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Speaker 2: Hello everyone, welcome back to Facing Evil from Tenderfoot TV
Speaker 2: and iHeartRadio.
Speaker 3: We are your hosts. I'm Rosha Pecquerrero.
Speaker 4: And I am Evet Genteel and as always we are
Speaker 4: with our amazing producer, mister Trevor Young.
Speaker 1: Hey, Hey, how's it going.
Speaker 3: Hello, ha Trevor Trevor.
Speaker 1: So, I know we have a pretty interesting case coming
Speaker 1: up today. A very important case has to do with
Speaker 1: the existence of sexual assaults in the Catholic Church, which
Speaker 1: I know can be a very touchy issue, and we're
Speaker 1: going to get into a very I think powerful story
Speaker 1: that illustrates some of those issues. But you know, in
Speaker 1: that vein, I was thinking back as we were starting
Speaker 1: research for this case about the movie Spotlight. I don't
Speaker 1: know if y'all remember watching that. It had Michael Keaton,
Speaker 1: but it was about some of the very real life
Speaker 1: events involving sexual misconduct in the Catholic church in Boston
Speaker 1: is very good movie. I think it won Best Picture
Speaker 1: of the year it came out.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I remember that movie very well. You know, me
Speaker 4: myself being Catholic and you know, becoming a Catholic actually
Speaker 4: when I got married to my husband, who was you know,
Speaker 4: born and raised in the Catholic community. But for me,
Speaker 4: my mom couldn't remember if she had been baptized or not.
Speaker 4: And I just really wanted that blessing if you had
Speaker 4: been baptized or not, right, yeah, if I had been
Speaker 4: baptized or not. But yeah, I do remember that movie
Speaker 4: and it's a very very movie. But I also want
Speaker 4: to talk about The Keepers, and we're going to get
Speaker 4: into that, you know, much later in the episode. But
Speaker 4: my voice is a little hoarse because I had just
Speaker 4: had laryngitis. But while I was home, I spent seven
Speaker 4: hours watching this particular documentary called The Keepers, and it
Speaker 4: was mind blowing. And we will talk about that later.
Speaker 4: And Trevor, now will you take us through today's case.
Speaker 3: I've talked to the hunter that found Kathy and he said,
Speaker 3: since the day that he found her, the police have
Speaker 3: never talked to him except for that day.
Speaker 5: They sought to do the same thing that senior church
Speaker 5: leaders in the diocese we investigated have done for decades.
Speaker 5: Bury the sexual abuse by priests upon children and cover
Speaker 5: it up forever.
Speaker 1: And I can hear Kathy saying, I told you I'd
Speaker 1: take care of this, and I.
Speaker 3: Said, I didn't think you meant Twenty years later.
Speaker 1: Sister Catherine Sesenik was a young teacher at a Catholic
Speaker 1: school in Baltimore, Maryland. Early on the evening of November seventh,
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty nine, she disappeared while outrunning errands in her neighborhood.
Speaker 1: The next morning, two friends found Sister Kathy's car parked
Speaker 1: haphazardly nearby, but weeks went by with no sign of Kathy. Finally,
Speaker 1: on January third, nineteen seventy, the body of Sister Catherine
Speaker 1: Sesenik was found in a remote area south of the city.
Speaker 1: No one was ever charged with her murder, but some
Speaker 1: of the investigators were suspicious of the community in the
Speaker 1: Catholic school where she taught, especially one of the priests.
Speaker 1: In the years that followed, more and more sinister events
Speaker 1: came to light. Painting a story of sexual abuse and
Speaker 1: intimidation at the hands of a powerful diocese that controlled
Speaker 1: everyone in its territory, including the police. And so what
Speaker 1: happened to Kathy Sesnik, why weren't the police able to
Speaker 1: make a determination in her case? And what does the
Speaker 1: story reveal about the dark secrets of the Catholic Church.
Speaker 4: Okay, you guys, this is one that we really have
Speaker 4: to buckle up for. I mean, this case just gets
Speaker 4: more and more crazy. You know, as you go along
Speaker 4: the stories that we've told this season, they've touched on
Speaker 4: some major issues, and today really is no different. But
Speaker 4: we're looking at sexual abuse in the Catholic Church, which
Speaker 4: is a huge, huge issue that is still very prevalent today.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's really just I think one of many. You know,
Speaker 1: it seems like every year there's another story of how
Speaker 1: this sort of wide scale abuse is allowed to go
Speaker 1: on somewhere or it's just swept under the rug entirely right,
Speaker 1: And you know, I think no matter your personal faith,
Speaker 1: this story especially illustrates the enormous power that a religious
Speaker 1: group or institution can have over an entire city, a community,
Speaker 1: and neighborhood. And I think that's super dangerous and the
Speaker 1: story is a huge example of that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I couldn't agree more, Trevor. It's a very dangerous issue.
Speaker 2: I was actually doing some research.
Speaker 3: And the numbers don't lie.
Speaker 2: They show that in the United States alone, more than
Speaker 2: eleven thousand complaints have been documented by victims of abuse
Speaker 2: by priests.
Speaker 3: Like that's a lot.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's a lot. And you have to remember too,
Speaker 4: that's just those that have told.
Speaker 2: Their stories, right, right, the documented cases, right.
Speaker 4: There are so many other people that have not even
Speaker 4: come out yet. So, yeah, that number is shocking, but
Speaker 4: you know there's way.
Speaker 3: More, way more.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And there are numbers like that for countries all
Speaker 2: over the world, not just the US. So this story
Speaker 2: of sister Catherine Seysnik just brings issue down to a
Speaker 2: human scale.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: It's just a super insane, crazy story. But sister Kathy
Speaker 2: Ssnick was a human.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So let's talk about Kathy Sesnick. Then. She grew
Speaker 1: up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She had three siblings, was supposedly
Speaker 1: very bright, and by many accounts, just had this very
Speaker 1: sparkling personality. She was also an achiever. She was senior
Speaker 1: class president, a member of student council, and even may
Speaker 1: queen at her school, but she was also valedictorian of
Speaker 1: her high school. And then after that she joined the
Speaker 1: school Sisters of Notre Dame. So she then goes on
Speaker 1: to be a teacher at Archbishop Kio High School in Baltimore, Maryland.
Speaker 1: It was an all girls school, and she taught English
Speaker 1: there as well as drama, and everyone said that her
Speaker 1: students loved her. She was everybody's favorite teacher.
Speaker 4: Yeah. So I read this Huffington Post article and it
Speaker 4: says that Sister Kathy Saysnick was a real life version
Speaker 4: of Maria, like the Julie Andrews character from the Sound
Speaker 4: of Music. I mean, she was super exuberant, she sang,
Speaker 4: she played her guitar, and her students would even drop
Speaker 4: by her apartment, you know, and they would sing and dance.
Speaker 4: And you know, when I hear that, I think of
Speaker 4: like Sister Act. You know, the character in Sister Act,
Speaker 4: Sister Mary Robert, who was like always smiling and you know,
Speaker 4: happy to see her students and so giving. Like she
Speaker 4: seemed exactly like that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, all of those beautiful things that you've just said
Speaker 2: about her, Vet, I think it absolutely makes what happened
Speaker 2: next so heartbreaking. On the evening of November seventh, nineteen
Speaker 2: sixty nine, she left her apartment, which she happened to
Speaker 2: share with another nun. She left to go buy a
Speaker 2: gift for her sister's engagement party. It was around seven
Speaker 2: thirty at night that she left to go go on
Speaker 2: this errand, and apparently she got into her car, stopped
Speaker 2: at the bank to cash her paycheck, and then she
Speaker 2: went to a local bakery and bought some bakery buns,
Speaker 2: and that was the last time anyone ever saw her alive.
Speaker 1: We'll talk about what happened after we take a quick break.
Speaker 2: So after sister Kathy Sessnik didn't return home, her roommate was,
Speaker 2: of course frantic, and she later told reporters quote, nuns
Speaker 2: in their order didn't stay out late, and Kathy would
Speaker 2: have called if she needed to run an additional errand
Speaker 2: end quote. But now it was eleven o'clock at night
Speaker 2: and she hadn't heard from her, so she called a
Speaker 2: couple of priests who wear their good friends. So these
Speaker 2: particular priests came over immediately and they had learned what
Speaker 2: had happened. At four point forty in the morning, the
Speaker 2: priest decided to take a walk around the area. That's
Speaker 2: when they found Kathy's car. It was parked carelessly across
Speaker 2: the street from the apartment, even though she had her
Speaker 2: own designated parking spot right behind the building, and it
Speaker 2: didn't look good. They saw signs of a struggle, including
Speaker 2: a broken umbrella in the back seat. They called the police,
Speaker 2: who found that box of bakery buns she had purchased,
Speaker 2: along with leaves and twigs. Branches had also been caught
Speaker 2: in the cars antenna.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so a quick sidebar that we should mention about
Speaker 1: one of the priests who comes over to investigate. His
Speaker 1: name was Gerard Coob, and he was apparently totally like
Speaker 1: in love with Kathy Sessnik. And that is a whole
Speaker 1: myriad of problems, right. You know, Yvette, you can probably
Speaker 1: chime in here, but my understanding is that in the
Speaker 1: Catholic Church, you know, you're not supposed to have any
Speaker 1: sort of romantic relationship, certainly not nuns, but I don't
Speaker 1: think pres either. Is that correct?
Speaker 4: That is very true, That is very true. You take
Speaker 4: you take a vow, Yeah, so priests and nuns take
Speaker 4: vows and nuns.
Speaker 1: Yes, right right, So, in fact, you know, two years
Speaker 1: before this event happened before either of them had actually
Speaker 1: taken said vows. Kathy and Gerard had spent I guess
Speaker 1: a lot of time together. They had written each other letters.
Speaker 1: He even asked her to marry him, but she turned
Speaker 1: him down, I guess, wanting to you know, maintain her job.
Speaker 1: And apparently, three days before she disappeared, he even called
Speaker 1: her one last time to tell her that he loved her,
Speaker 1: and he told her he would leave the priesthood to
Speaker 1: marry her if she'd leave the nun hood to you know,
Speaker 1: for them to be together. And I don't think she
Speaker 1: went for it.
Speaker 4: I'm not sure what to think, you know, like, was
Speaker 4: it romantic or is it suspicious. I kind of always
Speaker 4: go back to Russia, you know, when she says it's
Speaker 4: always the boyfriend or you know, it's always the romantic,
Speaker 4: you know, the love interest. But you know, I do
Speaker 4: feel like this is how rumors get started.
Speaker 3: Unrequited love leads to something. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think it's maybe possibly romantic in you know, the
Speaker 1: case of their not being a homicide involved, but the
Speaker 1: fact that someone was killed, you know, I think makes
Speaker 1: it very suspicious. You know, and even if there wasn't
Speaker 1: a death involved, in this. You know, there's something I
Speaker 1: think kind of creepy about it. You know. It's not
Speaker 1: quite to the level of, you know, say a stalker,
Speaker 1: which we talked about on the previous episode, but somebody
Speaker 1: who's just kind of so obsessed that they're willing to
Speaker 1: forego certain boundaries that someone has put up in their
Speaker 1: life always strikes me as problematic. You know. That's that's
Speaker 1: always a bit of a red flag for me. Asking
Speaker 1: someone to leave the nun hood to run off with them,
Speaker 1: you know, and they've clearly said that they are like
Speaker 1: uncomfortable with this before, right, Like, I think there's probably
Speaker 1: something there to look at that's not what it should
Speaker 1: be for sure. And in fact, police actually brought Gerard
Speaker 1: Coup in for questioning, but he had an alibi of
Speaker 1: having been at the movies earlier that night, so I
Speaker 1: guess that was that he had a solid alibi for
Speaker 1: where he.
Speaker 3: Was, so it wasn't the unrequited love interest got it.
Speaker 2: So there ends up being a massive man hunt, with
Speaker 2: thirty five Baltimore officers and residents of the area joining
Speaker 2: in sweeping a fourteen block area of Southwest Baltimore. But
Speaker 2: they don't find anything and more importantly, Baltimore police tell
Speaker 2: the media they do not believe foul play was involved.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean that, and that strikes me as just
Speaker 4: that statement alone, when you don't really know, right, that's
Speaker 4: political agenda, I mean to me, right, because there were
Speaker 4: sticks and branches that were found in her car and
Speaker 4: other clear signs of a struggle. But the police say
Speaker 4: that they don't think that there's foul play, so that
Speaker 4: doesn't sit too well.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: But finally, on January third, Mathie's body is found by
Speaker 2: a father and a son out on a hunting trip
Speaker 2: in Lansdowne, which I believe that's a remote area south
Speaker 2: of Baltimore.
Speaker 1: Yep, I've actually driven through there, have you. Anyways, the
Speaker 1: police said it was likely that she had been either
Speaker 1: carried or forced to walk down there, and an autopsy
Speaker 1: found a skull fracture caused by a blow to her
Speaker 1: head with some sort of blunt instrument, most likely a brick,
Speaker 1: they said, and the pathologist noted that the quote disarray
Speaker 1: of clothing suggested possible rape. But unfortunately that's about as
Speaker 1: far as the police get with us. Investigators work on
Speaker 1: the case up until nineteen seventy seven. But you know. Honestly,
Speaker 1: they're unable to make any real breakthrough, do they say,
Speaker 1: to the lack of any physical evidence in the case,
Speaker 1: even though we know there's quite a bit. So in
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy seven they closed the case.
Speaker 2: But that is not the end of the story. So
Speaker 2: fast forward to nineteen ninety four, two former students of
Speaker 2: Archbishop Keio that's the school where Sister Cathy says Nick taught,
Speaker 2: file a lawsuit against a priest in that school whose
Speaker 2: name is Joseph Maskell. So the suit claims he sexually
Speaker 2: abused them repeatedly when they were students there. The women
Speaker 2: filing the suit are named Gene Wayner and Teresa Lancaster.
Speaker 2: And apparently these are not the first accusations Maskal has faced,
Speaker 2: by the way. In fact, back in the nineteen sixties
Speaker 2: and seventies, Maskeal was widely feared in the school because everyone,
Speaker 2: including the students and the staff, knew he was a predator,
Speaker 2: but no one spoke up about it.
Speaker 4: Right, So, you guys know how I love documentaries, and
Speaker 4: I talked about this earlier in the beginning of our
Speaker 4: episode about this documentary The Keepers, and in it, Teresa
Speaker 4: Lancaster says, when you were called over the loud speaker
Speaker 4: to report to Father Maskell, a dead silence would come
Speaker 4: over the c room and other girls would look at
Speaker 4: you with sad eyes, and the teacher would just look down.
Speaker 4: They knew something was going on.
Speaker 3: Wow, and then he gets accused of this.
Speaker 2: It's so so disgustingly awful, and it's so shameful, right, Like,
Speaker 2: it's like this abuse has been normalized, like that mom
Speaker 2: stood up for her son, but no one was standing
Speaker 2: up for these girls at Kio.
Speaker 3: It's yeah, it's heartbreaking to me, right.
Speaker 1: So obviously these claims against Father Mascal are pretty egregious,
Speaker 1: and Teresa Lancaster said that Father Maskal took her to
Speaker 1: a gynecologist named Christian Richter, who prescribed douches that the
Speaker 1: priest then administered himself in his school office, and numerous
Speaker 1: others after this stepped forward to say that he assaulted
Speaker 1: them frequently in his office. This is not a one
Speaker 1: time occurrence. And I think it's also important to note
Speaker 1: here that these claims are in fact corroborated by court
Speaker 1: records as well as interviews with up to eight other
Speaker 1: Kio students, So there's clearly a pattern here right.
Speaker 3: Clearly, and he wasn't stopped. Oh I'm so grossed out. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So basically this was an open secret and this reign
Speaker 2: of terror by a criminal man who used his power
Speaker 2: as a priest and his power in the church as
Speaker 2: an authoritative figure to literally intimidate everyone. But I feel
Speaker 2: the most for these young girls who were students at
Speaker 2: this school and they were completely trapped.
Speaker 3: They probably felt like they had nowhere.
Speaker 4: To go exactly, and no one to tell, you know.
Speaker 4: But we also know that this did not go unnoticed,
Speaker 4: and at least one person did try to stop it
Speaker 4: from the inside, and that person was sister Kathy, says Nick.
Speaker 1: Yes, and this gets into a big conspiracy, and we
Speaker 1: will talk about that right after we take another quick break.
Speaker 2: There was at least one person who we know of
Speaker 2: who was fighting back against Father Joseph Maskell, and that
Speaker 2: person is the popular young teacher, Sister Kathy Sesnick. Her
Speaker 2: students loved her, and many of them confided in her
Speaker 2: about the abuse of Maskal and his colleagues, and she
Speaker 2: tried to stop it by doing things like making excuses
Speaker 2: for girls when he was calling them to his office,
Speaker 2: you know, like saying things oh, they can't get there.
Speaker 2: They couldn't get away, Sorry about that. In May of
Speaker 2: nineteen sixty nine, sister Kathy had approached young Jeen Wayner
Speaker 2: and just asked her straight out whether the priest had
Speaker 2: been hurting her, and Jean admitted that yes they had,
Speaker 2: and apparently Kathy promised her that something would be done
Speaker 2: about it and basically tells her to go off and
Speaker 2: just try to enjoy her summer because she was going
Speaker 2: to take care of it.
Speaker 1: And apparently this is where things start to really take
Speaker 1: a dark turn. So as we know, Kathy Sesnick disappeared
Speaker 1: in November of nineteen sixty nine and then was found
Speaker 1: dead the following January. But after she went missing, Geene
Speaker 1: Wayner says that Father Maskell took her Gene for a
Speaker 1: car ride, which I guess was a common thing that
Speaker 1: the priests would just take these young girls for trips places, right.
Speaker 1: I guess at the time families really trusted these priests
Speaker 1: like Joseph Maskull to do this. But when Jean and
Speaker 1: Father Maskeal get out of the car after they've driven somewhere,
Speaker 1: he walks her over to a field where she says
Speaker 1: that she saw sister Kathy's body there in the field.
Speaker 1: Some pretty graphic details here for anybody who's sensitive to that.
Speaker 1: If you are, I recommend you skip ahead a few seconds.
Speaker 2: So.
Speaker 1: According to the Huffington Post quote, Sesnick was still clad
Speaker 1: in her aqua colored coat and maggots were crawling on
Speaker 1: her face. Yer tried to brush them off with her
Speaker 1: bare hands. Help me get these off of her, she cried,
Speaker 1: turning to Maskell in a panic. Instead, she says, the
Speaker 1: priest leaned down behind her and whispered in her ear.
Speaker 1: You see what happens when you say bad things about people.
Speaker 4: H shit, it makes my skin crawl, my blood boil
Speaker 4: to think that you know a priest who you look
Speaker 4: up to, supposedly trust, and this is going on. You
Speaker 4: can't make this up. This is like a movie, right,
Speaker 4: but this is actually happening.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean this is something you would expect to see,
Speaker 1: like in The Godfathers rights right, Like it's just absolutely insane,
Speaker 1: like too diabolical to you know, even be real. But
Speaker 1: when Jean Wayner finally builds up the courage to tell
Speaker 1: the story in nineteen ninety four, she describes details about
Speaker 1: Kathy Sestek's body that were only known to investigators at
Speaker 1: the time, like the blue coat exactly.
Speaker 2: And then there's Teresa Lancaster, the other woman who filed
Speaker 2: the nineteen ninety four suit along with Gene Wayner. And
Speaker 2: it's important to note here that both of these women
Speaker 2: were actually anonymous at the time of the filing, and
Speaker 2: Teresa at the time she also experienced retaliation for confiding
Speaker 2: in sister Kathy. She claims that Maskal drove her out
Speaker 2: to a wooded area where there were lots of police
Speaker 2: milling around, and that two police officers raped her in
Speaker 2: the back seat while Maskell stood outside of the police
Speaker 2: car talking and laughing with the other cops.
Speaker 4: I mean, this is just pure evil on every level possible.
Speaker 1: So I think it's interesting here to realize that this
Speaker 1: is now becoming a much bigger issue, right, this is
Speaker 1: no longer just about abuse within the catholictures. Obviously that's
Speaker 1: a huge part of it. But now all we're seeing
Speaker 1: law enforcement get involved in a very dark way, a
Speaker 1: very criminal way. And so what we're seeing is this
Speaker 1: balloon out, this picture of abuse and cover up that
Speaker 1: involves an entire city and all of the forces within
Speaker 1: a city, like law enforcement.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, this explains a lot obviously about why
Speaker 4: the police never saw this case because so many of
Speaker 4: them were a part of it. You know. It's just
Speaker 4: it's really just corruption at every level. It's when you
Speaker 4: talk about above the law, this is that and so
Speaker 4: much more.
Speaker 1: Right. It's different types of people, but they're all taking
Speaker 1: advantage of authority and power in very evil ways. Right.
Speaker 2: So this actually reminds me of the corruption that was
Speaker 2: happening in LAPD when our great grandfather George Hodell was
Speaker 2: a cue used of killing Elizabeth Short, also known as
Speaker 2: the Black Dahlia. Because he had so much, so much
Speaker 2: dirt on the police officers of the LAPD. We all
Speaker 2: believe that's one of the reasons that he was never convicted.
Speaker 2: You know, like corruption to the nth level. And that's
Speaker 2: it feels just like that right now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this can take place in Baltimore, LA, you know,
Speaker 1: nineteen forties, nineteen sixties whenever. So moving forward, other victims
Speaker 1: also described Maskell as bringing them to places where police
Speaker 1: officers would abuse them. So this is just keeps going on.
Speaker 1: It turns out that Maskell's brother was a police lieutenant,
Speaker 1: and it seems he really had the entire police force
Speaker 1: in the area under his complete control. So they're like
Speaker 1: one family that has authority over this entire region.
Speaker 3: Feels very much like the Godfather.
Speaker 1: So gross, and so as you said earlier, this is
Speaker 1: probably a huge part of the reason why, again this
Speaker 1: case wasn't solved because the police are in on this.
Speaker 1: So other media reports on the story have pointed out
Speaker 1: that as late as nineteen ninety four, there is still
Speaker 1: really no justice. The court dismisses all the claims against
Speaker 1: Mascal at that point because it's past the statute of limitations.
Speaker 1: So in Maryland, victims of sexual abuse have just three
Speaker 1: years from the time the abuse ends or from when
Speaker 1: they discover it to file a civil suit, which is
Speaker 1: not a long time.
Speaker 4: No, I mean three years. That's I mean, that's just ridiculous.
Speaker 4: That has to.
Speaker 3: Change, Yeah, especially for sexual abuse.
Speaker 4: So it's basically saying it's too late because your memory
Speaker 4: may not be reliable enough. Meanwhile, all these other women
Speaker 4: are coming together and corroborating on the same type of abuse,
Speaker 4: right that has happened to Jane and to Teresa, And
Speaker 4: what is that?
Speaker 1: Yeah, So the idea there was statute of limitations is
Speaker 1: that after a certain number of years, your account as
Speaker 1: an eyewitness is just not as reliable, like you said,
Speaker 1: because of memory or whatever. But you know, I think
Speaker 1: if you have enough detail and you have you know,
Speaker 1: enough of a pattern of abuse, and especially like this
Speaker 1: kind of abuse, like I don't think this is something
Speaker 1: that you forget, Like I don't think your memory is
Speaker 1: just going to fade about being raped by two police
Speaker 1: officers after three years, Like that's something that is going
Speaker 1: to stay with these women for the rest of their lives.
Speaker 4: Exactly, Trevor, Exactly, you don't forget about that. These women
Speaker 4: fight every day to probably just walk through life because
Speaker 4: that is a memory that is so deep embedded in
Speaker 4: their spirit.
Speaker 1: True, and you know, the law is frequently unjust, and
Speaker 1: this is why we have things like amendments to improve
Speaker 1: upon this. But it doesn't end there. A police detective
Speaker 1: talking anonymously to the Hfington Post said that he got
Speaker 1: a call in nineteen ninety four from a grave digger.
Speaker 1: The man said that Maskell had ordered him to bury
Speaker 1: a bunch of boxes in the graveyard. When police went
Speaker 1: and dug them up, one of those boxes contained a
Speaker 1: bunch of nude photos of underage girls, but then when
Speaker 1: all the boxes were delivered to the evidence room, those
Speaker 1: containing the photos were inexplicably missing. Other retired detectives have
Speaker 1: also come forward in recent years and confirmed that they
Speaker 1: were quote pressured to back off the Catholic priests during
Speaker 1: their investigations.
Speaker 4: Gross it's obvious that this was a cover up at
Speaker 4: the highest level possible.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so this goes from being a conspiracy theory to
Speaker 1: a full blown conspiracy that can be proven and corroborated
Speaker 1: and every detail of it tracked down right. Unfortunately, none
Speaker 1: of this really leads to a lot of consequences for
Speaker 1: Joseph Maskell. In nineteen ninety four, he was removed from
Speaker 1: the ministry, but he fled to Ireland until his death
Speaker 1: in two thousand and one at age sixty two. He
Speaker 1: worked as a psychologist and unfortunately supposedly continued his pattern
Speaker 1: of abuse while working there.
Speaker 4: So basically nothing happened to him, There were no consequences,
Speaker 4: and I'm sure he continued to do it over and
Speaker 4: over and over again because he got away with it.
Speaker 4: They let him. They let him get away with it.
Speaker 2: Right, that was his entire life. He knew nothing else,
Speaker 2: and he'd gotten away with it for so long. But
Speaker 2: it's not until twenty sixteen that the Archdiocese of Baltimore
Speaker 2: releases a list of seventy one clergymen that had been
Speaker 2: accused of sexual abuse and then backed that up with
Speaker 2: credible evidence.
Speaker 3: And Maskell is on that list.
Speaker 4: Of course he is. And I'm sure he was at
Speaker 4: the top of the list.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but conveniently it was after he died, of course.
Speaker 2: And victims of the listed clergy are off for money.
Speaker 2: They got financial settlements by the archdiocese for that abuse,
Speaker 2: and some victims claimed that, considering the sheer horrificness of
Speaker 2: these crimes, that money was not enough. They wanted to
Speaker 2: see legal changes, like you always tell us, Trevor, and
Speaker 2: they wanted to see changes within the church, and they
Speaker 2: wanted to prevent anything like this from happening again in
Speaker 2: the future.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean money, money can't buy what they've been through.
Speaker 4: I mean, it can't take that away.
Speaker 3: It's just.
Speaker 4: I can't even tell you, guys, like just spending seven
Speaker 4: hours of watching this documentary and I had no voice,
Speaker 4: and I was yelling like through my spirit of what
Speaker 4: these victims had gone through. And then to offer them,
Speaker 4: you know, it was something like twenty five to fifty
Speaker 4: thousand dollars, Like.
Speaker 3: That's not thing compared to what they've been through.
Speaker 4: I do want to say this, you know, one good
Speaker 4: thing we always look for, that silver lining. That school
Speaker 4: ko was torn down. It's no longer there, and you
Speaker 4: know the fact that these women, some of these women
Speaker 4: were there, like when it came down was you know,
Speaker 4: I don't want to say closure because you know, they
Speaker 4: can never have closure on you know, something so evil
Speaker 4: that happened to them. But I think there was a
Speaker 4: part of them that just the fact that this was
Speaker 4: no longer there helped in some way.
Speaker 2: That's so beautiful to hear that that school Kio was
Speaker 2: torn down. You know, we also have some additional momentum
Speaker 2: going in the right direction. In recent years, more and
Speaker 2: more people have joined the fight for justice in this case.
Speaker 2: So a school alumni group that began with with one
Speaker 2: person asking questions on Facebook has exploded and sparked a
Speaker 2: brand new murder investigation into the murder of sister Kathy Sesnik.
Speaker 2: It's officially an open case again, and this quest for
Speaker 2: justice has brought all of these women together and has
Speaker 2: helped so many of those abuse survivors find healing and
Speaker 2: find support, and that brings us to this week's IMOA.
Speaker 2: This week's message of hope and healing goes out to
Speaker 2: Gen Wayner, Teresa Lancaster and the thousands of women and
Speaker 2: men like them who have come out about abuse they
Speaker 2: have suffered at the hands of religious clergy.
Speaker 4: It is for the founders of SNAP, the Grassroots Survivors
Speaker 4: Network of those abused by priest.
Speaker 2: Back in nineteen ninety three, when SNAP held listening sessions
Speaker 2: for survivors to tell their stories, not a single Catholic
Speaker 2: bishop came out to hear them, but the group persevered
Speaker 2: and grew. It is making noise and sparking change.
Speaker 4: The stories of abuse are painful to hear, but more
Speaker 4: painful still is to have lived them and to have
Speaker 4: your voice silenced when you try to speak your truth.
Speaker 4: Because so many have stepped forward and refused to be ignored,
Speaker 4: people are now listening.
Speaker 2: And calls for changes such as the elimination of statutes
Speaker 2: of limitations for reporting abuse are getting louder.
Speaker 4: To all the victims out there, those who have come
Speaker 4: forward and those who have not, we see you, We
Speaker 4: wish you justice, we wished you healing, and most importantly,
Speaker 4: we wish you peace. Onward and upward emua Ema. That's
Speaker 4: our show for today. If you are a survivor of
Speaker 4: clergy abuse, the advocacy group SNAP has resources that you
Speaker 4: can turn to. Visit snaptwork dot org. That's SNAP Network
Speaker 4: all one word dot org.
Speaker 2: We'd love to hear what you thought about today's discussion
Speaker 2: and if there's a case you'd like for us to cover,
Speaker 2: find us on social media or email us at facingevilpod
Speaker 2: at tenderfoot dot tv and one favor. If you haven't
Speaker 2: done it already, please leave us a review and a
Speaker 2: good rating. If you like what we do, your support
Speaker 2: is always cherished.
Speaker 4: Until next time, ah Loha.
Speaker 1: Facing Evil is a production of iHeartRadio and Tenderfoot TV.
Speaker 1: Jo is hosted by Russia Peccuerero and Avet Gentile. Matt
Speaker 1: Frederick and Alex Williams our executive producers on behalf of iHeartRadio,
Speaker 1: with producers Trevor Young and Jesse Funk, Donald albright In
Speaker 1: Payne Lindsay our executive producers on behalf of Tenderfoot TV,
Speaker 1: alongside producer Tracy Kaplan. Our researcher is Claudia Dafrico. Original
Speaker 1: music by makeup and vanity set. Find us on social
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