Speaker 1: he's tired of being asked that question. You know, I'm
Speaker 1: playing devil's advocate on both sides, babe, Like we have
Speaker 1: to do that, and I think we have this entire time,
Speaker 1: we have been more than generous. We've been so generated
Speaker 1: totally have I'm concerned that people are gonna be mad
Speaker 1: at us for being too nice to them. I'm terrified
Speaker 1: that I'm going to sound like, you know, um, too agreeable. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but we've we've done that, We've definitely given the benefit
Speaker 1: of the doubt. And did I ever expect that Father,
Speaker 1: I was gonna say yes, no, no, no. Part of
Speaker 1: what got us started on this project was feeling like
Speaker 1: those abuse allegations were true, that there could be no
Speaker 1: other way that Mike would have exploded in the way
Speaker 1: that he did and murdered sister Michelle so brutally had
Speaker 1: nothing else gone on. And we felt supported in feeling
Speaker 1: that way. He passed a polygraph, and all the experts
Speaker 1: and police and lawyers who we interviewed more than ten
Speaker 1: years ago told us that they believed Mike was abused too.
Speaker 1: But this year something really rocked us when we went
Speaker 1: back and talked to some of those same investigators again.
Speaker 1: Assistant State Attorney gil Vine, who sided with the defense
Speaker 1: on this issue and who Father went and Petro said
Speaker 1: made their lives help by chasing those allegations, told us
Speaker 1: she now doubted Mike's claims. I will also tell you
Speaker 1: this that I think his statements, all of them black detail.
Speaker 1: When somebody's really a victim of a crime, they can
Speaker 1: recount it with the detail that only they would know.
Speaker 1: I would have been more convinced if the detail of
Speaker 1: the sexual relationship was more explicit, a discussion of what
Speaker 1: happened during the anal sex. I think that people will
Speaker 1: actually sometimes not all the time. But if there was
Speaker 1: no other physical evidence, if there was nothing, if there
Speaker 1: was a level of detail lying on top of one another,
Speaker 1: there's no discussion of anything graphic. That may be uncomfortable
Speaker 1: for us to talk about. That's why I hesitate, because
Speaker 1: I just didn't see the level of detail when I
Speaker 1: walked out of that room. When I interviewed him with
Speaker 1: the sexual batteries detectives there, I was like, there's no
Speaker 1: level of detail, and there's like Gal, there's no level
Speaker 1: of detail. We asked her what she meant by this,
Speaker 1: and she said that basically, Mike described his own abuse
Speaker 1: less clearly than victim's younger than him. She said that
Speaker 1: he talked about sex almost like someone who had no
Speaker 1: idea how it actually worked. If one of his biggest
Speaker 1: supporters was doubting Mike, we now had no idea what
Speaker 1: to believe. But our perspective changed again when we talked
Speaker 1: to Melanie Dakota of the Survivor's Network of those abused
Speaker 1: by priests. We heard from her in our episode about
Speaker 1: the Orthodox Church in America. We told her about our
Speaker 1: new doubts, and she gave us her own opinion of
Speaker 1: Mike's allegations. I wanted to ask you, just from your
Speaker 1: experience dealing with so many abuse survivors, what was your
Speaker 1: um impression of k Fell and his experiences. We always
Speaker 1: believed him. Yeah, they deposed him or whatever after he
Speaker 1: had pled guilty, and he told as much as he
Speaker 1: could remember about the abuse. I think if any of
Speaker 1: those other boys had said, yes, this happened to me too,
Speaker 1: I think we would have had a whole different situation.
Speaker 1: Is it common in your experience for the people surrounding
Speaker 1: the victim know something or they have experienced the same thing,
Speaker 1: but just deny it. Yes. I mean there's a couple
Speaker 1: of reasons why that happens. There's something called trauma bonding,
Speaker 1: where they feel obligated to protect their abuser. And not
Speaker 1: all survivors remember their abuse. You know, some put it
Speaker 1: into a little if you will, bull box at the
Speaker 1: back of their head. And these guys are still, um,
Speaker 1: what is cowful? Must be? What forty? I mean? You
Speaker 1: know the average age for a survivor to come forward
Speaker 1: is fifty two. So you may have that these guys
Speaker 1: just haven't come forward yet. You also have sometimes you
Speaker 1: have people who begin to identify with their abuser. As
Speaker 1: a matter of fact, I think there's a study that's
Speaker 1: us that one third of survivors will take their secret
Speaker 1: to their grave. They will never tell another soul what
Speaker 1: happened to them. So it is not unusual for people
Speaker 1: to deny that they were abused, whether they either don't
Speaker 1: remember they can't handle it, or whether they are bonded
Speaker 1: to their abuser, or whether they identify with their abusers.
Speaker 1: We started to wonder if this was the case for
Speaker 1: Mike too, and that sent us on a mission. Last year.
Speaker 1: We started having more serious conversations about his abuse. We
Speaker 1: wanted to see if he was able to talk about
Speaker 1: what happened in more detail than he did twenty years ago.
Speaker 1: As he got more comfortable talking about it, he gave
Speaker 1: us some very vivid descriptions of how he claimed to
Speaker 1: be raped, and in more detailed than we read in
Speaker 1: any of the police reports. But as we talked to him,
Speaker 1: it also sounded like he started to remember other things
Speaker 1: for the first time, too, like the names of porn
Speaker 1: movies that he says he was made to watch on TV.
Speaker 1: There was a form. We also wondered if maybe any
Speaker 1: of the former monastic candidates would be able to recall
Speaker 1: anything differently as adults. We thought maybe now if they
Speaker 1: were victims too, they might be willing to come forward.
Speaker 1: We tracked down a few of the former monastic candidates,
Speaker 1: and though we never heard back from most of them,
Speaker 1: others said they wanted to remain private about their time
Speaker 1: at Holy Cross. Only Elia Hertzock was willing to speak
Speaker 1: with us, And though he said he was never abused
Speaker 1: and never saw anything with his own eyes, he said
Speaker 1: his adult perspective now allows him to see some of
Speaker 1: his own experiences at the monastery differently in hindsight. He
Speaker 1: told us how Mike's behavior after spending time alone with
Speaker 1: Father Damien now felt strange. But there were other things
Speaker 1: too well. The only weird thing that I remember about
Speaker 1: me it was when I came there before going to school,
Speaker 1: I had to do some medical check. But the doctor
Speaker 1: I was checking everything like I was making then, and
Speaker 1: and Fatherland stayed in that room. He said that it's
Speaker 1: normal for a priest for him for our to stay
Speaker 1: when I was with a doctor it was weird. I
Speaker 1: didn't like it, but I didn't have the choice. I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't know how to conclude something that is just
Speaker 1: so yh inconclusive, all the shades of gray. Yeah, you
Speaker 1: believe what you believe, and I believe what I believe. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I guess We'll let people believe what they believe,
Speaker 1: and hopefully one day we'll get someone come on and say, hey,
Speaker 1: this happened to me too, or or they're lying because
Speaker 1: this is the evidence that Mike was lying, or or
Speaker 1: something like that that will give us closure. But it's
Speaker 1: been twenty years and that hasn't happened yet. So coming
Speaker 1: up after a break, we get a new perspective on
Speaker 1: why Mike may have gone after sister Michelle and not
Speaker 1: his alleged abusers. Stay with us, Welcome back to Sacred Scandal. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I just think about it, and I'm not a killer.
Speaker 1: I'm not. No ways, it's not me what happened. I
Speaker 1: just can't I don't even remember. One of the questions
Speaker 1: that has lingered long in our minds is this, If
Speaker 1: Mike was being abused by the priests and most of
Speaker 1: his trauma was coming from them, then why did he
Speaker 1: murder sister Michelle Lewis, And of course we put this
Speaker 1: question to him loads of times and his answer is
Speaker 1: always the same. He's consistent, Just this rage feel like different,
Speaker 1: Like I feel like I'm just I just snapped that,
Speaker 1: I just I just met I snapped, he tells us.
Speaker 1: He always says he just lost control and had no
Speaker 1: idea what he was doing. But we wanted to know
Speaker 1: if that's really a legitimate reason, like a certified clinical justification.
Speaker 1: So we reached out to Dr Carol Clark, a known
Speaker 1: trauma therapist in Miami whose books I've seen around the city.
Speaker 1: After reviewing the case with her, we got Dr Clark's thoughts.
Speaker 1: The question that, like plagues everyone in this case is
Speaker 1: why did he kill a sister, Michelle and not the
Speaker 1: person who was allegedly abusing him. How common is it
Speaker 1: for the abuse to take out their rage on someone else.
Speaker 1: So I'm gonna speak strictly in generalities, and what's typical
Speaker 1: of course, Okay, So we have the person in power
Speaker 1: would be the priest. The priest is the one that
Speaker 1: has taken care of the boys, taking care of the hello,
Speaker 1: and so that's the one that he's depending on. For survival.
Speaker 1: So you can't piss off the person on whom your
Speaker 1: survival depends. You can't attack them, you can't do anything,
Speaker 1: because then what happens, you know, once that person is
Speaker 1: gone or that person turns against you. It does not
Speaker 1: surprise me to hear a story where we have these
Speaker 1: priests who are in control to have the power, are
Speaker 1: doing the abuse. But then we have the victim looks
Speaker 1: and says, who is supposed to be taking care of me?
Speaker 1: And not who can I safely put my anger on?
Speaker 1: And it would be you know, this woman, So that
Speaker 1: would be my guess. We also reached out to the
Speaker 1: psychologist who first worked with Mike after the murder to
Speaker 1: get his perspective. Okay, my name's John Quintana. I have
Speaker 1: a pH d in psychology from Brynmar College, is UM
Speaker 1: their Department of Human Development. Dr Quintana was brought into
Speaker 1: the case by Mike's defense attorney, Edith Georgie. I mean
Speaker 1: my background is with criminal cases, I mean with the
Speaker 1: federal buer prisons and all that, and also in the
Speaker 1: background in sexual viximization and sexual predators or sexual offenders.
Speaker 1: I guess given that background, Edith felt that it would
Speaker 1: be good for me to evaluate him and get a
Speaker 1: sense of what was going on. He and I spoke
Speaker 1: not long ago, and he said he did about four
Speaker 1: days of psychology p testing with Mike after his confession.
Speaker 1: He also interviewed him about his personal history. Dr Quintana
Speaker 1: said Mike opened up to him about his father's drinking
Speaker 1: and how his mom mostly accepted the abuse by her husband.
Speaker 1: We also talked about Mike's allegations of sexual abuse. It
Speaker 1: was your sense that he was being truthful and that
Speaker 1: he had in fact been a victim of sexual abuse
Speaker 1: on the face. Yes, in your experience, did you feel
Speaker 1: like Mihilo's the way he described the abuse that he experienced,
Speaker 1: did it check out? I mean, it wasn't detailed enough.
Speaker 1: Did it seemed like he would be lying to kind
Speaker 1: of justify what what he did? Well, Initially when I
Speaker 1: interviewed him, the details weren't very specific, and I think
Speaker 1: that that's where the point that he was at and
Speaker 1: maybe comfort level of of being able to reveal things
Speaker 1: that may have been difficult for him. So I got
Speaker 1: a certain level of description of abuse, and so I
Speaker 1: can understand if I don't get a full description or
Speaker 1: full details initially in an evaluation, because that may not
Speaker 1: always be forthcoming. But he seemed uh sincere in his presentation.
Speaker 1: Of course, as you look at the history of it
Speaker 1: and you understand a little bit more of the case
Speaker 1: and the detectives descriptions of him were that he could
Speaker 1: look you in the eye and tell you he didn't
Speaker 1: do it, because initially denied the allegations. He denied that
Speaker 1: he killed just Michelle, but he did it in a
Speaker 1: very convincing way. But in reading that cryptions of the detectives,
Speaker 1: it seemed that they weren't sure even though he had
Speaker 1: scratches and other features, because he initially was very convincing.
Speaker 1: So he may be convincing both ways. Okay, that's a
Speaker 1: good point. He's in a difficult position. He's fairly intelligent,
Speaker 1: he can be somewhat manipulative. After talking with Mike, Dr
Speaker 1: Quintana was unclear about his motivation to murder sister Michelle,
Speaker 1: But in looking at more of the evidence from that night,
Speaker 1: the psychologist had a theory. He was angry and his
Speaker 1: intent was initially because he did bring implements of violence
Speaker 1: with him. He brought a knife, he brought a rod,
Speaker 1: metal rod, but he also brought tape, and it was
Speaker 1: one of those factors that somehow I didn't get checked
Speaker 1: off clearly for me, what was the tape for in
Speaker 1: his imagination or his fantasy of what he was about
Speaker 1: to do. So that was something that's always been a
Speaker 1: little disturbing to me. It's the whole issue of the tape. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think we've asked him that a couple of times
Speaker 1: and he can't really explain it. He always goes back
Speaker 1: to me, I was drunk. I wasn't making any sense.
Speaker 1: I grabbed a glove and tape and everything, and I
Speaker 1: don't know, I guess that's how that's how he justifies it. Yes,
Speaker 1: but it's pretty specific. It's a tape. If I was
Speaker 1: going to I guess in my my approach to attack somebody,
Speaker 1: I'm not sure would bring tape if my intent was
Speaker 1: to just hurt them and make them feel the pain
Speaker 1: that I felt. And he may justify it or in
Speaker 1: his own mind, well, it's I was drunk, So you know,
Speaker 1: that's how he explains it. But that's, you know, to me,
Speaker 1: from my point of view, it's not good enough. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean to me, it sounds like you hear that
Speaker 1: all the time, like crime shows, like people are saying
Speaker 1: I snapped. That's just to me, it seems like a
Speaker 1: cop out and such a unsatisfying answer. And maybe he
Speaker 1: means that he became enraged and lost control. Maybe that's
Speaker 1: what he means, but he needs to specify, he needs
Speaker 1: to understand what it is that's going on in a
Speaker 1: more detailed way than just I snapped. It's too easy,
Speaker 1: too easy to explain it. Often it's unsatisfying. So I
Speaker 1: think it's more defensive on his part and maybe a
Speaker 1: sign that he may not be aching for responsibility as
Speaker 1: someone who's also worked with perpetrators of sexual abuse. I
Speaker 1: know you didn't interview the priests, but what's your overall
Speaker 1: impression of them? So, um, there were seemed to me
Speaker 1: unethical things going on. If what's being described as sleeping
Speaker 1: in the same bed where whether or not there was
Speaker 1: any sexual contact, that that's unethical. I mean, that's for
Speaker 1: whatever reason, to save money or not save money, and
Speaker 1: that's certainly not not unethical thing to do. The fact
Speaker 1: that they went from one religion or one Catholic religion
Speaker 1: to another Catholic religion and then now no Catholic religion
Speaker 1: where is their moral and ethical center? But they lacked supervision.
Speaker 1: That's one of the reasons they had problems with the
Speaker 1: bishops because they didn't want to be have oversight, and
Speaker 1: they needed oversight. They need something to tell him no, no,
Speaker 1: that that's wrong, you know. But he refused to have
Speaker 1: anybody oversee him, and I think that was part of
Speaker 1: his downfall. He has to take a look at the
Speaker 1: decisions he made and how it led to where he's
Speaker 1: at too. This is the biggest question of all and
Speaker 1: for everybody. Why do you think he killed sister Michelle
Speaker 1: and not his alleged abusers. Well, that is a big question.
Speaker 1: I mean, so whatever I'm saying, it's all speculation. So
Speaker 1: there are factors that if he was sexually molested, there
Speaker 1: is a large proportion of males that are victimized actually
Speaker 1: that then become offenders themselves. So that the other issues
Speaker 1: that kind of pop up in my imagination are issues
Speaker 1: that have to do with he was And I remember
Speaker 1: him telling me that he wanted to fit in. He
Speaker 1: wanted to be a normal kid like the other people,
Speaker 1: the other teenagers at the school. He wanted to have relationships,
Speaker 1: he wanted to go to parties. He wanted to probably
Speaker 1: engage in a sexual relationship. I mean, I know that
Speaker 1: he tried to get girls numbers and that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: So it is possible that one of the underlying motivations
Speaker 1: that he had was to have a sexual encounter. Now,
Speaker 1: given the fact that his father was dominating to the
Speaker 1: mother and the mother acquiesced, or at least seemed to acquiesce,
Speaker 1: according to him, to the abuse, he's getting a message
Speaker 1: that one possibility is to dominate a female because he's
Speaker 1: seen it happen. Whether or not that's something that played
Speaker 1: in his mind, I don't know. But you have a
Speaker 1: person who says he was sexually victimized, who then has
Speaker 1: all these sexually as a teenager, he has all these hormones,
Speaker 1: all these sexual needs going on, he can't relieve any
Speaker 1: he can meet or satisfy any of the needs. And
Speaker 1: then you add on top what he said that he
Speaker 1: was being sexually molested. Um, so that certainly creates a
Speaker 1: pressure cooker. But where does he get relief. Sister Michelle
Speaker 1: is the female, and apparently from what I read, she
Speaker 1: wasn't She may not have seemed attractive, but she was
Speaker 1: an attractive lady. At some levels, and that may have
Speaker 1: something that he noticed. So that's where the tape, in
Speaker 1: my mind could come in speculation, but mind mind could
Speaker 1: come in that it was a way to try to
Speaker 1: immobilize her, and who knows, maybe having some kind of
Speaker 1: sexual relation with her. The difference of where the violence
Speaker 1: comes in is that sister Michelle was not his mother,
Speaker 1: and she was apparently relentless in warding him off and
Speaker 1: stopping him, and that every time that she fought him,
Speaker 1: apparently he heard her. He stabbed her, he hit her
Speaker 1: to try to immobilize her, but he never was able
Speaker 1: to until she died. So that's a scenario that is
Speaker 1: possible given some of the factors given. But who knows.
Speaker 1: He would never admit to that. I mean, I've asked
Speaker 1: him before and would be very hard for him in
Speaker 1: his mind that would make it even harder to accept
Speaker 1: and live with. I also feel like it's I also
Speaker 1: late a lot between like believing him and not believing him,
Speaker 1: because he does seem like a little manipulative at times.
Speaker 1: And my partner and I have been working on this
Speaker 1: for fifteen years and and we talked to him a lot,
Speaker 1: and we've visited him and We're the only people who
Speaker 1: visited him ever in prison, and so we're like, what
Speaker 1: if he's just been lying to us this whole time?
Speaker 1: And at first we just totally believed him. We never
Speaker 1: even doubted it. And then when we started talking to
Speaker 1: more people and having interviews like the one we're having
Speaker 1: now and with the prosecutor and people who have very
Speaker 1: different opinions, We're like, what what if this whole time
Speaker 1: at least just been manipulating us into telling his story
Speaker 1: a certain way when it's it's not true, but once
Speaker 1: again and made not just manipulating but also convincing himself,
Speaker 1: because I think that if he had to face a
Speaker 1: different reality that would be could be pretty devastating to him,
Speaker 1: especially without support, without therapy. In other words, I wouldn't
Speaker 1: take it totally personally because he I think he needs
Speaker 1: the story he's telling you. He needs it for himself.
Speaker 1: I mean, that is a crazy, crazy theory. Um. I
Speaker 1: honestly didn't even consider that theory until John Quintana said
Speaker 1: it that way. To me. I was like, wait, it
Speaker 1: makes more sense than him just snapping, And it's the
Speaker 1: only thing that he would be embarrassed to admit that
Speaker 1: he would take to the grave. Yeah, and just me
Speaker 1: thinking just from like the sort of closeness that we
Speaker 1: have of all these years with Mike, and the trust
Speaker 1: and how much trust he's put in us to do
Speaker 1: this project. The enormous guilt that I feel even saying
Speaker 1: that theory for me, I think for you, because we've
Speaker 1: talked about it, We've cried about it. Guilt about all
Speaker 1: of this, guilt, doubting me, Halo guilt, believing the priest,
Speaker 1: doubting the priest, like, you know me, seriously, if I
Speaker 1: put out this theory out here like that he might
Speaker 1: have wanted to rape sister Michelle, like and me thinking
Speaker 1: Mike might hear this one day that I think this
Speaker 1: might be a possibility that destroys me you know me too.
Speaker 1: This kind of goes back to what we always say
Speaker 1: is that we have become really good at compartmentalizing Mike,
Speaker 1: our friend, and then Mike the killer. Yeah, two different people. Mike,
Speaker 1: Mike the guy who calls us every other day, who
Speaker 1: we joke with, who we met his parents and we
Speaker 1: were worry about his safety with everything he needs he
Speaker 1: writes joke, I don't know, like that guy and the
Speaker 1: guy who we remember did what he did when we
Speaker 1: look at the photos, and that's the only time that
Speaker 1: it kind of like blends together and we like stop.
Speaker 1: When I look at the cram scene photos, I can't
Speaker 1: even pick up his phone calls for a few days.
Speaker 1: I can't just know. I mean, I wish I had
Speaker 1: a beautiful package dancer at the end of this. They're
Speaker 1: beautifully for me. And you know, even after talking I
Speaker 1: went for three hours, we still don't know. I have
Speaker 1: to come to terms with the fact that this podcast
Speaker 1: might rap, and we believe our listeners feeling exactly the
Speaker 1: same way that we you have been feeling, because we're
Speaker 1: not going to get that confirmation, right. So unless someone
Speaker 1: comes out and says I was abused by these people
Speaker 1: or I saw it happen, that we're never going to
Speaker 1: get corroboration and we're never going to get our nice
Speaker 1: little bow at the end of the story. Yeah, or
Speaker 1: unless Mike says, hey, guys, like I was lying. It's
Speaker 1: how I justified dabbing sister Rochelle. I had to justify
Speaker 1: it somehow. Maybe what Mike is saying isn't true. Let's
Speaker 1: put ourselves in that situation that Mike is totally lying
Speaker 1: to us about the sex abuse. Right, how do you
Speaker 1: justify a fifty something, you old man sharing a bed
Speaker 1: with a teenage boy? Why would this older man share
Speaker 1: a bed with a boy. And there's no way in
Speaker 1: my mind that I can justify that. After a break
Speaker 1: an old friend has a different take on Sister Michelle's murder.
Speaker 1: We'll be right back, Welcome back to Sacred Scandal. I'm
Speaker 1: Paula Barrows and I'm Melanie Bartley. Aside from the guilt
Speaker 1: we felt over believing Mike, there's another aspect of telling
Speaker 1: this story that's weighed on us all these years. I
Speaker 1: also feel guilty towards Sister Michelle and like us befriending
Speaker 1: this guy who did this to her. Absolutely, this woman,
Speaker 1: this poor thing on your old woman who's just a
Speaker 1: an innocent person who has brutally stobbed multiple times, Just
Speaker 1: like can you imagine I imagine the fear. This is
Speaker 1: gonna sound really stupid. But the other day I cut
Speaker 1: my finger and I was bleeding and it really hurt.
Speaker 1: And then I thought of Sister Michelle, and I was like,
Speaker 1: can you imagine being cut like that? Stopped deeply? Like
Speaker 1: nineties something times? You look this person in the eye,
Speaker 1: who you know, who you've known for years, and they're
Speaker 1: the ones who are killing you. Can you imagine that
Speaker 1: horrible way to die? I just I can't. I I
Speaker 1: feel tremendous gilled for even helping this guy out or
Speaker 1: talk of picking up his phone calls. Sister Michelle's death
Speaker 1: sometimes felt overshadowed by everything else that started to come
Speaker 1: out of Holy Cross almost immediately after she died. Unlike
Speaker 1: the priest from Holy Cross, her silence all these years
Speaker 1: was not a choice. We wanted to know more about
Speaker 1: her than what Mike told us, and also more about
Speaker 1: what she was like before she came to Holy Cross.
Speaker 1: We reached out to her family, but they didn't get
Speaker 1: back to us, and we get why they may not
Speaker 1: want to be involved. But Melanie and I were able
Speaker 1: to get in touch with one of Sister Michelle's oldest friends.
Speaker 1: My name is Beverly Fraser, and I grew up down
Speaker 1: the street from Shelly and her family. I would have
Speaker 1: considered her my best friend growing up, and Shelly, that's
Speaker 1: what you guys would call her, Shelly. I would call
Speaker 1: her Shelly. Yes, you call her sister Michelle. I always
Speaker 1: knew her as Shelly. Beverly and Shelly grew up together
Speaker 1: in Ohio. They were a year or two a part
Speaker 1: in age, but close. Beverly says she hung around the
Speaker 1: Lewis's house enough that growing up she felt like Shelly's
Speaker 1: mom was her own. She and Shelly would sit around
Speaker 1: and listen to baseball games together on the radio and
Speaker 1: talked about life and religio. And Shelley was talented. She
Speaker 1: loved ice skating. Ice skating was her winter Olympic sport,
Speaker 1: but gymnastic was her summer Olympic sport. So we would
Speaker 1: watch gymnastics and ice skating and we would talk and walk.
Speaker 1: And she had beautiful fingers, she had long eyelashes. She
Speaker 1: took care of herself. She was a thinker. She was
Speaker 1: probably the most intelligent person that I knew, I have
Speaker 1: ever known. She was the valedictorian of her class. When
Speaker 1: Michelle got married, Beverly was in the wedding. They chose
Speaker 1: the fabric and sold all the bright smaid's dresses together.
Speaker 1: She liked silver, she liked bright colors. And there was
Speaker 1: fat and there was purple, and I mean, you know
Speaker 1: that all mattered. And when the marriage started to come
Speaker 1: and done. After Michelle moved to Miami, Beverly says the
Speaker 1: two of them talked through the divorce together. They came
Speaker 1: from different religions, Michelle Catholic and Beverly Protestant, but both
Speaker 1: shared a strong commitment to their faith. So were you
Speaker 1: surprised when she said, Beverly, I want to become a nun.
Speaker 1: To be honest with your note, she was very grounded.
Speaker 1: That's where she found hope. Again. I understand I'm Protestant.
Speaker 1: That's not something that I would necessarily choose, but there
Speaker 1: is a rhythm to that life that I could understand,
Speaker 1: Shelly desiring. After Shelley became sister, Michelle, Beverly says, the
Speaker 1: pair saw even less of one another after joining Holy Cross.
Speaker 1: She told us the nun only came back to Ohio
Speaker 1: maybe twice in a handful of years, and when she
Speaker 1: did return, it was Michelle's appearance that struck her the most.
Speaker 1: I remember the thick leather belt and the heavy habit,
Speaker 1: and um, she was wearing her glasses at the time,
Speaker 1: and Shelley work on text. I mean from sometime just
Speaker 1: after high school through most of her adult life that
Speaker 1: I knew her. She wore contexts and do you remember
Speaker 1: how she would describe her life? There? Was she happy?
Speaker 1: That she sound happy to you. I think she had
Speaker 1: found some sort of contentment, which is what you want
Speaker 1: for your friends. I mean, you don't get to choose
Speaker 1: the road that they travel, right, you walk alongside of them.
Speaker 1: And I think she had found again I'm going to
Speaker 1: use the word rhythm, but I think she had found
Speaker 1: a place where she where she was. I don't think
Speaker 1: it was everything she wanted it to be. It was
Speaker 1: her path. She was serving in a manner in which
Speaker 1: she felt she was called to serve. I do believe
Speaker 1: that I'm gonna ask you a question because it's something
Speaker 1: that it just repeats over and over in my head
Speaker 1: and it doesn't really fit. But Misha says that sister
Speaker 1: Michelle would call the candidates names and one time, you know,
Speaker 1: a couple of times called him Ukrainian trash for example.
Speaker 1: I want to know if you find that that that's
Speaker 1: something that would be characteristic of her or not that
Speaker 1: is totally out of character for her. I can't imagine.
Speaker 1: I can't imagine her saying that Shell went to an
Speaker 1: inner city school. She was probably for the eighties the
Speaker 1: late seventies and early eighties. She was extremely progressive, extremely progressive.
Speaker 1: She didn't stay in a safe space to get her education.
Speaker 1: So for that to be said, I it just doesn't
Speaker 1: sound like her to be. That's not who I knew.
Speaker 1: So I want to know, Oh, if you have any feelings,
Speaker 1: particularly towards Father went or anyone from Holy Cross. I
Speaker 1: had varios dumb feelings about them. I I don't know,
Speaker 1: and I find it very disturbing. Again, this is something
Speaker 1: that was done. It just reeks. It just reeks. Power corrupts,
Speaker 1: and I sensed that there was some corruption. I believe
Speaker 1: that Shelley was a sacrifice and they let her be.
Speaker 1: They allowed her, if you can imagine, they allowed her
Speaker 1: to be the scapegoat for what their dreams were, and
Speaker 1: they did nothing to protect her. When you say that
Speaker 1: she was a scapegoat, what do you mean. I think
Speaker 1: that hurting individual needed to hurt somebody else. He couldn't
Speaker 1: hurt those that were hurting him, and he thought the
Speaker 1: next best thing. And that's really what a scapegoat was.
Speaker 1: A scapegoat was Biblically, what happened was a goat was
Speaker 1: brought in and all of the sins of the people
Speaker 1: were laid upon that goat, and that goat was sacrificed
Speaker 1: and removed from the community and taken out so that
Speaker 1: the people could be washed clean. That's what a scapegoat is.
Speaker 1: And for me, in my humble opinion, Shelley was the
Speaker 1: scapegoat for me, he needed to be cleansed in some way,
Speaker 1: and all of the circumstances led him to her. Do you,
Speaker 1: in your heart believe that may have been abused sexually
Speaker 1: by priest? Of course I do. I don't know what
Speaker 1: the truth is. But I'm also looking at it with
Speaker 1: a set of eyes that says that these men have
Speaker 1: not necessarily come out and given their side of the
Speaker 1: story either. And I see a lot of secrecy, a
Speaker 1: lot of I mean again, I see it as a
Speaker 1: power thing. I don't it. I don't know, I don't
Speaker 1: understand that. I find no justice in it. What if
Speaker 1: I said that I left it at that, You know,
Speaker 1: I wish I could say my life for hers, and
Speaker 1: I still feel die over day, And of course I
Speaker 1: wish the priest was admit what he did. I was
Speaker 1: to say what it did to me to us in
Speaker 1: about five years, depending on good behavior, Mehilakfel will be
Speaker 1: released from prison after serving about of his sentence. From there,
Speaker 1: the forty something year old will go into ice custody
Speaker 1: and then we put on a plane and never allowed
Speaker 1: to enter the US again. Most likely he'll fly to Kiev,
Speaker 1: Ukraine's capital. After that he'll make his way about three
Speaker 1: and fifty miles to his parents village and pick up
Speaker 1: his life as he left it when he was fourteen
Speaker 1: years old. We worry about Mike adapting to life outside
Speaker 1: of prison. He has never really had to take care
Speaker 1: of himself at all. He went sharing a bed with
Speaker 1: his parents, to living in a monastery, to prison, and
Speaker 1: we wonder what his expectations are once he gets back
Speaker 1: to Ukraine. What are your fantasies like, what do you
Speaker 1: fantasize about life after prison? Yeah? Of course, just just
Speaker 1: having regular normal life, you know, just because having a
Speaker 1: girlfriends it was just a general thing, a lot of things.
Speaker 1: It's gonna be so damn quiet, especially my talent in
Speaker 1: your house, in your own room, just really quiet. It's
Speaker 1: something really Hillians because it's especially right now, you know,
Speaker 1: in open day, which is just you have no privas whatsoever.
Speaker 1: It's always loud in prison, yes, yeah, privacy and just
Speaker 1: being on room is like man, yes, so yeah, of
Speaker 1: course it's ably weird. Just you know, of course just
Speaker 1: walking outside. Man, that's it's the sense I hate thinking
Speaker 1: about it. I was alex up and right now, I've
Speaker 1: been led tough for over twenty years, so I spent
Speaker 1: more time in prison than being free. And it's true,
Speaker 1: it's gonna be tough. Yeah, it's gonna be tough. After
Speaker 1: Melanie and I left Ukraine a few weeks ago, we
Speaker 1: thought the country felt so far from those days after
Speaker 1: the collapse of the Soviet Union, and nothing like that place.
Speaker 1: The investigators described. The city's felt modern. There were nice
Speaker 1: shops and restaurants. People were out enjoying the dry winter nights.
Speaker 1: They seemed happy. We even said we could see ourselves
Speaker 1: living there. But now, in the wake of the war
Speaker 1: in Ukraine, who knows what the future holds for Mike,
Speaker 1: And the same goes for the priests of Holy Cross.
Speaker 1: It seems like they were just figuring out how to
Speaker 1: get themselves settled after the failure of their medical center,
Speaker 1: but maybe the invasion made their plans uncertain. When we
Speaker 1: started on this project, we were looking for closure. We
Speaker 1: wanted to feel like we knew definitively what happened, But
Speaker 1: it has me thinking about what doctor Quintana said about Mike,
Speaker 1: that he needs his version of the story in order
Speaker 1: to survive, and maybe that goes for everyone, the priests,
Speaker 1: the students, the lawyers us at the start of this
Speaker 1: there are so many things we never thought could have happened.
Speaker 1: We never thought we would talk to Father, went, that
Speaker 1: Mike would maybe return to a country at war, or
Speaker 1: that Gail Levin would change her side of the story.
Speaker 1: But that gives us hope that someday other stories might
Speaker 1: change and we'll finally know everything that really happened at
Speaker 1: Holy Cross. Next week, we'll be back with a bonus
Speaker 1: episode of the show. We'll be answering some of the
Speaker 1: questions you emailed us through the weeks and sharing some
Speaker 1: moments that didn't quite make it into other episodes, so
Speaker 1: be sure to look out for that. Sacred Scandal is
Speaker 1: a production of Exile Content Studio and partnership with I
Speaker 1: Heart Radios Michael Dura Podcast Network. Sacred Scandal was created
Speaker 1: and produced by Melanie Bartley and me Paula Burrows, our
Speaker 1: senior producer is Dennis funk of Written in Air. The
Speaker 1: executive producers are Rose Red and Nando Villa. Production mixing
Speaker 1: and sound design in by Helena de grut Our. Production
Speaker 1: assistant is Imani Leonard. The show is fact checked by
Speaker 1: Kimberly Winston. Original music and final audio mixing comes from
Speaker 1: Patrick Hart. If you like the music from this show,
Speaker 1: check out the episode notes for a link to listen
Speaker 1: to it. This show was made with the help of
Speaker 1: a lot of other people too, Julia Tera, suk Dr
Speaker 1: Marianna Talks, Korshinska, Nancy Manno, Alex Dumas, Pierre Jr, Ariel Stevenson,
Speaker 1: Corey Chaikowski, Patrie Kin, Jonez, Rachel Ward, Brian Robertson, George Drake, JR. Brett,
Speaker 1: Ashley Bridges, Alissa Martini, Michael Haziza, Gretta Weber, Andres Bellygoi,
Speaker 1: Javier Puga, and Travis Roy. If you'd like to reach out,
Speaker 1: email us at hello at Sacred Scandal podcast dot com,
Speaker 1: and you can follow us on Instagram. I'm at Sacred Scandal.
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening. M