The Keepers (2017) s01e03 Episode Script
The Revelation
1 [exhales.]
[Jean.]
This is not just a story.
This really happened.
He took me to her body.
I know that I saw her.
I know that I saw her.
And yet I've spent a lot of years asking: "Why don't I have all the pieces?" "Why didn't I do anything?" Knowing she's laying out somewhere.
After Cathy Cesnik died he now had me hook, line and sinker.
And now the abuse became worse than it had ever been.
There's a certain thing that you do in order to survive, and that is, you leave it where it's at.
You can't think it, you can't look at it, you can't You can't do anything with it, because Except sever it away, put it in a box.
I'm gonna use the word "dissociating" as if I had separated out from it.
The guilt the fear.
It was like I'd hear the click of the door.
Everything would stop.
I severed a part of me that stayed in that school.
And I walked out, dusted my feet, as I was told to do and I buried it.
And it didn't come back up until 20-some years later.
I did everything right.
This is the October 1st through 7th of '71.
Okay.
Uh yes.
[Abbie speaking indistinctly.]
[Gemma.]
I loved my high school years.
I loved my teachers, I loved my friends.
I had no idea that this stuff was going on in that building.
No idea.
[Abbie.]
There was no public information out there until 1994, when one Keough student came forward with allegations of sexual abuse by Father Maskell and Maskell being involved in the murder.
I have to confess I was one of the people who said, you know: "I I just don't believe all this.
" I was there.
I never heard a word, never saw a thing.
We were just oblivious.
There was so much publicity when she came forward.
[Gemma.]
There were lots of rumors.
Everybody was wondering who was Jane Doe.
[Greg.]
I don't know.
They'll take their time.
Can we get a check on the window? I think I see movement in the window.
Close the mid-door.
[crowd chattering.]
- [Greg.]
Hurry up.
Hurry up.
- [woman 1.]
Hurry up.
- [all.]
Surprise! - [Greg.]
Happy anniversary! [Greg whoops.]
- [woman 2.]
Where's Michael? - [man 1.]
Where's Michael? - [Greg.]
Where's the other half? - Dad's parking the car! - [Greg.]
Oh.
- [man 2.]
What a gentleman.
[Greg.]
Mom, go back out and come in with Dad.
Come on! - Happy anniversary! - [all.]
Surprise! [Greg whoops.]
[crowd whooping and clapping.]
[Greg laughing.]
[woman.]
Perfect.
Okay.
Now, sing.
- Ooh, baby, baby, it's a wild world - Ooh, baby, baby, it's a bad world [Sarah laughs.]
[Sarah.]
In the '90s, I would say it was pretty idyllic in the sense that I always knew that both my parents really loved me and were really proud of me.
I loved being their kid, you know.
I had everything I needed and almost everything I wanted.
We were happy.
[Sarah.]
My dad worked as a carpenter, as a contractor, and my mom was a Eucharistic minister, so, we were really involved in the church.
[Greg.]
Socially, it was It was the center of our life.
It was either going to the school and doing something with the church.
It was church friends, prayer groups, and the kids would play.
Our understanding was, is that the strength came from God and our relationship with each other through God and the church.
Um You know, that was, uh It was just understood.
[upbeat music playing.]
[Jean.]
It was These were really very special days.
We used to laugh and say we were contemplatives in an ordinary life.
[Jean.]
We were walking around taking care of kids and making ends meet.
But the depth of spiritual growth was [band playing ballad.]
[Jean.]
It was a gift.
[crowd chattering.]
[man 1 singing indistinctly.]
[woman.]
Aw! - [woman.]
That's That's it.
- [man 2.]
Yeah.
[man 3.]
For the saxophone player.
[Jean.]
I met Mike right at the end of my senior year.
[crowd whoops.]
[Jean.]
He was like the lifesaver that got thrown in for me.
But for the first nine years of our marriage, I would always say to him I liked him and I thought he should go out and find somebody who could really appreciate the love that he was bestowing on me.
And he said, "It's okay.
I'll I'll take what I can get.
" [Jean laughs.]
[crowd whooping.]
[crowd chattering.]
[Jean.]
Now this is the beginning of '92.
I was about 38 years old and just finishing up a spiritual directing program.
Mike and I were looking to buy a new house, and the real estate agent happened to be a classmate from Keough.
We were in my dining room and she was asking about me going to a reunion.
"You would love it.
It Everybody gets together.
We're gonna do this different thing this time.
" And I was like, "No, I don't I don't usually go to the reunions.
" And I felt like I was dancing to get as far away from that topic as possible.
And I didn't understand any of that.
I just knew it was uncomfortable, I knew I didn't like Keough, I knew I never went to any of the reunions, and she made me look at it.
Like, why? And I go through a couple days of feeling like something's not right.
Now, remember I was a prayerful person.
I had I have prayer for hour, hour and a half every day and I decided that Lent, I would do what I did best, which was take it into prayer settle down, and just be still and work with it on a prayerful level.
So, I I quieted down and I let myself just kind of be.
And with that came memories.
It was like throwing up, that's what I would say.
It was like this feeling of standing before an abyss, this black hole, and throwing up these memories.
And at the end of it was a memory that I had always had a part of it but not the whole part.
It was Magnus in this confessional.
He asked me what was my name and could he look at me.
I always remembered that.
I knew it was always Magnus.
Now what I remembered, he is now looking at me and he's asking me questions about my uncle.
And as he's asking me he's masturbating.
[tinkling.]
And I actually felt relief.
"I can deal with this.
" I decided that I was going to go over and find my yearbook in my mother's attic and I'm going to put a face on this.
And then I could put some closure to it.
And so I pulled out the yearbook.
And when I opened it up, I saw Magnus' face.
And when I saw Maskell's face next to him all I thought was, "Oh, shit, oh, shit, oh shit.
" I wanted it to be the end of everything that I had to come to terms with.
And instead, I felt like it was the beginning.
So, in the course of X amount of months in '92 I had these memories.
What I was remembering was so horrible.
It was as if a 14-year-old came in and sat down next to me and started telling me what happened to her.
And I was appalled.
I thought for sure I was crazy.
But at the same time, I was consumed by what was happening inside of me.
I not only hoped that I was insane, 'cause I would have rather it been that than this really did happen, but I was a grown woman who had a sense of who I was.
And I had my sense of what was right and wrong, and I had my sense of why, you know, you don't let that kind of thing happen.
I had my sense of having children and I taught them: "You tell somebody if something happens.
" And I, as a grown woman, was condemning myself because I'm looking at this girl and I'm saying the same thing that I'm sure many of other people who are hearing this story said.
"Why didn't she tell somebody?" "How could she let that go on that long?" "Why didn't?" You know.
"She must've liked it.
" She must have wanted it.
"She must have deserved it.
" So, at this time I'm still very Catholic but I've stopped going to church.
So, I went up to my pastor.
[Sarah.]
Father Art, he was awesome.
He was really accessible, and he was young, and he was, like, a very down-to-earth priest.
He was just beloved.
[Jean.]
We were friends.
So I wanted, I guess, in my own way, because I trusted him as a pastor, as a priest, as somebody who knew us uhm to tell him what I was remembering.
He proceeded through the course of a couple visits to tell me that Magnus had died but that Father Maskell was an active pastor downtown at Holy Cross.
Art said that he wanted me to talk to Rick Woy, who represented the archdiocese.
And at that first meeting with him, Rick Woy held a manila folder.
And it had It didn't look like it had anything in it.
Maybe two pieces of paper, and he said I was the first to voice a complaint like this about Joseph Maskell but that he believed me.
He was so personable and told me that Maskell was very intelligent, and that if they didn't have everything in place, he would slip right through their fingers.
[Abbie.]
In 1967, Maskell was moved from St.
Clement's to Keough.
He continued at Keough until '75.
We were told that a new principal came in and began getting complaints from parents.
She was known as a no-nonsense sort of nun.
She told him that he had 15 minutes to pack his things and get out.
Maskell was then assigned to work at the Catholic Archdiocese Division of Schools.
The church records are a little vague.
We've been calling them the mystery years.
What was he doing from '75 to '80? In 1980, he was pulled from his assignment working with the Division of Schools.
He was sent to a different parish called Annunciation.
In 1982, two years later, he was sent to Holy Cross parish in Baltimore and he was there in '92 when Jane Doe came forward.
[Jean.]
I had a second meeting with Rick Woy.
At this one, he had the archdiocesan lawyer with him Kathy Hoskins.
She suggested that I get a lawyer in case Joseph Maskell were to sue me for the things that I was saying.
So, we found a lawyer, Steve Tully, and the church was paying his fee, and so, it was a mutual They kept saying we were on the same page, all doing You know, just kind of making sure everything's in place.
- [girl.]
Hey, Mom.
- [woman.]
Hi.
Uh [girl.]
Okay, now we're walking into the kitchen.
Oh, look who it is.
Oh, look.
- [man.]
And we got It's very bright.
- [girl.]
Hi, Aunt Jeanie.
- Hi, how are you? - [girl.]
Good.
How are you? - I'm doing okay.
Yeah.
- That's very good.
[Jean.]
When I started to remember [girl.]
Hi.
[Jean.]
no one knows any of this is going on.
- [man.]
How are you? - [girl.]
Good.
How are you? "-[man.]
Fantastic.
- - [girl.]
That's good.
" [woman laughing.]
[Jean.]
There were few people that I allowed in.
Mike I was afraid that he would say When he would know these things, that I was a whore and he would leave.
So, I always protected myself that that was going to happen on some level.
This is so shameful.
I was disgusted with myself.
And I would say to Mike, "Mike, you know, you leave.
" He's like, "They did these things to you.
" You did not do them.
"I still consider myself the first person that was with you.
" And whatever we were going to do, we were doing it together.
So, I had the archdiocese say: "We would like for you to make a formal statement," and that would help them remove him from Father Maskell from his church.
I am, at this point, only remembering these priests from around April, I believe, of that of that year.
So, here, it's September.
And Father Maskell I didn't know who the hell he was.
I didn't I don't know him, and yet I do know him.
So, every time I went to talk to them I had to also deal with the tremendous fear that Maskell was gonna be in the room.
It was terror.
And when you feel that terror, you know that it's true.
You know that no matter what is coming up, no matter what the thoughts, no matter what the memory, you know it's true.
So I'm trying to do the right thing, and I'm feeling like I will take this.
I You know, I'll take this and I And I I can give them a statement.
So, it was me and Mike and we met downtown.
And I took these seven memories with me, thinking that would be the statement, that they wanted to know what kind of stuff went on.
I wouldn't wanna talk about these things with anyone, much less with a priest across the table and a lawyer and another lawyer.
But, um So, this is one of the memories that I read to the archdiocesan representatives.
"Father Maskell had me come to the office one day when I had free mods.
" I was afraid to go in, but I did.
He looked very angry.
He said, 'So, you're here.
I knew you'd come.
All you whores are alike.
' He told me I was a bad person, and it made him so angry that there were people like me around that he had to do his part to stop us.
He pulled his penis out and said God wanted me to receive the Holy Spirit and it was flowing through him.
I wanted to throw up.
I wanted to run.
I hated being me.
But I was afraid of saying no.
He said when I was done, 'See? That is why God can't help you.
You really like doing bad things.
I need to do a lot of praying for you.
' He walked me to the door.
He said very soft and slow, 'I know you hated that.
I'm glad.
' "He gave me his blessing and I left.
" [crying.]
And they listened to me read these.
And they took their copies.
And he wanted me to point to somebody in a yearbook.
"We really need someone to corroborate.
" You bring us a name of someone else who had this experience, too, "and we can get him out.
" And I said, "I'm living in a hell.
" I'm not putting anybody else through that.
Somebody else wants to come and talk, they'll come and talk.
"I'm not giving you any names even if I had them.
" Maskell was at Holy Cross parish until 1992.
In October of 1992, after learning of the allegations from Jane Doe, the archdioceses told Maskell that he needed to go to a hospital named the Institute of Living in Connecticut.
Institute of Living um clergy sexual abuse.
Let's see if we can Okay.
"'Treating Clergy Who Sexually Abuse Minors:" A 16-Year Experience at the Institute of Living, ' "by L.
M.
Lothstein.
" [Lothstein.]
When I was at the Institute of Living, I directed the Psychology Department.
They asked me if I would help them to put together an in-patient program for the treatment of impaired and distressed professionals, including Catholic priests.
And that's how it started.
Typically, the archdiocese would send a priest, and they would say the person's depressed, the person is having difficulty in their relationships with others in the church, the person was having authority problems.
And at one point, the guy sitting in front of me, a priest "I said," Well, I understand you're here for depression.
What's going on?" And he said, "I'm not here for depression.
I had sex with a 14-year-old.
" And I told it to the bishop, and he sent me here.
" [gasps.]
"He said He says," The bishop was afraid I was gonna be arrested, and he didn't want news to come out, so, he sent me here.
" I called the bishop and I said: "I just can't understand why you would do something like that.
We're not here to protect the diocese from the embarrassment of his arrest.
" This is what happened over and over and over again.
By about '94, '95, we confronted this issue.
"We basically said," We're not gonna accept any more patients from the Catholic Church unless you send us the whole file and every file you have on the patient "and tell us the real reason for why they're coming.
" We never got a single referral again.
[Abbie.]
If the archdiocese had all these complaints about his behavior, ethically, they should have sent Maskell's history of these known abuse episodes with him.
And we just don't know.
You have to wonder what's going on.
[sighs.]
[Jean.]
And so, in the course of the next, I don't know, month and a half or so I've now remembered not just the abuse that these two priests had done but also there's other adults, like the police and this Brother Bob who had also been abusing me.
I could go into my quiet and the memory would flow.
I couldn't have anyone with me, because it was a very vulnerable feeling.
I never remembered things when I was with therapists.
And I was very aware that I did not want to contaminate what was coming up.
This is now December 1992.
Any interaction I had with the representatives of the archdiocese, I was being told that first time that they had complained about this and if I could get a corroborating witness to what I was saying, they could do something more definite with him.
It was all back on me.
I was trying still to be the good little girl and give them what they wanted.
So, I'm feeling really, like, I'm gonna give them what I What I'm remembering.
December the 9th, 1992 we had a meeting where I brought names of other abusers at Keough.
They were very upset with that.
They were very upset with that.
See, they want a name of a girl who they can go up to and say: "Did this ever happen to you?" But I'd give them names of adults and they say: "We can't go up to someone and say: 'Well, someone's, you know, saying that you abused them.
'" Next day we called my lawyer, Steve Tully's office.
He was, "What do you think you did? What were you doing the other day?" It was a waste of two hours.
They can't do anything with those names.
" Mike he was infuriated.
He called Steve Tully and fired him.
Said, "We don't need your services anymore.
" That night, I called Rick Woy, and I told him that Mike had fired Steve Tully and that I wondered if he would meet with me in the sacristy and we could pray, because I always found that I got insight and direction with prayer, and that maybe we'd be able to figure out what to do with this.
Rick Woy said to me he didn't think it was a good idea and that he suggests I get a lawyer.
And that was devastating.
He now has taken any hope that this was still something that we were on the same page working together.
So, Mike and I decided to hire the team of Phil Dantes, Jim Maggio and Beverly Wallace.
[Beverly.]
I grew up in a very small town in Kentucky.
And when I was little, my two best friends came home and said, "Sister Mary Whatever.
" says we can't play with you anymore.
You're a heathen.
You're not Catholic.
" I didn't know what heathen meant.
So, to me, my view of the Catholic church was just They're another church, and I didn't see the archdiocese as this, you know, monumental institution.
Jean, I think, came from a sincere desire to make them aware of what was going on and to ensure that this didn't happen to anybody else.
She was in the process of recovering memories, and some days she was able to sit down and talk and plan, and some days she just said, "I It's not a good day.
" But she was trying to put in place in her life the things that she needed to get her through this rough time The therapists, Mike, her husband, her children.
to support her to the extent she needed it.
[Jean.]
So, then we move into, then, early 1993.
"Dear Jean:" We need to emphasize again the importance of corroborating testimony regarding inappropriate sexual activity.
We understand your reservations about doing this, but you also understand that our hands are tied in dealing with the priest unless we have corroboration.
"Rick Woy.
" And I feel really pressured now because they're saying this priest is gonna be back out.
So, I had asked a friend of mine who had gone to school with me, Maria, if she would meet with me.
So, we met.
She brought a yearbook.
I told her what was happening.
She opened up the yearbook and she pointed to a picture of Cathy.
"You remember when she, you know, went missing and she ended up dead.
" And the whole time I'm Like, I'm just in a fog.
I go into a fog, a spacey place, and it's like "Ahh," you know.
And I'm driving home and I start to have this feeling like I really loved her.
And I'm like, something I could feel it.
The next day, we were having a family meeting.
Everyone was gathering to talk about how my uncle's abuse impacted on the whole family.
[Don.]
We were called to a meeting.
And I was completely oblivious as to what was going on.
I guess all I remember was going in, you know thinking more I was going to show support and we were going to give Jeanie a chance to tell what happened.
We'd go over and spend a weekend with my aunt and uncle.
As it turned out, at some points during our visits, my uncle would take Jean somewhere and abuse her.
She had not really been talking very much with everybody about Maskell.
- We weren't really tuned in.
- About Keough.
You know, we had heard We had heard that there were memories about Uncle Tom.
- [Ed.]
That's what the meeting was for.
- Right.
We did not talk like that in my family.
Uh, sex was, uh I wouldn't say taboo but the level of conversation we had took a completely different twist during that meeting.
I could feel it.
I'm just kind of As I go through the evening, something was coming.
Something was coming.
"The whole time, it's like," Push it down, push it down, push it down, push it down.
I loved her and I killed her.
"I loved her and I killed her.
I killed her.
I killed her.
" [Ed.]
She had to leave the meeting.
And then I could hear her out there.
[Jean.]
My sister was like, "What's wrong?" And I said: "I killed I killed Cathy Cesnik.
" So, now my family knows that I've been doing this archdiocesan thing for six months, and that I remember these priests.
And so we go back into the room and she says: "Okay, the direction of this meeting is gonna change.
" I want you to know what's been going on with Jeanie.
She's been going to these meetings.
She's been remembering these priests.
And, um "And now she's remembering something to do with Sister Cathy Cesnik.
" And with that, I fall into my brother Ed.
I didn't know what she was talking about.
"I killed her.
" In all honesty, there was just a second I thought: "You could not kill somebody.
" But the fact that she was saying, "I killed her" You're told something that is just so hard to fathom.
But nevertheless I mean, it was I believed her.
That was a three-tier meeting to me.
First the initial shock, then you had this sex stuff that, again, we never discussed, and then you bring murder into it.
And it's like, "Well Well, what do you mean, murder?" You and I were, like We became the detectives.
- We were going through - Yeah, in fact We were going through microfilm, going back through all the papers to figure out what happened.
As you looked more and more in the newspapers, then sort of linked up what she was saying with what we were reading in the newspaper We thought, "Well, this makes a lot of sense.
" [Mike.]
Here it is, a scandal that was going on over at Keough, so, Jean confided in this Sister and then the Sister ends up dead.
And I believed Jeanie.
So I was, like, raring to go.
Let's Let's get going.
[Jean.]
And we all have a dark and light.
We all have this shadow.
The part that comes into the confessional and says: "My God, I just can't believe I did this thing.
And please, please, tell me what to do so I don't have to have it eat me up.
" Maskell was He was feeding that.
And beating away that part of me that went in knowing I could be forgiven because I was really a good person.
In my remembering This is a very difficult thing to come to terms with.
You start to feel as if you're ripping masks off your face and looking in a mirror as you're doing it, and it's very painful.
Because you're not sure anymore.
Who are you? [Sarah.]
It was pretty all-consuming in our house.
Our life was like these two lives.
Like, there was the outer "everything's fine" life, and there was, like, there's a There's a bomb going off inside of my house and everybody's just trying to survive it.
[Greg.]
There's times where we'd come home and my dad would be running cover.
He'd be like, "We need to give your mom space.
" That was different.
The best way to look at it is she probably felt she didn't have She was raw, you know.
And And even us coming in and wanting to spend time with her was just painful.
[Jean.]
So, finally, I invite my sister Cass over and Mike to sit with me.
Because it's like I need to remember what I did to her.
So, we sat, and I allowed myself to get quiet with the part of me that was remembering that I killed Cathy Cesnik.
Being taken to her body.
Wiping at her face with all the maggots.
And Maskell saying: "You see what happens when you say bad things about people?" When it was done Cassie said, "So, you were trying to help her", not hurt her.
" It was another beating down of anything in me 'cause I felt it was my fault.
I had acknowledged to Cathy that there was something going on that was upsetting me.
She said she would take care of it, and she's lying on the ground and she's dead.
After I remembered her death I went and had a meeting with the police to discuss what I remembered and what details I could give them about it.
I told them about the maggots in her face.
They were, like, "Yeah, right," because the time of year, there would not have been any maggots.
And I didn't feel they believed me then, and I doubt that there are people who will believe now.
[Bob.]
Okay.
[grunts.]
This one is a sword that would've been carried by a supporter of Bonnie Prince Charlie in the Jacobite Rebellion.
On one side, it's marked 1712.
"Right and prosperity to Scotland.
" That would've been prior to the 1745 rebellion.
So, this sword's been around.
I'd love to know who carried it.
I knew nothing about this case until 1993.
[sighs.]
I wonder what "With new lead, police reopen old murder case.
" Yeah.
This was our first story on this case.
"Police revived the investigation this spring" after a former student at Archbishop Keough High School "approached them with a startling story.
" This was the woman later known as Jane Doe.
And she was the first to bring to light the possibility or the possible connection of Father Joseph Maskell to the death of Sister Catherine Cesnik.
It was a very nebulous story because we didn't get a lot of cooperation.
The police were not pleased.
You know, it forced them into a a very extensive investigation of a case that was then already over 20 years old.
The archdiocese was not at all helpful.
They stonewalled us at every turn.
And so, that story occupied us the next year and a half, almost exclusively.
[bell tolling.]
[Abbie.]
Father Maskell he was at the Institute of Living in Connecticut, where they He was evaluated for about six months.
Around April of '93, he came back with this sort of clear bill from them, if you will, and they assigned him to St.
Augustine's.
[Bob.]
Oh, we interviewed Father Maskell down at St.
Augustine Church in Elkridge.
He was wearing a green wool golf cardigan.
And of course, he was very urbane, very charming and denied everything.
You know, he said this was hysterical nonsense.
[Beverly.]
When they put him back in a church, I think it sent a pretty clear message that they didn't see him as a threat, which certainly was 180 degrees from the way Jean saw him.
I have, at this point said a lot of things about this man, Joseph Maskell.
I have said that I remembered him taking me to a dead body.
And now he's out in the public walking around.
I was terrified for my family.
It felt like someone was gonna come in my back window.
[Beverly.]
The archdiocese position was that there was no corroboration.
They did essentially nothing.
But she had such a great support network.
I mean, her big Catholic family all came behind her.
And we started investigating and trying to find if there were any other victims.
[Val.]
We were talking about how to get names of the alumni.
And since I had gone to Seton and Seton and Keough had merged, I went with Ed to the school.
So, we went over one day You'll You'll love this.
We went to the door.
Ding-dong.
Some nun answers the door in the convent.
"So, my wife, she says," Well, I'm an alumni of Seton, and I wanna be able to contact a lot of people so we can get together and, like, have a reunion.
And I wondered if you had any kind of a book "which would have everyone's name and address.
" And she says, "Oh, yes, but it'll cost you ten bucks.
" "That's okay.
We'll pay ten bucks.
" [chuckling.]
So, we gave them $10 and they gave us the entire alumni.
And it became a family project for us because we took We made up a little postcard.
[Ed.]
If you were alumni from the years of such and such to such and such, and if you had any experiences which you considered to be inappropriate, call her lawyer.
And it was ever Just about every sibling was in my dining room.
And we sat around there and we just handwrote out names and addresses, threw stamps on it, just threw it out.
- [Mike.]
Probably we sent - [Ed.]
Yeah.
- A thousand of them? - We went All the little All my kids prayed over them before we took them to the post office and all.
We were on it.
[Jean.]
And so, we waited to see what the responses would be.
All right.
I'll make the dough and you make the lemon [woman.]
All right.
Did you wash these? - [Teresa.]
I scrubbed them really well.
- Okay.
[Teresa.]
And dried them.
[Teresa hums.]
[Teresa.]
I like to bake, like, probably three times a week, and I just find that it calms me down.
[woman.]
She was making a pie a day for a while.
[chuckles.]
It's cheaper than a shrink, right? In 1993, I got an anonymous letter in the mail.
"Do you know of any sexual abuse that happened at Keough?" When I read that letter, I just got so excited.
I I ran around the yard and, and I was so happy.
I called the number on the anonymous letter from a phone booth because I was afraid to call from my house.
Teresa called with an edge, you know.
Like, "Why do you wanna talk to me and who the hell are you?" And why should I talk to you?" "I don't know who you are, but I sure know a lot about Keough.
And would you tell me who you're looking at?" And I said, "Well, why don't you tell me who you think I'm talking about?" And she named Maskell.
I said, "I can tell you stuff you won't believe that that man did.
" When I went to high school, I was a straight-A student.
I always thought I wanted to be a doctor or a lawyer.
I was a nerd in the ninth grade.
But the latter part of tenth grade, I would go to coffeehouses at Gibbons.
Cardinal Gibbons was a Catholic all-boys school right next to Keough, and we would go there and listen to music.
I was, like, trying to be a hippie, and I didn't wanna be with the nerds anymore, so [chuckles.]
[choir vocalizing.]
One day, my mom had gone through my purse and she found some paraphernalia.
A pot pipe.
My parents, they were hysterical.
They could not be consoled.
So, I went to Father Maskell's office the morning after my parents had found that in my purse.
I thought that the priest could help me, you know? "I said," My parents are really, really upset.
Could you please talk to them and tell them that I'm not going off the deep end "and that everything will be fine?" I was crying.
And he got up from his chair behind his desk.
He said, "I'm not supposed to do this.
" I'm not supposed to touch the students, "but sometimes this is necessary.
" And things just got bad to worse after that with Father Maskell.
I was a very happy kid.
I had a lot, everything I ever needed with my parents.
But this was the dark side of the world.
Like, a realization that the world I lived in was not real.
He talked to my parents.
I mean, he smooth-talked them really well.
My father was a very, very strict Catholic.
He completely was convinced that Father Maskell was saving me.
Maskell called my father and told him that I'd have to see a gynecologist and that he knew Dr.
Christian Richter.
Dr.
Richter prescribed douches three times a week.
And I nev I didn't even know what a douche was.
Maskell said that, "That's okay.
You can do that in my office.
" I'll help you.
" He'd set up the douche bag and everything and administer it to me.
Another time, Maskell told my father and mother that he thought I was schizophrenic and he sent me to a doctor.
He prescribed Thorazine, which is a very strong, strong drug used on schizophrenics.
"This is going to help you release the devils from your brain.
" Father Maskell was a police chaplain.
And there was one occasion in 1970, on Halloween night my girlfriend was spending the night.
[phone ringing.]
[Teresa.]
Maskell had called my parents and told them that he was gonna take the girls out for a Halloween um, police run.
We rode down some wooded area, like a lover's lane kind of place.
And there were some young people with the police shining flashlights, making them break it up.
And as they went on their way Maskell told my friend to get out of his car.
And Maskell stood outside of his car and I was raped by two police officers.
It went on for my junior and senior year.
And I was gonna be something.
I was gonna be somebody.
I wanted to go to law school.
But I ended up getting married and having children when I was 18, 19.
And my whole life was put on hold.
[Beverly.]
I mean, you gotta remember this was many years before the whole Spotlight journalist thing in Boston.
And so, once we delved into it and once we sent out our flyers and ran an ad I think we expected to get some modest response.
What we got instead was an overwhelming response.
The P.
O.
Box filled up.
"I got your letter.
" Or "I saw your ad in the paper.
" "I think I have some information.
" - [woman 1.]
August 13th.
- [woman 2.]
August 15th.
-[woman 3.]
August 25th.
-[all.]
1993.
[woman 3.]
To whom it may concern - [woman 4.]
I received your letter - [woman 5.]
In regards [woman 6.]
In response to your ad [woman 7.]
your ad in the Sun today [woman 8.]
I'm aware of sexual impropriety at Archbishop Keough High - [woman 9.]
between '68 - [woman 7.]
and 1975.
I can offer the following.
[Beverly.]
We got probably 40 to 50 people that contacted us.
And thus began over a year of interviewing these witnesses, learning what their stories were.
And everybody that called said, "We're talking about Father Maskell.
" [woman 1.]
Father Maskell practiced psychology, according to him [woman 2.]
about Father Maskell.
[woman 3.]
Father Maskell called me into his office and asked me to sit on his lap.
- He rocked me back and forth.
- [woman 4.]
amnesia regarding large portions of time [woman 5.]
I couldn't wait to get out.
- Made me uncomfortable.
-[woman 6.]
Had me in tears, made me feel like I really did have these problems.
[woman 7.]
I regretted not telling anyone.
[woman 8.]
It makes me sick to think about it.
[woman 9.]
He made me feel confused.
[woman 10.]
I have information regarding Father Maskell.
[Beverly.]
I think what surprised me in the response were the consistent threads that kept showing up.
Anything from inappropriate conversations to the rapes.
He was very big into examinations.
He was doing pelvic examinations on these girls in his office, what he called pregnancy checks.
And he had been involved in gynecological care of students.
Also, we heard from more than one person that there were other people brought in and Who performed sexual acts and raped on these girls at the behest of Maskell, or certainly with his permission and his presence.
There were police officers, there were other clergy members, there were local business owners, there were politicians that all were part of this network.
The real screamer is that, here a family, kids and all, involved, do this and where's? Where's the archdiocese going out and dusting the troops and saying: "Hey, was there anything there?" If we hadn't done that, who knows? It may not have It may not have took off as much as it did.
People coming forward, you would think it would give you some sense of of legitimizing what you're saying.
But that all scared me more because it made it more real.
You know, it's one thing when you think you're crazy and you're the only person that remembers this.
It's easy to think you're crazy.
But it wasn't crazy if other people had experienced it, too.
And if it wasn't crazy, then this horrible thing happened to me.
And if this horrible thing happened to me, oh, my God.
How many other girls were involved? How many of us are dead? How many of us are lost in alcohol or drugs or in a mental hospital? What was done to us? [truck horn honks.]
[Gemma.]
The matter with you, dude? He just thought I was cute.
Holy Cross Cemetery.
Okay.
It just seems like this would have been the place where you would If you were gonna get rid of something, you would do it back in there.
Maybe this is where it was.
[Abbie.]
We heard the story that one day in 1990, while Maskell was at Holy Cross, there was a very bizarre episode.
The cemetery caretaker was Mr.
William Storey, and Father Maskell suddenly told him to get a front loader and dig a hole ten-by-20 feet in the back abandoned part of the cemetery.
Maskell started bringing in a pickup truck full of boxes wrapped in plastic.
They put all these boxes into the ground, and Maskell told Mr.
Storey to backfill it in and put grass on top.
Nobody knew anything was there.
Well, Mr.
Storey was pretty street smart, it sounded like.
And while Maskell was getting more documents, Mr.
Storey climbed down into the hole and opened one of the boxes and looked at the documents.
Father Maskell fired him a couple months later.
[Gemma.]
Right.
[Abbie.]
And in August of 1994, when Jane Doe came forward Mr.
Storey went to a detective who was off the record.
We've nicknamed him Deep Throat from the from the old Watergate inside source.
Deep Throat says that Mr.
Storey told him the story and said: "I know I don't know what all's down there, but I know where it's buried.
" Deep Throat told us that we need to be careful for our safety.
That this goes bigger and deeper I think he said, "Than we can imagine.
" And that he doesn't wanna put himself, or more importantly, his family, at risk, by having his name used or telling us information that might get us in trouble.
[Tom.]
What was in that hole in the ground? Deep Throat, he knows what happened.
I've interviewed him half a dozen times been to meetings with him never seen him say anything that didn't prove to be 100 percent accurate.
[interviewer.]
Why don't you think Deep Throat would go on the record with anyone? I believe there's a lot of fear around this.
I believe people have been threatened.
I believe they have been shown weapons and told not just "This could be very bad for you if you get deeply into it," but, "Your family could pay the price.
" I can't ask Deep Throat to confront his anxiety about the threats he believes he's received to his family.
But I think I think many people wish that he would come forward and stand up to the camera and tell the world.
Synced & carrected by PopcornAWH
[Jean.]
This is not just a story.
This really happened.
He took me to her body.
I know that I saw her.
I know that I saw her.
And yet I've spent a lot of years asking: "Why don't I have all the pieces?" "Why didn't I do anything?" Knowing she's laying out somewhere.
After Cathy Cesnik died he now had me hook, line and sinker.
And now the abuse became worse than it had ever been.
There's a certain thing that you do in order to survive, and that is, you leave it where it's at.
You can't think it, you can't look at it, you can't You can't do anything with it, because Except sever it away, put it in a box.
I'm gonna use the word "dissociating" as if I had separated out from it.
The guilt the fear.
It was like I'd hear the click of the door.
Everything would stop.
I severed a part of me that stayed in that school.
And I walked out, dusted my feet, as I was told to do and I buried it.
And it didn't come back up until 20-some years later.
I did everything right.
This is the October 1st through 7th of '71.
Okay.
Uh yes.
[Abbie speaking indistinctly.]
[Gemma.]
I loved my high school years.
I loved my teachers, I loved my friends.
I had no idea that this stuff was going on in that building.
No idea.
[Abbie.]
There was no public information out there until 1994, when one Keough student came forward with allegations of sexual abuse by Father Maskell and Maskell being involved in the murder.
I have to confess I was one of the people who said, you know: "I I just don't believe all this.
" I was there.
I never heard a word, never saw a thing.
We were just oblivious.
There was so much publicity when she came forward.
[Gemma.]
There were lots of rumors.
Everybody was wondering who was Jane Doe.
[Greg.]
I don't know.
They'll take their time.
Can we get a check on the window? I think I see movement in the window.
Close the mid-door.
[crowd chattering.]
- [Greg.]
Hurry up.
Hurry up.
- [woman 1.]
Hurry up.
- [all.]
Surprise! - [Greg.]
Happy anniversary! [Greg whoops.]
- [woman 2.]
Where's Michael? - [man 1.]
Where's Michael? - [Greg.]
Where's the other half? - Dad's parking the car! - [Greg.]
Oh.
- [man 2.]
What a gentleman.
[Greg.]
Mom, go back out and come in with Dad.
Come on! - Happy anniversary! - [all.]
Surprise! [Greg whoops.]
[crowd whooping and clapping.]
[Greg laughing.]
[woman.]
Perfect.
Okay.
Now, sing.
- Ooh, baby, baby, it's a wild world - Ooh, baby, baby, it's a bad world [Sarah laughs.]
[Sarah.]
In the '90s, I would say it was pretty idyllic in the sense that I always knew that both my parents really loved me and were really proud of me.
I loved being their kid, you know.
I had everything I needed and almost everything I wanted.
We were happy.
[Sarah.]
My dad worked as a carpenter, as a contractor, and my mom was a Eucharistic minister, so, we were really involved in the church.
[Greg.]
Socially, it was It was the center of our life.
It was either going to the school and doing something with the church.
It was church friends, prayer groups, and the kids would play.
Our understanding was, is that the strength came from God and our relationship with each other through God and the church.
Um You know, that was, uh It was just understood.
[upbeat music playing.]
[Jean.]
It was These were really very special days.
We used to laugh and say we were contemplatives in an ordinary life.
[Jean.]
We were walking around taking care of kids and making ends meet.
But the depth of spiritual growth was [band playing ballad.]
[Jean.]
It was a gift.
[crowd chattering.]
[man 1 singing indistinctly.]
[woman.]
Aw! - [woman.]
That's That's it.
- [man 2.]
Yeah.
[man 3.]
For the saxophone player.
[Jean.]
I met Mike right at the end of my senior year.
[crowd whoops.]
[Jean.]
He was like the lifesaver that got thrown in for me.
But for the first nine years of our marriage, I would always say to him I liked him and I thought he should go out and find somebody who could really appreciate the love that he was bestowing on me.
And he said, "It's okay.
I'll I'll take what I can get.
" [Jean laughs.]
[crowd whooping.]
[crowd chattering.]
[Jean.]
Now this is the beginning of '92.
I was about 38 years old and just finishing up a spiritual directing program.
Mike and I were looking to buy a new house, and the real estate agent happened to be a classmate from Keough.
We were in my dining room and she was asking about me going to a reunion.
"You would love it.
It Everybody gets together.
We're gonna do this different thing this time.
" And I was like, "No, I don't I don't usually go to the reunions.
" And I felt like I was dancing to get as far away from that topic as possible.
And I didn't understand any of that.
I just knew it was uncomfortable, I knew I didn't like Keough, I knew I never went to any of the reunions, and she made me look at it.
Like, why? And I go through a couple days of feeling like something's not right.
Now, remember I was a prayerful person.
I had I have prayer for hour, hour and a half every day and I decided that Lent, I would do what I did best, which was take it into prayer settle down, and just be still and work with it on a prayerful level.
So, I I quieted down and I let myself just kind of be.
And with that came memories.
It was like throwing up, that's what I would say.
It was like this feeling of standing before an abyss, this black hole, and throwing up these memories.
And at the end of it was a memory that I had always had a part of it but not the whole part.
It was Magnus in this confessional.
He asked me what was my name and could he look at me.
I always remembered that.
I knew it was always Magnus.
Now what I remembered, he is now looking at me and he's asking me questions about my uncle.
And as he's asking me he's masturbating.
[tinkling.]
And I actually felt relief.
"I can deal with this.
" I decided that I was going to go over and find my yearbook in my mother's attic and I'm going to put a face on this.
And then I could put some closure to it.
And so I pulled out the yearbook.
And when I opened it up, I saw Magnus' face.
And when I saw Maskell's face next to him all I thought was, "Oh, shit, oh, shit, oh shit.
" I wanted it to be the end of everything that I had to come to terms with.
And instead, I felt like it was the beginning.
So, in the course of X amount of months in '92 I had these memories.
What I was remembering was so horrible.
It was as if a 14-year-old came in and sat down next to me and started telling me what happened to her.
And I was appalled.
I thought for sure I was crazy.
But at the same time, I was consumed by what was happening inside of me.
I not only hoped that I was insane, 'cause I would have rather it been that than this really did happen, but I was a grown woman who had a sense of who I was.
And I had my sense of what was right and wrong, and I had my sense of why, you know, you don't let that kind of thing happen.
I had my sense of having children and I taught them: "You tell somebody if something happens.
" And I, as a grown woman, was condemning myself because I'm looking at this girl and I'm saying the same thing that I'm sure many of other people who are hearing this story said.
"Why didn't she tell somebody?" "How could she let that go on that long?" "Why didn't?" You know.
"She must've liked it.
" She must have wanted it.
"She must have deserved it.
" So, at this time I'm still very Catholic but I've stopped going to church.
So, I went up to my pastor.
[Sarah.]
Father Art, he was awesome.
He was really accessible, and he was young, and he was, like, a very down-to-earth priest.
He was just beloved.
[Jean.]
We were friends.
So I wanted, I guess, in my own way, because I trusted him as a pastor, as a priest, as somebody who knew us uhm to tell him what I was remembering.
He proceeded through the course of a couple visits to tell me that Magnus had died but that Father Maskell was an active pastor downtown at Holy Cross.
Art said that he wanted me to talk to Rick Woy, who represented the archdiocese.
And at that first meeting with him, Rick Woy held a manila folder.
And it had It didn't look like it had anything in it.
Maybe two pieces of paper, and he said I was the first to voice a complaint like this about Joseph Maskell but that he believed me.
He was so personable and told me that Maskell was very intelligent, and that if they didn't have everything in place, he would slip right through their fingers.
[Abbie.]
In 1967, Maskell was moved from St.
Clement's to Keough.
He continued at Keough until '75.
We were told that a new principal came in and began getting complaints from parents.
She was known as a no-nonsense sort of nun.
She told him that he had 15 minutes to pack his things and get out.
Maskell was then assigned to work at the Catholic Archdiocese Division of Schools.
The church records are a little vague.
We've been calling them the mystery years.
What was he doing from '75 to '80? In 1980, he was pulled from his assignment working with the Division of Schools.
He was sent to a different parish called Annunciation.
In 1982, two years later, he was sent to Holy Cross parish in Baltimore and he was there in '92 when Jane Doe came forward.
[Jean.]
I had a second meeting with Rick Woy.
At this one, he had the archdiocesan lawyer with him Kathy Hoskins.
She suggested that I get a lawyer in case Joseph Maskell were to sue me for the things that I was saying.
So, we found a lawyer, Steve Tully, and the church was paying his fee, and so, it was a mutual They kept saying we were on the same page, all doing You know, just kind of making sure everything's in place.
- [girl.]
Hey, Mom.
- [woman.]
Hi.
Uh [girl.]
Okay, now we're walking into the kitchen.
Oh, look who it is.
Oh, look.
- [man.]
And we got It's very bright.
- [girl.]
Hi, Aunt Jeanie.
- Hi, how are you? - [girl.]
Good.
How are you? - I'm doing okay.
Yeah.
- That's very good.
[Jean.]
When I started to remember [girl.]
Hi.
[Jean.]
no one knows any of this is going on.
- [man.]
How are you? - [girl.]
Good.
How are you? "-[man.]
Fantastic.
- - [girl.]
That's good.
" [woman laughing.]
[Jean.]
There were few people that I allowed in.
Mike I was afraid that he would say When he would know these things, that I was a whore and he would leave.
So, I always protected myself that that was going to happen on some level.
This is so shameful.
I was disgusted with myself.
And I would say to Mike, "Mike, you know, you leave.
" He's like, "They did these things to you.
" You did not do them.
"I still consider myself the first person that was with you.
" And whatever we were going to do, we were doing it together.
So, I had the archdiocese say: "We would like for you to make a formal statement," and that would help them remove him from Father Maskell from his church.
I am, at this point, only remembering these priests from around April, I believe, of that of that year.
So, here, it's September.
And Father Maskell I didn't know who the hell he was.
I didn't I don't know him, and yet I do know him.
So, every time I went to talk to them I had to also deal with the tremendous fear that Maskell was gonna be in the room.
It was terror.
And when you feel that terror, you know that it's true.
You know that no matter what is coming up, no matter what the thoughts, no matter what the memory, you know it's true.
So I'm trying to do the right thing, and I'm feeling like I will take this.
I You know, I'll take this and I And I I can give them a statement.
So, it was me and Mike and we met downtown.
And I took these seven memories with me, thinking that would be the statement, that they wanted to know what kind of stuff went on.
I wouldn't wanna talk about these things with anyone, much less with a priest across the table and a lawyer and another lawyer.
But, um So, this is one of the memories that I read to the archdiocesan representatives.
"Father Maskell had me come to the office one day when I had free mods.
" I was afraid to go in, but I did.
He looked very angry.
He said, 'So, you're here.
I knew you'd come.
All you whores are alike.
' He told me I was a bad person, and it made him so angry that there were people like me around that he had to do his part to stop us.
He pulled his penis out and said God wanted me to receive the Holy Spirit and it was flowing through him.
I wanted to throw up.
I wanted to run.
I hated being me.
But I was afraid of saying no.
He said when I was done, 'See? That is why God can't help you.
You really like doing bad things.
I need to do a lot of praying for you.
' He walked me to the door.
He said very soft and slow, 'I know you hated that.
I'm glad.
' "He gave me his blessing and I left.
" [crying.]
And they listened to me read these.
And they took their copies.
And he wanted me to point to somebody in a yearbook.
"We really need someone to corroborate.
" You bring us a name of someone else who had this experience, too, "and we can get him out.
" And I said, "I'm living in a hell.
" I'm not putting anybody else through that.
Somebody else wants to come and talk, they'll come and talk.
"I'm not giving you any names even if I had them.
" Maskell was at Holy Cross parish until 1992.
In October of 1992, after learning of the allegations from Jane Doe, the archdioceses told Maskell that he needed to go to a hospital named the Institute of Living in Connecticut.
Institute of Living um clergy sexual abuse.
Let's see if we can Okay.
"'Treating Clergy Who Sexually Abuse Minors:" A 16-Year Experience at the Institute of Living, ' "by L.
M.
Lothstein.
" [Lothstein.]
When I was at the Institute of Living, I directed the Psychology Department.
They asked me if I would help them to put together an in-patient program for the treatment of impaired and distressed professionals, including Catholic priests.
And that's how it started.
Typically, the archdiocese would send a priest, and they would say the person's depressed, the person is having difficulty in their relationships with others in the church, the person was having authority problems.
And at one point, the guy sitting in front of me, a priest "I said," Well, I understand you're here for depression.
What's going on?" And he said, "I'm not here for depression.
I had sex with a 14-year-old.
" And I told it to the bishop, and he sent me here.
" [gasps.]
"He said He says," The bishop was afraid I was gonna be arrested, and he didn't want news to come out, so, he sent me here.
" I called the bishop and I said: "I just can't understand why you would do something like that.
We're not here to protect the diocese from the embarrassment of his arrest.
" This is what happened over and over and over again.
By about '94, '95, we confronted this issue.
"We basically said," We're not gonna accept any more patients from the Catholic Church unless you send us the whole file and every file you have on the patient "and tell us the real reason for why they're coming.
" We never got a single referral again.
[Abbie.]
If the archdiocese had all these complaints about his behavior, ethically, they should have sent Maskell's history of these known abuse episodes with him.
And we just don't know.
You have to wonder what's going on.
[sighs.]
[Jean.]
And so, in the course of the next, I don't know, month and a half or so I've now remembered not just the abuse that these two priests had done but also there's other adults, like the police and this Brother Bob who had also been abusing me.
I could go into my quiet and the memory would flow.
I couldn't have anyone with me, because it was a very vulnerable feeling.
I never remembered things when I was with therapists.
And I was very aware that I did not want to contaminate what was coming up.
This is now December 1992.
Any interaction I had with the representatives of the archdiocese, I was being told that first time that they had complained about this and if I could get a corroborating witness to what I was saying, they could do something more definite with him.
It was all back on me.
I was trying still to be the good little girl and give them what they wanted.
So, I'm feeling really, like, I'm gonna give them what I What I'm remembering.
December the 9th, 1992 we had a meeting where I brought names of other abusers at Keough.
They were very upset with that.
They were very upset with that.
See, they want a name of a girl who they can go up to and say: "Did this ever happen to you?" But I'd give them names of adults and they say: "We can't go up to someone and say: 'Well, someone's, you know, saying that you abused them.
'" Next day we called my lawyer, Steve Tully's office.
He was, "What do you think you did? What were you doing the other day?" It was a waste of two hours.
They can't do anything with those names.
" Mike he was infuriated.
He called Steve Tully and fired him.
Said, "We don't need your services anymore.
" That night, I called Rick Woy, and I told him that Mike had fired Steve Tully and that I wondered if he would meet with me in the sacristy and we could pray, because I always found that I got insight and direction with prayer, and that maybe we'd be able to figure out what to do with this.
Rick Woy said to me he didn't think it was a good idea and that he suggests I get a lawyer.
And that was devastating.
He now has taken any hope that this was still something that we were on the same page working together.
So, Mike and I decided to hire the team of Phil Dantes, Jim Maggio and Beverly Wallace.
[Beverly.]
I grew up in a very small town in Kentucky.
And when I was little, my two best friends came home and said, "Sister Mary Whatever.
" says we can't play with you anymore.
You're a heathen.
You're not Catholic.
" I didn't know what heathen meant.
So, to me, my view of the Catholic church was just They're another church, and I didn't see the archdiocese as this, you know, monumental institution.
Jean, I think, came from a sincere desire to make them aware of what was going on and to ensure that this didn't happen to anybody else.
She was in the process of recovering memories, and some days she was able to sit down and talk and plan, and some days she just said, "I It's not a good day.
" But she was trying to put in place in her life the things that she needed to get her through this rough time The therapists, Mike, her husband, her children.
to support her to the extent she needed it.
[Jean.]
So, then we move into, then, early 1993.
"Dear Jean:" We need to emphasize again the importance of corroborating testimony regarding inappropriate sexual activity.
We understand your reservations about doing this, but you also understand that our hands are tied in dealing with the priest unless we have corroboration.
"Rick Woy.
" And I feel really pressured now because they're saying this priest is gonna be back out.
So, I had asked a friend of mine who had gone to school with me, Maria, if she would meet with me.
So, we met.
She brought a yearbook.
I told her what was happening.
She opened up the yearbook and she pointed to a picture of Cathy.
"You remember when she, you know, went missing and she ended up dead.
" And the whole time I'm Like, I'm just in a fog.
I go into a fog, a spacey place, and it's like "Ahh," you know.
And I'm driving home and I start to have this feeling like I really loved her.
And I'm like, something I could feel it.
The next day, we were having a family meeting.
Everyone was gathering to talk about how my uncle's abuse impacted on the whole family.
[Don.]
We were called to a meeting.
And I was completely oblivious as to what was going on.
I guess all I remember was going in, you know thinking more I was going to show support and we were going to give Jeanie a chance to tell what happened.
We'd go over and spend a weekend with my aunt and uncle.
As it turned out, at some points during our visits, my uncle would take Jean somewhere and abuse her.
She had not really been talking very much with everybody about Maskell.
- We weren't really tuned in.
- About Keough.
You know, we had heard We had heard that there were memories about Uncle Tom.
- [Ed.]
That's what the meeting was for.
- Right.
We did not talk like that in my family.
Uh, sex was, uh I wouldn't say taboo but the level of conversation we had took a completely different twist during that meeting.
I could feel it.
I'm just kind of As I go through the evening, something was coming.
Something was coming.
"The whole time, it's like," Push it down, push it down, push it down, push it down.
I loved her and I killed her.
"I loved her and I killed her.
I killed her.
I killed her.
" [Ed.]
She had to leave the meeting.
And then I could hear her out there.
[Jean.]
My sister was like, "What's wrong?" And I said: "I killed I killed Cathy Cesnik.
" So, now my family knows that I've been doing this archdiocesan thing for six months, and that I remember these priests.
And so we go back into the room and she says: "Okay, the direction of this meeting is gonna change.
" I want you to know what's been going on with Jeanie.
She's been going to these meetings.
She's been remembering these priests.
And, um "And now she's remembering something to do with Sister Cathy Cesnik.
" And with that, I fall into my brother Ed.
I didn't know what she was talking about.
"I killed her.
" In all honesty, there was just a second I thought: "You could not kill somebody.
" But the fact that she was saying, "I killed her" You're told something that is just so hard to fathom.
But nevertheless I mean, it was I believed her.
That was a three-tier meeting to me.
First the initial shock, then you had this sex stuff that, again, we never discussed, and then you bring murder into it.
And it's like, "Well Well, what do you mean, murder?" You and I were, like We became the detectives.
- We were going through - Yeah, in fact We were going through microfilm, going back through all the papers to figure out what happened.
As you looked more and more in the newspapers, then sort of linked up what she was saying with what we were reading in the newspaper We thought, "Well, this makes a lot of sense.
" [Mike.]
Here it is, a scandal that was going on over at Keough, so, Jean confided in this Sister and then the Sister ends up dead.
And I believed Jeanie.
So I was, like, raring to go.
Let's Let's get going.
[Jean.]
And we all have a dark and light.
We all have this shadow.
The part that comes into the confessional and says: "My God, I just can't believe I did this thing.
And please, please, tell me what to do so I don't have to have it eat me up.
" Maskell was He was feeding that.
And beating away that part of me that went in knowing I could be forgiven because I was really a good person.
In my remembering This is a very difficult thing to come to terms with.
You start to feel as if you're ripping masks off your face and looking in a mirror as you're doing it, and it's very painful.
Because you're not sure anymore.
Who are you? [Sarah.]
It was pretty all-consuming in our house.
Our life was like these two lives.
Like, there was the outer "everything's fine" life, and there was, like, there's a There's a bomb going off inside of my house and everybody's just trying to survive it.
[Greg.]
There's times where we'd come home and my dad would be running cover.
He'd be like, "We need to give your mom space.
" That was different.
The best way to look at it is she probably felt she didn't have She was raw, you know.
And And even us coming in and wanting to spend time with her was just painful.
[Jean.]
So, finally, I invite my sister Cass over and Mike to sit with me.
Because it's like I need to remember what I did to her.
So, we sat, and I allowed myself to get quiet with the part of me that was remembering that I killed Cathy Cesnik.
Being taken to her body.
Wiping at her face with all the maggots.
And Maskell saying: "You see what happens when you say bad things about people?" When it was done Cassie said, "So, you were trying to help her", not hurt her.
" It was another beating down of anything in me 'cause I felt it was my fault.
I had acknowledged to Cathy that there was something going on that was upsetting me.
She said she would take care of it, and she's lying on the ground and she's dead.
After I remembered her death I went and had a meeting with the police to discuss what I remembered and what details I could give them about it.
I told them about the maggots in her face.
They were, like, "Yeah, right," because the time of year, there would not have been any maggots.
And I didn't feel they believed me then, and I doubt that there are people who will believe now.
[Bob.]
Okay.
[grunts.]
This one is a sword that would've been carried by a supporter of Bonnie Prince Charlie in the Jacobite Rebellion.
On one side, it's marked 1712.
"Right and prosperity to Scotland.
" That would've been prior to the 1745 rebellion.
So, this sword's been around.
I'd love to know who carried it.
I knew nothing about this case until 1993.
[sighs.]
I wonder what "With new lead, police reopen old murder case.
" Yeah.
This was our first story on this case.
"Police revived the investigation this spring" after a former student at Archbishop Keough High School "approached them with a startling story.
" This was the woman later known as Jane Doe.
And she was the first to bring to light the possibility or the possible connection of Father Joseph Maskell to the death of Sister Catherine Cesnik.
It was a very nebulous story because we didn't get a lot of cooperation.
The police were not pleased.
You know, it forced them into a a very extensive investigation of a case that was then already over 20 years old.
The archdiocese was not at all helpful.
They stonewalled us at every turn.
And so, that story occupied us the next year and a half, almost exclusively.
[bell tolling.]
[Abbie.]
Father Maskell he was at the Institute of Living in Connecticut, where they He was evaluated for about six months.
Around April of '93, he came back with this sort of clear bill from them, if you will, and they assigned him to St.
Augustine's.
[Bob.]
Oh, we interviewed Father Maskell down at St.
Augustine Church in Elkridge.
He was wearing a green wool golf cardigan.
And of course, he was very urbane, very charming and denied everything.
You know, he said this was hysterical nonsense.
[Beverly.]
When they put him back in a church, I think it sent a pretty clear message that they didn't see him as a threat, which certainly was 180 degrees from the way Jean saw him.
I have, at this point said a lot of things about this man, Joseph Maskell.
I have said that I remembered him taking me to a dead body.
And now he's out in the public walking around.
I was terrified for my family.
It felt like someone was gonna come in my back window.
[Beverly.]
The archdiocese position was that there was no corroboration.
They did essentially nothing.
But she had such a great support network.
I mean, her big Catholic family all came behind her.
And we started investigating and trying to find if there were any other victims.
[Val.]
We were talking about how to get names of the alumni.
And since I had gone to Seton and Seton and Keough had merged, I went with Ed to the school.
So, we went over one day You'll You'll love this.
We went to the door.
Ding-dong.
Some nun answers the door in the convent.
"So, my wife, she says," Well, I'm an alumni of Seton, and I wanna be able to contact a lot of people so we can get together and, like, have a reunion.
And I wondered if you had any kind of a book "which would have everyone's name and address.
" And she says, "Oh, yes, but it'll cost you ten bucks.
" "That's okay.
We'll pay ten bucks.
" [chuckling.]
So, we gave them $10 and they gave us the entire alumni.
And it became a family project for us because we took We made up a little postcard.
[Ed.]
If you were alumni from the years of such and such to such and such, and if you had any experiences which you considered to be inappropriate, call her lawyer.
And it was ever Just about every sibling was in my dining room.
And we sat around there and we just handwrote out names and addresses, threw stamps on it, just threw it out.
- [Mike.]
Probably we sent - [Ed.]
Yeah.
- A thousand of them? - We went All the little All my kids prayed over them before we took them to the post office and all.
We were on it.
[Jean.]
And so, we waited to see what the responses would be.
All right.
I'll make the dough and you make the lemon [woman.]
All right.
Did you wash these? - [Teresa.]
I scrubbed them really well.
- Okay.
[Teresa.]
And dried them.
[Teresa hums.]
[Teresa.]
I like to bake, like, probably three times a week, and I just find that it calms me down.
[woman.]
She was making a pie a day for a while.
[chuckles.]
It's cheaper than a shrink, right? In 1993, I got an anonymous letter in the mail.
"Do you know of any sexual abuse that happened at Keough?" When I read that letter, I just got so excited.
I I ran around the yard and, and I was so happy.
I called the number on the anonymous letter from a phone booth because I was afraid to call from my house.
Teresa called with an edge, you know.
Like, "Why do you wanna talk to me and who the hell are you?" And why should I talk to you?" "I don't know who you are, but I sure know a lot about Keough.
And would you tell me who you're looking at?" And I said, "Well, why don't you tell me who you think I'm talking about?" And she named Maskell.
I said, "I can tell you stuff you won't believe that that man did.
" When I went to high school, I was a straight-A student.
I always thought I wanted to be a doctor or a lawyer.
I was a nerd in the ninth grade.
But the latter part of tenth grade, I would go to coffeehouses at Gibbons.
Cardinal Gibbons was a Catholic all-boys school right next to Keough, and we would go there and listen to music.
I was, like, trying to be a hippie, and I didn't wanna be with the nerds anymore, so [chuckles.]
[choir vocalizing.]
One day, my mom had gone through my purse and she found some paraphernalia.
A pot pipe.
My parents, they were hysterical.
They could not be consoled.
So, I went to Father Maskell's office the morning after my parents had found that in my purse.
I thought that the priest could help me, you know? "I said," My parents are really, really upset.
Could you please talk to them and tell them that I'm not going off the deep end "and that everything will be fine?" I was crying.
And he got up from his chair behind his desk.
He said, "I'm not supposed to do this.
" I'm not supposed to touch the students, "but sometimes this is necessary.
" And things just got bad to worse after that with Father Maskell.
I was a very happy kid.
I had a lot, everything I ever needed with my parents.
But this was the dark side of the world.
Like, a realization that the world I lived in was not real.
He talked to my parents.
I mean, he smooth-talked them really well.
My father was a very, very strict Catholic.
He completely was convinced that Father Maskell was saving me.
Maskell called my father and told him that I'd have to see a gynecologist and that he knew Dr.
Christian Richter.
Dr.
Richter prescribed douches three times a week.
And I nev I didn't even know what a douche was.
Maskell said that, "That's okay.
You can do that in my office.
" I'll help you.
" He'd set up the douche bag and everything and administer it to me.
Another time, Maskell told my father and mother that he thought I was schizophrenic and he sent me to a doctor.
He prescribed Thorazine, which is a very strong, strong drug used on schizophrenics.
"This is going to help you release the devils from your brain.
" Father Maskell was a police chaplain.
And there was one occasion in 1970, on Halloween night my girlfriend was spending the night.
[phone ringing.]
[Teresa.]
Maskell had called my parents and told them that he was gonna take the girls out for a Halloween um, police run.
We rode down some wooded area, like a lover's lane kind of place.
And there were some young people with the police shining flashlights, making them break it up.
And as they went on their way Maskell told my friend to get out of his car.
And Maskell stood outside of his car and I was raped by two police officers.
It went on for my junior and senior year.
And I was gonna be something.
I was gonna be somebody.
I wanted to go to law school.
But I ended up getting married and having children when I was 18, 19.
And my whole life was put on hold.
[Beverly.]
I mean, you gotta remember this was many years before the whole Spotlight journalist thing in Boston.
And so, once we delved into it and once we sent out our flyers and ran an ad I think we expected to get some modest response.
What we got instead was an overwhelming response.
The P.
O.
Box filled up.
"I got your letter.
" Or "I saw your ad in the paper.
" "I think I have some information.
" - [woman 1.]
August 13th.
- [woman 2.]
August 15th.
-[woman 3.]
August 25th.
-[all.]
1993.
[woman 3.]
To whom it may concern - [woman 4.]
I received your letter - [woman 5.]
In regards [woman 6.]
In response to your ad [woman 7.]
your ad in the Sun today [woman 8.]
I'm aware of sexual impropriety at Archbishop Keough High - [woman 9.]
between '68 - [woman 7.]
and 1975.
I can offer the following.
[Beverly.]
We got probably 40 to 50 people that contacted us.
And thus began over a year of interviewing these witnesses, learning what their stories were.
And everybody that called said, "We're talking about Father Maskell.
" [woman 1.]
Father Maskell practiced psychology, according to him [woman 2.]
about Father Maskell.
[woman 3.]
Father Maskell called me into his office and asked me to sit on his lap.
- He rocked me back and forth.
- [woman 4.]
amnesia regarding large portions of time [woman 5.]
I couldn't wait to get out.
- Made me uncomfortable.
-[woman 6.]
Had me in tears, made me feel like I really did have these problems.
[woman 7.]
I regretted not telling anyone.
[woman 8.]
It makes me sick to think about it.
[woman 9.]
He made me feel confused.
[woman 10.]
I have information regarding Father Maskell.
[Beverly.]
I think what surprised me in the response were the consistent threads that kept showing up.
Anything from inappropriate conversations to the rapes.
He was very big into examinations.
He was doing pelvic examinations on these girls in his office, what he called pregnancy checks.
And he had been involved in gynecological care of students.
Also, we heard from more than one person that there were other people brought in and Who performed sexual acts and raped on these girls at the behest of Maskell, or certainly with his permission and his presence.
There were police officers, there were other clergy members, there were local business owners, there were politicians that all were part of this network.
The real screamer is that, here a family, kids and all, involved, do this and where's? Where's the archdiocese going out and dusting the troops and saying: "Hey, was there anything there?" If we hadn't done that, who knows? It may not have It may not have took off as much as it did.
People coming forward, you would think it would give you some sense of of legitimizing what you're saying.
But that all scared me more because it made it more real.
You know, it's one thing when you think you're crazy and you're the only person that remembers this.
It's easy to think you're crazy.
But it wasn't crazy if other people had experienced it, too.
And if it wasn't crazy, then this horrible thing happened to me.
And if this horrible thing happened to me, oh, my God.
How many other girls were involved? How many of us are dead? How many of us are lost in alcohol or drugs or in a mental hospital? What was done to us? [truck horn honks.]
[Gemma.]
The matter with you, dude? He just thought I was cute.
Holy Cross Cemetery.
Okay.
It just seems like this would have been the place where you would If you were gonna get rid of something, you would do it back in there.
Maybe this is where it was.
[Abbie.]
We heard the story that one day in 1990, while Maskell was at Holy Cross, there was a very bizarre episode.
The cemetery caretaker was Mr.
William Storey, and Father Maskell suddenly told him to get a front loader and dig a hole ten-by-20 feet in the back abandoned part of the cemetery.
Maskell started bringing in a pickup truck full of boxes wrapped in plastic.
They put all these boxes into the ground, and Maskell told Mr.
Storey to backfill it in and put grass on top.
Nobody knew anything was there.
Well, Mr.
Storey was pretty street smart, it sounded like.
And while Maskell was getting more documents, Mr.
Storey climbed down into the hole and opened one of the boxes and looked at the documents.
Father Maskell fired him a couple months later.
[Gemma.]
Right.
[Abbie.]
And in August of 1994, when Jane Doe came forward Mr.
Storey went to a detective who was off the record.
We've nicknamed him Deep Throat from the from the old Watergate inside source.
Deep Throat says that Mr.
Storey told him the story and said: "I know I don't know what all's down there, but I know where it's buried.
" Deep Throat told us that we need to be careful for our safety.
That this goes bigger and deeper I think he said, "Than we can imagine.
" And that he doesn't wanna put himself, or more importantly, his family, at risk, by having his name used or telling us information that might get us in trouble.
[Tom.]
What was in that hole in the ground? Deep Throat, he knows what happened.
I've interviewed him half a dozen times been to meetings with him never seen him say anything that didn't prove to be 100 percent accurate.
[interviewer.]
Why don't you think Deep Throat would go on the record with anyone? I believe there's a lot of fear around this.
I believe people have been threatened.
I believe they have been shown weapons and told not just "This could be very bad for you if you get deeply into it," but, "Your family could pay the price.
" I can't ask Deep Throat to confront his anxiety about the threats he believes he's received to his family.
But I think I think many people wish that he would come forward and stand up to the camera and tell the world.
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