January 15, 2025 • 50 mins
On today’s episode, the second half of a two-parter, Paul and Kate return to 1970 Baltimore to discuss the case of a murdered nun and the various suspects. The testimony of a local student brings into question the controversial use of recovered memories.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
I'm Kate Winkler Dawson. I'm a journalist who's spent the
last twenty five years writing about true crime.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
And I'm Paul Hols, a retired cold case investigator who's
worked some of America's most complicated cases and solve them.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
Each week, I present Paul with one of history's most compelling.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
True crimes, and I weigh in using modern forensic techniques
to bring new insights to old mysteries.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
Together, using our individual expertise, we're examining historical true crime
cases through a twenty first century lens.
Speaker 3 (00:34):
Some are solved and some are cold, very cold.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
This is buried Bones.
Speaker 3 (01:01):
Hi, Kate, how are you?
Speaker 1 (01:03):
I'm well, Paul, how about you.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
I'm hanging in there. I've been reviewing my notes about
this case out there in Baltimore, and I'm interested to
see where you go from here with the details.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
Yeah, there are a lot of details. Just to try
to summarize this case. This is November seventh, nineteen sixty nine.
There is a Catholic nun who is a teacher at
a high school. Her name is Kathy Sesnik. She goes
missing and then ultimately she is found dead with a
huge gaping wound to her skull. There is another woman
(01:38):
who goes missing around the same time. Her name is
Joyce Malecki. We don't know if there's a connection between
the two of them. We will eventually find out that
there has been a horrible abuse, sexual abuse of students
at this high school, Kiyo High School in Baltimore for years.
(01:58):
We have students coming forward twenty five years later to
say that this is what happened. And the key student
here is a woman named Jean who in the show
The Keepers comes forward and says that there was a
priest who was abusing girls at the school, who, as
a way to shut her up about his abuse against her,
(02:22):
takes her to Sister Kathy's body and says, this is
what will happen to you. So I think we have
many tasks here. One does not need to be to
prove the rampant sexual abuse that's happening at this high school,
which The Keepers does very well. I am convinced, you
are convinced, we are all convinced. What I'm trying to
figure out, what we need to know is making that
(02:44):
connection between what will end up being a little bit
of a list of suspects on who murdered Kathy Seysnick,
you know, versus how much did she know about the
sexual abuse that was happening. And that's what we're really
going to be digging into in this second episode, is
you know what she knew? What witnesses say she knew
(03:04):
and didn't know that sort of thing. So is that
what your memory is of this story?
Speaker 3 (03:10):
Yeah, that's that's what I'm recalling.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
And I guess I kind of want to start by
just clarifying Gina saying this Joseph Maskell told her when
he went out and had her see Kathy's body. Does
he make any statements that he is the one that
killed Kathy to Jean at that time?
Speaker 1 (03:30):
So this is what Gene says in the Keepers. She
says that one day after sister Kathy disappeared, but before
the body is discovered, so there's a two month gap there,
that father Maskell drove her to sister Kathy's body at
the dump, so this would have been sometime in November
or December. She says that he told her the same
thing would happen to her if she told anyone about
(03:51):
the abuse. She says that she remembers there being maggots
on sister Kathy's body. So this linds up being used
to discredit her at some point because people had said
it was too cold outside for maggots, but doctor Spitz
confirmed there was maggot activity on her body. But again,
you know, what the police eventually say is that she
(04:14):
knows too much information about the body where the body
was located to have not actually been there. It is
my understanding that he is not saying I did it.
He is saying here it is you need to keep
your mouth shut. There's no confession as far as I know.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
Yeah, so you know what I'm drawing from this is
Maskal minimally has knowledge of where Kathy's body has been placed. Now,
there's maybe two competing scenarios. Is either he's the one
who by himself killed Kathy put her body there, and
he is utilizing this so Gene is basically made to
(04:56):
fear for her life if she ever divulges the on
going sexual abuse that she's experiencing from Mascal. The other
competing theory is you have a close knit group of
offenders that either one or multiple members of this group
were involved in Kathy's abduction and homicide and they've shared
(05:20):
information amongst themselves, and so now it's a matter of
teasing out which theory is correct. And that's where if
it's multiple people, if you have a conspiracy, investigators at
least have a greater likelihood of getting one of the
members of that conspiracy group to provide information. You can
(05:43):
put that person in jeopardy in a variety of ways,
whether it's that person's freedom that they're going to be
charged unless they are able to conclusively say who is
responsible for Kathy's homicide and get them to turn on
the other group. If it's just Maskal, who by himself
abducted and killed Kathy, then that's a little bit tougher,
(06:04):
especially a quarter century later. But there is potential forensic evidence,
you know, that they could potentially use to prove Mascal's
involvement with Kathy's homicide.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
Let me tell you what ended up leading to it.
Sounds like Mascal threatening Jeane by taking her to see
Kathy's body. Let's talk about the lead up to that.
Jeane says that in June, so the summer of nineteen
sixty nine, this was Kathy's last year at Keio before
she took the sabbatical and worked at a public school.
(06:42):
Sister Kathy asks her Jean if any of the priests
are making her do things that she doesn't want to do,
so Kathy is suspicious. Jeane says to her in confidence
over the summer. Yes, Sister Kathy hugs her and tells
her to go home and have a one erful summer
and that she will fix it. And another student in
(07:04):
the keepers in the documentary specifically remembers telling Kathy that
Father Maskal would get physical in his office. This student
says that she suspects that Kathy already knew about this
because then a third student says she was with sister
Kathy when Father Maskeal called her the student to his office,
(07:25):
and Kathy turned to Mascal and said she's not coming,
She's not available. And she says that they made eye contact,
Kathy and this student, and it was clear that she
knew what was going on. But when Jeane gets back
to school in the fall, you know, and Kathy had
said I'll take care of it, Kathy was gone and
Father Maskal was still there, so Kathy was at another school.
(07:47):
She had not been murdered at that point, he says.
Father Maskal says to Jane early in that year, someone
accused him of hurting the students, and so this is
the build up to after the murder, but before her
body is discovered. Within that two month period, Father Maskel
is using the body as Kathy's body as a way
(08:09):
to threaten Gene to keep her mouth shut because obviously
people are coming forward and Kathy knew too much.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
Sure, you know, but the circumstances of how Kathy's body
was found, in terms of the state of her clothing,
her shirt is open. This in many ways doesn't equate
to what I would consider a sheer elimination homicide, the
elimination of a witness. There is a sexual component to
what happened to Kathy, no question about it. If let's
(08:38):
say Maskal is responsible for Kathy's homicide and he is
abusing Gene and probably other female students, he is a
predator that is working within this church environment or this
religious school environment. Now the question, of course is is
who else is aware of these activities. I can't imagine
(09:04):
that Kathy is the only nun that is aware, and
by focusing all efforts to eliminate Kathy as a witness,
that that's going to solve the problem of Oh, people
are talking and we're going to be found out, you know.
So this is where I'm not sure what the motive is,
you know, with Kathy being killed from that perspective, but
(09:26):
there is a sexual component to Kathy's homicide and it
is being done by an individual that doesn't have any
qualms about committing the sexually motivated homicide.
Speaker 1 (09:40):
Well, let me tell you some more. So, Jean later
remembers another detail. Now remember this is coming out pauled
decades after all of this happened. She says one of
her abusers was just referred to as brother Bob. She
believes that he alluded to knowing about her murders, sister
Kathy's murder, and about being present for it. But that's
(10:02):
all she remembers. She doesn't have a lot of details
about the body, and what they're claiming are recovered memories again,
are things that happened a long time ago, but that
she seems to remember specifically. And like I said that
the newspaper reports were that there was a lot of
information that she knew about the scene that there's no
(10:23):
way she should have known. Let me tell you a
weird story. So, according to the doc series, an anonymous
student in her boyfriend had gone to Sister Kathy's home
the afternoon of the day she disappeared, so not that
night before she went out shopping, she was alive. The
student and the boyfriend say that Father Maskell and Father
(10:45):
Magnus burst into the apartment without knocking, and that sister
Kathy sent the student and her boyfriend away. So that
was a story that came up in the keepers. But
the research note says, you know, we don't know where
Sister Russell was. Jerry Kob says that he doubts that
this happened because Sister Russell never said anything to anyone
(11:07):
about that, but the student is insistent that this is
what happened. The student also says that Sister Russell was there,
so I don't know why they would be making it up.
I'm sure I could figure many reasons out why they
were making it up. But essentially, Sister Russell never said
this happen, but the student was very clear that this
is what happened. These two men accused of sexual abuse
(11:28):
at Sister Kathy's school. First in and Sister Cathy said, okay,
you two, you student and boyfriend.
Speaker 3 (11:34):
Need to leave.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
Yeah, and this the student. This is also a statement
that's being made twenty five years later, longer, even longer. Yes, okay,
you know, and we know memory is elastic. It's kind
of tough, you know for this type of witness statement
from my perspective, to put a lot of weight on that.
(11:56):
And I think, you know, there's aspects to this investigation.
You know, was Magnus interviewed back in the day, do
you know?
Speaker 1 (12:05):
Not that I know of. I think it was completely squashed.
This sexual abuse stuff never came out, even though there
was one person the Archdiocese of Baltimore said that Gene
was the first one to come forward about maskal in
nineteen ninety two, but there was a guy who said
he did come forward in sixty seven, right before Maskell
(12:27):
was transferred to Keo, to the high school. So people
had set stuff, but nothing had come out about the
sexual abuse to the police or to any kind of
authority figure. There was no reason to interview these guys.
There there were no suspects, with the exception of father Jerry,
and that was just because they had a personal relationship.
Speaker 2 (12:45):
Yeah, you know, and this is where you know, I
think Sister Russell is critical because before the archdiocese is
kind of squashing the investigation. Sister Russell is reporting Kathy missing,
she is being contacted by law enforcement at one thirty
am in the morning. So if Magnus and this other
(13:05):
guy what was his name, Maskeal Maskeal and this other
guy burst into their apartment complex the day that Kathy
went missing, how comes Sister Russell isn't telling that to
law enforcement at one thirty am. There's something not adding
up here. Sister Russell to me, is critical in terms of,
you know, what is going on. There's there's some goofiness
(13:28):
in terms of the timeline with her calling up Jerry
and Pete and them driving over the relationship between Jerry
and Kathy. It seems like if there had been these men,
even though they are you know, men of the cloth,
but bursting into the apartment earlier that day, that there
would be a statement to that effect by Sister Russell, right.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
I think that's why it's confusing for Jerry's part. Father Jerry,
he says that Kathy wanted to talk to him about
something serious. They had planned to get together the day
after she disappeared, but he insists that she never told
him about the abuse. So he says, I didn't know.
I can't imagine that, but who knows. He says, I
didn't know, and she didn't talk to me about it,
(14:08):
but she sounded like she wanted to talk about something
very serious, you know, on November eighth.
Speaker 3 (14:13):
You know.
Speaker 2 (14:13):
I think one of the things I want to point out,
as I've thought about this case is Kathy's car is
a critical piece of evidence, not just because of what
it could potentially have from a physical evidence standpoint, but
also how it was left. And Kathy scenes sitting in
her car in the proper parking space for apartment complex
(14:36):
by a neighbor. I have great confidence that that neighbor
is telling accurate information. And then the car is obviously
gone to a secondary location where it gets the mud
the vegetation on it. Inside of it, there's items from
Kathy that are missing out of this car. And then
the car is deposited back across the street from Kathy's
(14:59):
apartment in a half hazard manner.
Speaker 3 (15:00):
It was done in haste. Why is that car brought back?
Speaker 2 (15:05):
It's because the offender's vehicle was at Kathy's location somewhere
in that area. So the offender took Kathy killed Kathy
and had to get back using Kathy's vehicle in order
to get into their vehicle and drive off. So, you know,
the scenario that I'm seeing is the offender is seeing
(15:25):
Kathy either sitting alone in the vehicle or contacts Kathy
when she's trying to get into her apartment, and then
ultimately takes control of Kathy and her own vehicle, drives off,
kills Kathy, dumps Kathy at the dump site that looks
like it's what half hour away from where she was
abducted from, and then drives back to get his own
(15:46):
vehicle and drive off. This isn't Jerry and Pete. This
is somebody else. Now is his father Maskell?
Speaker 3 (15:53):
You know?
Speaker 2 (15:53):
Is he going to Kathy's apartment, sees her isolated and
takes advantage of that He at least per gene is
expressing knowledge where Kathy's body is. I have to assume
that authorities sufficiently vetted the gene's statement so that they
have confidence that this recovered memory. And I'm not even
(16:16):
sure it classifies as a recovered memory. She just didn't
come forward. She was a kid when this happened to her, right, Yeah,
you know, so I'm just going to trust that the
authorities vetted her statement and say, yes, she is accurate
to the details, that we believe that Gene is telling
the truth about what happened. Well, now this becomes important.
(16:37):
I think it's a very small circle of suspects that
are responsible for Kathy's homicide and they just need to
be vetted one by one and figure out, well, who
is it and if they still have Kathy's clothing, you know,
whatever is covered from her body, if they still have
stuff out of the vehicle, Leyton Prince, whatever they did,
(16:57):
you know, there's potentially physical evidence that can help sort
this out.
Speaker 1 (17:03):
Let me wrap up this part of the story. None
of this information about abuse that Keyo comes to light
until about nineteen ninety four, and that's when Jane hires
an attorney because she was being stonewalled by the church.
This lawyer puts an advertisement in the Baltimore Sun asking
for any information about are their survivors of abuse that
(17:25):
went to Archbishop Keo school. That ad doesn't say anything
about Father Maskeal in particular, but about forty women come
forward and nearly all their stories are about him. This
information is given to the state's attorney, but Mascal is
never charged, never charged. Okay, so let me just tell
you one other thing and then we need to get
to other suspects too. In ninety four, Jean and another
(17:48):
former student, who's a woman named Teresa Lancaster, sue father Maskal.
And this is a suit that's ultimately dismissedly because the
statue of limitations had lapsed. The case went to trial
in the first place because because it questioned if the
statute applies to memories that only recently surfaced at that time,
this is considered a question of recovered memories. Though you know,
(18:10):
there are a lot of new laws that have passed
allowing child victims to come forward and sue as adults.
This is interesting. The Baltimore Archdiocese has recently declared bankruptcy
to avoid paying more of these settlements. So the recovered
memory I had not really even I haven't crossed paths
with that yet, and controversy around it, and I know
we talked about it, and the questions about whether what
(18:31):
Gene and any of these other students were experiencing were
not It doesn't sound like recovered memories. It sounded like
we're you know, we're pressed or you know, not coming forward, scared, forgotten,
hidden for a while, something that hadn't been processed by
the person, but not drawn out by somebody. And that's
right to you.
Speaker 2 (18:51):
Yeah, you know, and I'm trying to remember the exact details.
California has been statute, you know, and I think California
uses the term repressed memories, but I'm not entirely sure
about that. But there's something to the effect that if
a person comes forward with a repress memory and at
(19:12):
the time of let's say their sexual abuse, they were
fifteen years or younger, they have like thirty years after
the crime occurred to come forward and then the case
could potentially be charged. I may be way off base
on that, but that's kind of what's ringing a bell.
I had one case, and it had nothing to do
(19:34):
with sexual abuse. It was a woman who came forward
with a repressed memory saying she remembered her dad burying
a body in the backyard, you know, and of course
ended up never finding anything.
Speaker 3 (19:50):
But I do know that these types of.
Speaker 2 (19:52):
Memories you do have, from a psychological standpoint, there is
the possibility of somebody just bearing this memory and then
having it come forward at some point. But you have
to kind of, you know, tease out the people that
are being honest and truthful, people that are misremembering things,
and then people who are just making stuff up.
Speaker 1 (20:14):
Yeah, I mean, just like in a normal witness repress
memory or not, you're just having to figure out who's
truthful and who's not, what their motives.
Speaker 3 (20:21):
Are, right, absolutely, yep, for sure.
Speaker 1 (20:24):
Well I wish this had a better ending that you know,
father Maskell got punished in some way. He doesn't. He
dies of a stroke in two thousand and one, which
is too bad. At that point in time, the archdiocese
says that the allegations against Maskal were credible, quote unquote,
and confirmed that he did have guns in his residence.
(20:45):
I don't think we're surprised by that. Sister Russell died
not long after. She was not a nun any longer.
She had been married and had a family, and she
died just a couple of months after. And a friend
called her when he died, when mass died before she died,
and Sister Russell said, well, he took his secret to
the grave. Now there's been renewed interests starting in two
(21:07):
thousand and five, and there's a reporter named Tom Nugent,
who writes a story for the Baltimore City Paper that
rehashes everything that has happened, and for the first time,
he starts looking at the connections between father Maskell and
the other victim, Joyce Malecki, who we weren't sure is
connected or not. So she's the other young woman who
(21:28):
was killed right after sister Kathy disappeared. So tell me
what you think about these connections. I'll go through half
of them and stop, and then you can tell me
if you think these are strong connections. Okay, So this
is what Tom Nugent comes up with. He looks at
the nineteen sixty eight sixty nine Kio year book. So
this is the high school where Maskal was and it
(21:49):
shows that a gift was made that year by the
Malechi family on their patron's page. And the interviews with
the remaining family members revealed that when they lived in Lansdowne,
which is less than a mile from where Cathy Saysnick's
body was, they attended a church, Saint Clement Church. The
(22:09):
Maluche siblings, including Joyce, went to week long retreats as
high school students, during which they spend entire days engaged
in religious instruction with priests, So that might not seem
like a big deal, except the Baltimore archdis and records
confirm that Maskel served at Saint Clement in Lansdowne from
(22:30):
sixty six to sixty eight, And this is essentially saying
that they would have likely crossed paths. Joyce Maluche the
dead Girl and Joseph Maskell. So what do you think
so far? So they would have crossed paths. And I
don't know. The family apparently gave money. I don't think
the current family or the family that's around now knows why.
(22:51):
But they gave money to the high school where Mascal worked,
and it sounds like she attended week long retreats where
Mascal would have been for sure.
Speaker 2 (23:01):
Yeah, you know, I don't know. I'm not putting much
weight on this, this gift of money to the high school.
If they could confirm that Mascal and Joyce were at
the same location at the same time, you know, that's
where now Mascal at least could see a victim as
you know, maybe established a relationship you know, with this victim,
(23:22):
just as this authority figure within this this location. But
it's I mean, it's weak, you know, it's it could
just be coincidental.
Speaker 1 (23:32):
Yeah, so let me tell you a couple more things.
It looks like the records show that father Maskal was
Joyce Malech's parish priest during a two year period shortly
before she was killed. I don't know if that means
that they were just because he was, you know, her priest,
doesn't mean that they had really personal interactions. I don't
know if she took confession. I don't know any of that.
(23:53):
We just know that they would have been certainly in
the same vicinity. And Father Maskal sent her family a
condolence card after she was found murdered. Oh interesting, Yeah,
I mean, so he knew her for sure. If we're
going to talk about Joyce Malucky briefly, she was twenty
and again she goes missing four days after Kathy Sesnant
(24:15):
goes missing. Her brother was at a fast food restaurant
outside of Baltimore, and she stopped by. Joyce stopped by
to switch cars before heading to the mall, and she
never came home. She was found at a nearby military
base with signs of severe trauma, and an autopsy determined
(24:35):
that she had been strangled. Okay, One police officer said
that there was evidence she had put up a fight.
It doesn't say anything about sexual assault. The night of
her disappearance, she had plans to meet up with her
boyfriend who was stationed at that military base, but he
was ruled out as a suspect pretty early on in
(24:55):
an investigation. I'm assuming he had some kind of great
alibi or something. So this was an article written last year,
about nine months ago, and it looks like Paul the
FBI exhumed Joyce Maluche's body to try to figure out
who her killer was. There were a couple of other
people who went missing around that time period, and they
(25:16):
solved one case using DNA in genealogy.
Speaker 3 (25:20):
Yeah, you know, I think you know.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
What I wanted to hear was sort of the crossover
in details between Kathy and Joyce's case. Basically, you have
abduction homicides of two young females. So, you know, I think,
you know, first it's the victimology you have, you know,
two young women that are victims of abduction homicide. Even
(25:43):
though we don't know the circumstances of what exactly happened
with Joyce outside of strangulation, she was beat and she
put up a fight. But I mean a twenty year
old female being abducted and killed in all likelihood it's
a sexually motivated crime.
Speaker 3 (25:58):
I think there's at least.
Speaker 2 (26:00):
Enough parallel from the circumstances you know that it could
be the same offender. Now, if we throw gene statement
out about Maskull showing this is where Kathy's body is,
you know, it is entirely possible that you have a
single predator that abducted and killed Kathy and abducted and
(26:23):
killed Joyce and maybe did other things. That's where Gene's
statement is so critical because what it does is it
narrows down instead of it being a random or stranger
type crime, it's a crime that Kathy's crime is a
crime that is being committed, you know, by an individual
or a group of individuals that had an association with her.
(26:45):
And if it's maskl who it's shown that he has
an association with Joyce, you know, this becomes critical because
there's no question he is a child predator working. You know,
he has access to all these young girls at the school.
Predators go to where the praise at and so envisioning
(27:07):
Mascal taking a crime further past sexual abuse and actually
committing homicide that is well within the realm of this
type of offender. You know, So I right now don't
have I don't have an issue assuming Gene is completely
accurate about her statement that Mascal Is by himself is
(27:29):
responsible for these two homicides, but they need to get
the evidence.
Speaker 3 (27:34):
To prove it.
Speaker 1 (27:35):
I've found a few more details. I doubt they make
any kind of a difference about Joyce Malecki. So you know,
she had been found with her hands tied behind her back,
with scratches and bruises on her body. That's the part
of the struggle I told you about. And they said
that there was a single knife wound found in her throat,
but it was not sufficient to cause death. But she
(27:56):
had fifteen superficial cuts on the neck and abrasions on
her fore head, nose, and chin. And the FBI took
over the case because they were found obviously on federal
property because it was the base Fort Meade. I don't know.
I mean, essentially, what they were saying was they had
similar builds, these two women. Here's the only connection, real
connection until you look at mascl They had similar builds.
(28:18):
They were shopping in close proximity, but they were abducted
days apart and that was it. So it sounds like
people are still working on the case though.
Speaker 2 (28:27):
Yeah, hopefully, you know, because there is a chance with
both cases that there is you know, physical evidence that
can solve these cases. You know the fact that the
FBI went through the process to exume Joyce's body that
tells me that they felt that the initial collection of
evidence from Joyce's body was inadequate, which you know from
(28:47):
nineteen sixty nine, nineteen seventy. Of course, they're not focusing
in on the possibility of DNA evidence. You know, they
would process women's bodies for sexual assault evidence, but all
they could do is you know, identify, Okay, there's there's
seman presence, so yes, this is a sexually motivated crime.
And that they literally would throw that kind of evidence
out back then you know that possibly is what happened.
(29:09):
And now the FBI is going, oh god, we need
to hope that there's still that foreign DNA material on
this body that has been buried for decades, and it
is entirely possible they could get something. But then it's also, well,
what about our clothing, just like Kathy's clothing, you know,
is there a possibility that there's a thunder DNA off
of those items, and so, you know, it's interesting. I've
(29:32):
just experienced enough that I think there is a possibility
that Kathy and Joyce's killer is one and the same person.
But I would also say it's entirely possible that these
are two completely unrelated crimes and you just have two
different predators operating in the same area at the same time,
doing kind of the same thing. I've seen it, I've
personally experienced that. So it's until they get that objective
(29:55):
identifying evidence on these cases, it's going to be hard
to se a Father Maskal is their killer. They need
to do more than just show you the connections that
each one of the victims had to Father Maskal. Gene statement,
I think is really sort of the big thing in
the case, at least with Kathy's case, because again, if
(30:16):
that is been proven that she had details that only
somebody who observed Kathy's body out there at the dump,
then I'm like, yeah, either Father Maskal or somebody closely
affiliated with Father Maskal is responsible for Kathy's homicide.
Speaker 1 (30:31):
Well, for due diligence, let's go through two other suspects.
That are not related to Father Maskal or the high
school in particular, just because these are people that have
floated around. This guy is named Ed Davidson. He's alive,
at least when the keepers was made he was. He
gives an interview. He's very frail. He says I have
nothing to do with the murder. But his name gets
(30:53):
brought up, and here's why. In twenty thirteen, former students
of Sister Kathy's named Abby's Stow and Jimma Hoskins create
a Facebook page to share their resources. It becomes a
centralized resource on the case, but also for survivors from
the abuse, and the documentary centers on these two women
(31:15):
and their dogged research into the case. They're great characters.
After this Facebook group is taken off, Jimma gets a
text from a woman named Debbie Yawns who says that
her uncle killed Sister Kathy. It is this guy, Ed Davidson,
and his first wife tells the same story firsthand. The
(31:36):
woman who doesn't want to be named in the documentary.
The wife had recently given birth to twins in November
of nineteen sixty nine. This is when you know Sister
Kathy goes missing. One of the twins was in the
nick you and just before nine point thirty on November seventh,
that night that she disappeared, a nurse called and said
the baby is going to be discharged tomorrow. This is
(31:57):
why the wife remembers that day in the time. Just
after hanging up the phone, Ed walks in the door
and his shirt is covered in blood. He tells his
wife that he got into a fight with his boss.
But then a few days later, when sister Kathy's disappearance
is reported on the news, Ed's wife looks at him
and sees that he's smirking. He says her body is
(32:19):
going to be covered with snow soon and will take
months to find. Shortly after that, he buys all new
tires first car, even though he doesn't really need them
and the family doesn't have any money. A few weeks later,
Ed is arrested in a stolen car which Paul. He
has been trying to lure girls into Adam Middle School,
(32:39):
very close to sister Kathy's apartment, and that Christmas, Ed
gives his wife a necklace. It has a wedding bell
pendant with a greenstone that looks like paradot, which would
have been an August birthstone. I think the idea is
that this might have been the gift that Kathy bought
her sister. So perhaps Kathy bought her sister a necklace
(33:04):
with the burthstone of her sister's fiance in it. What
do you think so far? Covered in blood?
Speaker 2 (33:10):
I mean, good lord, this is a dime a dozen
type of suspect that we see in these who don't
homicides all the time. I can't say if this Davidson
is responsible or not, but so far, this type of
circumstantial evidence is weak. You know, it's it's there's something there,
(33:31):
but it all could just be coincidence, you know, and
covered in blood. Yeah, we will get these types of suspects,
and there are things like this that happens, you know.
You know, I don't know if Davidson's boss would still
be alive, you know, to be able to verify. Oh yeah,
we got into a fight and I was bleeding like crazy.
(33:55):
Seems like, you know, law enforcement may have been called
to something like that.
Speaker 3 (33:58):
So I don't know.
Speaker 2 (33:59):
You know, right now, I'm not blown away with the
evidence that you've presented right now on Davidson.
Speaker 1 (34:07):
You know, the filmmakers interview him, and he said, listen,
like I was kind of pulling my wife's leg on this.
I did not kill this woman. I actually you know,
I hurt my hand. That's why there was blood all
over my shirt. Yeah, I kind of led her to
believe I did something, but I didn't do anything, and
that was that I made it up, you know, in general,
(34:30):
so it doesn't really go anywhere. There is another person though,
who's interesting unless you want to do you have a
comment on that.
Speaker 2 (34:36):
I was just going to, you know, because this is
what happened. Sometimes, you know, we get the street chatter
where you do have guys, believe it or not. Guys
will pretend that they were, you know, involved in some
homicide because it gives them street credibility or some level
of credibility with whoever they're wanting to impress by being
(34:57):
capable of committing these horrific crimes. Just that's part of
the reason why law enforcement has holdbacks, right, details that
don't get made public because you get these nut jobs
that are willing to whether they come into law enforcement
confess or they just start. They're at a bar and
they're trying to impress their their bar buddies. That hey,
(35:19):
I killed her, you know, and believe it or not,
they feel that they're impressing somebody by, you know, making
that type of statement. They have nothing to do with
the crime.
Speaker 1 (35:29):
Well, I have another suspect. This actually seems a little
more credible to me. So there is a woman named
Barbara Schmidt. So Barbara Schmidt is telling this story about
her husband. He has a drinking problem that comes out
of nowhere in the seventies, and one day her husband
says to her it's because he and his brother Billy,
killed a woman behind the shop, meaning behind the family's business.
(35:52):
So we're talking about this guy, Billy Schmidt, and it
sounds like this woman is saying that her husband helped
his brother dispose sister Kathy's body. But she also says
that one night, she's not saying specifically November seventh, he
came home covered in blood and said he had been
in a bar fight. But he doesn't look like he's
gotten hurt at all, like at somebody else's blood. Now
(36:15):
here's the weird stuff. Billy, the guy that we're talking about,
was sister Kathy's neighbor. He lived right across the.
Speaker 3 (36:21):
Hall from her in the apartment complex.
Speaker 1 (36:24):
In the apartment complex. And here's something else that was
really weird. The small dump where her body had been
found is behind the Schmidt family business and very close
to Billy's house where he and his brother grew up.
Speaker 2 (36:37):
Okay, so Billy has two anchor points. I'm kind of
throwing out a geographic profile term. An anchor point is,
you know, a location within a person's normal living pattern,
such as a residence, such as a place of work,
a hangout spot like the bar you know that they
(36:57):
go to. Billy has two anchor points instead, are significant
in the case the last location where Kathy was seen alive,
sitting in the parking lot of the apartment complex that
Billy and Kathy share.
Speaker 3 (37:09):
As well as the.
Speaker 2 (37:11):
Body dump location of Kathy's body, which is behind the
Schmidt shop. So this is where now Billy has the
local familiarity that you know, authorities are saying somebody must
have had in order to have dumped Kathy's body there.
So that checks a couple of boxes for me. The
circumstances of the crime itself is Kathy never makes it
(37:36):
back into her apartment, so she's contacted either in her car,
getting out of her car or en route from her
car into the apartment and her car was taken to
a secondary location, which I'm going to assume is the
dump site that night, and that the vegetation and the
mud is probably from that dump site. I saw, you know,
there was vegetation in terms of it looked like almost
(37:59):
you know, little swaths of force that surrounded the vacant lot,
if you will, where Kathy's body was, and it looked
like her body was on the edge. And then Kathy's
car is brought back after her body, after she's killed,
and her body's dumped back to the apartment complex. So
(38:20):
Billy living in that apartment complex, that checks a box
there because he needs to get back home, and if
he's taken off in Kathy's car, he's got to use
Kathy's car to come back. So there's at least more
of a nexus with Billy from the circumstances then with
that Davidson. You know, that's where I'm evaluating these two
(38:41):
individuals going, Yes, Billy is a stronger suspect from that perspective,
but there needs to be more, of course, But he's
he's more interesting to me than Davidson, you know, And
this is just well, how if let's say Billy's the
one responsible for Kathy's homicide, then how is Gene's statement
(39:02):
with father Maskell? You know, how does that fit in?
From my perspective? If I were to be starting to
dig into this case, you know, one of the earliest
things I would be doing would be truly assessing gene statement.
And if she's still alive, reinterviewing her, I need to
(39:25):
be confident that what she is remembering is spot on
with what somebody would have observed of Kathy's body out
at that location.
Speaker 1 (39:36):
Well, let me wrap up Billy real quick. So Barbara,
the woman who called this in, says that Billy's mental
health deteriorated after Kathy's murder. He talked about the case
all the time. He was obsessed with nuns. She says,
he kept a nun's habit in his attic and sometimes
talked about it like it was a real person, like
it was haunting him. And he died by suicide a
(39:59):
few years later after this happened.
Speaker 3 (40:01):
So he's been dead for a long time.
Speaker 1 (40:03):
He's been dead for a long time. There were cigarette
butts found near Kathy's body, and they were Salem's which
is Billy's brand. But you know, I'm sure you could
throw a rock in Maryland and hits somebody who smoked Salem's.
But just to transition into DNA stuff, they did take
a DNA sample. Right before The Keepers aired on Netflix,
(40:24):
they exhumed Joseph Maskell's body. They took a DNA sample
to compare it against DNA that was recovered from those
cigarette butts found near sister Kathy's body. We have no idea,
I know, that's what you are grimacing. We have no
idea who's those are. And of course this DNA doesn't
match the cigarette butts, and I'm sure they didn't decades later.
They didn't compare DNA to this guy, to Billy Schmidt.
(40:48):
But the DNA butts are kind of the thing that
they have. It sounds like, yeah, this is where you.
Speaker 2 (40:55):
Know, assessing the evidence that the DNA's coming off of
it is is it's not just an all or nothing.
So most certainly, let's say Mascal's DNA is found on
those cigarette butts, that is compelling because what is his
association with that location?
Speaker 3 (41:14):
You know, So that's.
Speaker 2 (41:15):
Significant, even though it might be very tough to say, yeah,
the killer is the one that's responsible for smoking those
cigarette butts. Now with Billy Schmidt, it's right behind his
family business. Yeah, if it is his DNA on those
cigarette butts, the evidence against him is is weaker because
(41:36):
he has an association with that location, so that you
always have to interpret, you know, that the DNA evidence
or any physical evidence within the context of the case
and within the context of the suspects and the victims,
et cetera. So you know, my hope would be is
that they like exhooming Joyce's body or going after maybe
(41:58):
Kathy's clothing, that they find foreign DNA from the victims
themselves or the victims personal items that are found at
the homicide location or the crime scene, and that becomes
more compelling because now you're getting into that intimate contact
between the offender and the victim, and it's harder to
(42:21):
come up with with either of these suspects, you know,
innocent explanation for their DNA being on you know, the particularly.
Speaker 3 (42:30):
If it's if it turns out it's let's say, semen.
Speaker 1 (42:33):
Right, well, you know everything I read was from December
of last year, and it doesn't I don't see results back.
So they exhumed her body in December of twenty twenty three.
Is that a reasonable amount of time? Is that bad
news if we haven't heard anything, you know, in ten
months or however long.
Speaker 3 (42:52):
No, not at all. You know, this is okay, you know,
with a case that's old.
Speaker 2 (42:57):
If let's say they're submitting that to this is the
FBI that exhumed the body from Joyce with Joyce, So
if they're submitting that to FBI lab, it's going to
take a while. I mean, this is a you know,
federal level lab with you know, agencies from across the
nation sending them evidence. Backlog is is extraordinary, So this
(43:20):
case isn't going to have priority relative to maybe other
cases that are more active. So no, that doesn't surprise
me at all. So hopefully, you know, fingers crossed is
that they did have success and maybe Joyce's case will
have probative DNA evidence and with Kathy's case, I hope
that they're able to go after whatever physical evidence still remains,
(43:44):
you know there.
Speaker 1 (43:45):
To wrap up this section. You know, they're hopeful. There
were in seventy and seventy one, two different sixteen year
old girls in Maryland disappeared after last seen at shopping centers.
One of those was solved. I mentioned it earlier, so
you know they're trying for sure. While the allegations of
abuse at Keel by Magnus and Mascal were credible, some
(44:07):
people thought that the idea of sister Kathy being murdered
because of them is more of a stretch than the
idea that she was abducted and killed by a random person.
I don't believe that. I think it's much more. I
think it's much more likely that these two men people
have killed for far less fears than being turned over
for sexually abusing girls for years. I mean, I don't
(44:29):
understand why anybody wouldn't think that that's not a motive
to murder somebody to keep them quiet about that.
Speaker 3 (44:36):
It's not a stretch at all.
Speaker 2 (44:38):
You know, I made the observation earlier that Kathy's homicide,
you know, in the state of her clothing, you know,
it's not merely an elimination homicide. I mean, there is
a sexual component to her homicide, absent genes recovered memory
or her memory of being taken out by Mascal to
Kathy's body. If that statement didn't exist, then I would say,
(45:01):
you know, what all possibilities are on the table. There's
plenty of cases just like Kathy's across the nation. There's
a case out of Iowa. I believe Jody wesen Throutt
news anchor that you know, she looks like she was
contacted by an offender out in the parking lot and
has just disappeared. Those types of crimes do occur. You
(45:23):
could have an active predator that's responsible for Kathy and
Choices cases, or you have multiple predators, or because of
Gene's statement, I put you know, I'm putting Mascal in play,
and maybe associates of Mascal in play.
Speaker 1 (45:39):
Yeah, I agree. I mean bringing this right back to
the original victim, Kathy. You know, her mom died in
twenty ten not knowing what happened to her daughter, which
I can't think of anything more upsetting. The family doesn't
talk much about the murderer, certainly in the media over
the years, but her sister Marilyn said that when their
mom died, cleaning out the house and she found boxes
(46:02):
and boxes of newspaper articles about the case on every
single development, And I read that as sort of the
last thing for us to talk about, because that really
is what this comes down to. This was a woman
who was very likely the closest confidante to many people,
many of these girls, who seemed like she wanted to
(46:24):
try to do something to help them, who was trying
to protect them, and she ends up dead. And not
only does she end up dead, but the real killer,
the person who murdered her, gets away with it. And
what a miscarriage of justice? Geez.
Speaker 2 (46:39):
You know, it's it's the ultimate frustration as an investigator.
You know, when I've worked cases and have failed to
close cases, which is many, many of these unsolved cases.
And you know what, my biggest frustration is thinking that
the killer is out there and they're living their life,
and it's a life they don't deserve because they stole
(47:00):
somebody else's life and all the life experiences that that person,
the victim would have had, or what their family members
would have had, et cetera. You know, so it is
that's a hard thing to live with. Families don't get
the answer, and justice isn't served and the killer gets
away with it, and it just, I know, it eats
(47:22):
at me.
Speaker 1 (47:23):
I teach a class at UT that's sort of an
ethics in true crime podcasting class essentially what to look
for when you're listening or watching true crime, what's ethical,
what's not. I will say I think The Keepers is
one of the best. And I know you don't like
watching true crime stuff. You don't have enough room in
your pretty little head for the current case is in
(47:44):
barely enough room for what I'm telling you, let alone
watching some case you have no involvement with. But I
think that there are certainly podcasts, definitely shows out there
that we should all support that are victim forward, that
are not glamorizing in any way the Killer, and I
think Keepers is one of them. Is It is a
phenomenal show that has brought a lot of this to
(48:07):
light that I had not heard of. You know, I
really applaud them for that. So my goal between now
and when I see you next week is to convince
I've got to find something that's going to draw you
in into kind of like the true crime world, where
you're not having to solve something that you can just
look at it and we can have a discussion about it.
I guess Bury Bones.
Speaker 2 (48:25):
Should be enough for you, though, right just like here
with Buried Bones, it's you know, I'm I'm wanting to
solve you know, that's what I you know, that's why
I got into the work. I got into Yeah, and
sometimes you know, I can get frustrated watching some of
the true crime stuff because I'm not given the information
that I need to move forward with the case, you know,
(48:46):
And I know that's part of it.
Speaker 1 (48:49):
I know. Sorry, Paul, I want to help. I want
us to solve everything. But next week we'll have some
fabulous case that you'll learn something about. It could be
like how they made a krts and a horse and
carts in the sixteen hundreds. It could be some wacky
new way that they tested ballistics in the nineteen tens.
(49:10):
Who knows what it'll be on something weird.
Speaker 3 (49:12):
I'm sure, Yeah, nope, I'm looking forward to it.
Speaker 1 (49:15):
Okay, see you then, all right, Thanks Jig. This has
been an exactly right production.
Speaker 2 (49:24):
For our sources and show notes go to exactly rightemedia
dot com slash Buried Bones sources.
Speaker 1 (49:29):
Our senior producer is Alexis Emrosi.
Speaker 2 (49:32):
Research by Maren mcclashan, Ali Elkin, and Kate Winkler Dawson.
Speaker 1 (49:36):
Our mixing engineer is Ben Tolliday.
Speaker 3 (49:39):
Our theme song is by Tom Bryfogel.
Speaker 1 (49:42):
Our artwork is by Vanessa Lilac.
Speaker 2 (49:44):
Executive produced by Karen Kilgarriff, Georgia hart Stark and Daniel Kramer.
Speaker 1 (49:48):
You can follow Buried Bones on Instagram and Facebook at
Buried Bones.
Speaker 2 (49:53):
Pod Kate's most recent book, All That Is Wicked, a
Gilded Age story of murder and the race to decode
the criminal mind, is available now, and
Speaker 1 (50:00):
Paul's best selling memoir Unmasked, My life solving America's cold Cases,
is also available now
I'm Kate Winkler Dawson. I'm a journalist who's spent the
last twenty five years writing about true crime.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
And I'm Paul Hols, a retired cold case investigator who's
worked some of America's most complicated cases and solve them.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
Each week, I present Paul with one of history's most compelling.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
True crimes, and I weigh in using modern forensic techniques
to bring new insights to old mysteries.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
Together, using our individual expertise, we're examining historical true crime
cases through a twenty first century lens.
Speaker 3 (00:34):
Some are solved and some are cold, very cold.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
This is buried Bones.
Speaker 3 (01:01):
Hi, Kate, how are you?
Speaker 1 (01:03):
I'm well, Paul, how about you.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
I'm hanging in there. I've been reviewing my notes about
this case out there in Baltimore, and I'm interested to
see where you go from here with the details.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
Yeah, there are a lot of details. Just to try
to summarize this case. This is November seventh, nineteen sixty nine.
There is a Catholic nun who is a teacher at
a high school. Her name is Kathy Sesnik. She goes
missing and then ultimately she is found dead with a
huge gaping wound to her skull. There is another woman
(01:38):
who goes missing around the same time. Her name is
Joyce Malecki. We don't know if there's a connection between
the two of them. We will eventually find out that
there has been a horrible abuse, sexual abuse of students
at this high school, Kiyo High School in Baltimore for years.
(01:58):
We have students coming forward twenty five years later to
say that this is what happened. And the key student
here is a woman named Jean who in the show
The Keepers comes forward and says that there was a
priest who was abusing girls at the school, who, as
a way to shut her up about his abuse against her,
(02:22):
takes her to Sister Kathy's body and says, this is
what will happen to you. So I think we have
many tasks here. One does not need to be to
prove the rampant sexual abuse that's happening at this high school,
which The Keepers does very well. I am convinced, you
are convinced, we are all convinced. What I'm trying to
figure out, what we need to know is making that
(02:44):
connection between what will end up being a little bit
of a list of suspects on who murdered Kathy Seysnick,
you know, versus how much did she know about the
sexual abuse that was happening. And that's what we're really
going to be digging into in this second episode, is
you know what she knew? What witnesses say she knew
(03:04):
and didn't know that sort of thing. So is that
what your memory is of this story?
Speaker 3 (03:10):
Yeah, that's that's what I'm recalling.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
And I guess I kind of want to start by
just clarifying Gina saying this Joseph Maskell told her when
he went out and had her see Kathy's body. Does
he make any statements that he is the one that
killed Kathy to Jean at that time?
Speaker 1 (03:30):
So this is what Gene says in the Keepers. She
says that one day after sister Kathy disappeared, but before
the body is discovered, so there's a two month gap there,
that father Maskell drove her to sister Kathy's body at
the dump, so this would have been sometime in November
or December. She says that he told her the same
thing would happen to her if she told anyone about
(03:51):
the abuse. She says that she remembers there being maggots
on sister Kathy's body. So this linds up being used
to discredit her at some point because people had said
it was too cold outside for maggots, but doctor Spitz
confirmed there was maggot activity on her body. But again,
you know, what the police eventually say is that she
(04:14):
knows too much information about the body where the body
was located to have not actually been there. It is
my understanding that he is not saying I did it.
He is saying here it is you need to keep
your mouth shut. There's no confession as far as I know.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
Yeah, so you know what I'm drawing from this is
Maskal minimally has knowledge of where Kathy's body has been placed. Now,
there's maybe two competing scenarios. Is either he's the one
who by himself killed Kathy put her body there, and
he is utilizing this so Gene is basically made to
(04:56):
fear for her life if she ever divulges the on
going sexual abuse that she's experiencing from Mascal. The other
competing theory is you have a close knit group of
offenders that either one or multiple members of this group
were involved in Kathy's abduction and homicide and they've shared
(05:20):
information amongst themselves, and so now it's a matter of
teasing out which theory is correct. And that's where if
it's multiple people, if you have a conspiracy, investigators at
least have a greater likelihood of getting one of the
members of that conspiracy group to provide information. You can
(05:43):
put that person in jeopardy in a variety of ways,
whether it's that person's freedom that they're going to be
charged unless they are able to conclusively say who is
responsible for Kathy's homicide and get them to turn on
the other group. If it's just Maskal, who by himself
abducted and killed Kathy, then that's a little bit tougher,
(06:04):
especially a quarter century later. But there is potential forensic evidence,
you know, that they could potentially use to prove Mascal's
involvement with Kathy's homicide.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
Let me tell you what ended up leading to it.
Sounds like Mascal threatening Jeane by taking her to see
Kathy's body. Let's talk about the lead up to that.
Jeane says that in June, so the summer of nineteen
sixty nine, this was Kathy's last year at Keio before
she took the sabbatical and worked at a public school.
(06:42):
Sister Kathy asks her Jean if any of the priests
are making her do things that she doesn't want to do,
so Kathy is suspicious. Jeane says to her in confidence
over the summer. Yes, Sister Kathy hugs her and tells
her to go home and have a one erful summer
and that she will fix it. And another student in
(07:04):
the keepers in the documentary specifically remembers telling Kathy that
Father Maskal would get physical in his office. This student
says that she suspects that Kathy already knew about this
because then a third student says she was with sister
Kathy when Father Maskeal called her the student to his office,
(07:25):
and Kathy turned to Mascal and said she's not coming,
She's not available. And she says that they made eye contact,
Kathy and this student, and it was clear that she
knew what was going on. But when Jeane gets back
to school in the fall, you know, and Kathy had
said I'll take care of it, Kathy was gone and
Father Maskal was still there, so Kathy was at another school.
(07:47):
She had not been murdered at that point, he says.
Father Maskal says to Jane early in that year, someone
accused him of hurting the students, and so this is
the build up to after the murder, but before her
body is discovered. Within that two month period, Father Maskel
is using the body as Kathy's body as a way
(08:09):
to threaten Gene to keep her mouth shut because obviously
people are coming forward and Kathy knew too much.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
Sure, you know, but the circumstances of how Kathy's body
was found, in terms of the state of her clothing,
her shirt is open. This in many ways doesn't equate
to what I would consider a sheer elimination homicide, the
elimination of a witness. There is a sexual component to
what happened to Kathy, no question about it. If let's
(08:38):
say Maskal is responsible for Kathy's homicide and he is
abusing Gene and probably other female students, he is a
predator that is working within this church environment or this
religious school environment. Now the question, of course is is
who else is aware of these activities. I can't imagine
(09:04):
that Kathy is the only nun that is aware, and
by focusing all efforts to eliminate Kathy as a witness,
that that's going to solve the problem of Oh, people
are talking and we're going to be found out, you know.
So this is where I'm not sure what the motive is,
you know, with Kathy being killed from that perspective, but
(09:26):
there is a sexual component to Kathy's homicide and it
is being done by an individual that doesn't have any
qualms about committing the sexually motivated homicide.
Speaker 1 (09:40):
Well, let me tell you some more. So, Jean later
remembers another detail. Now remember this is coming out pauled
decades after all of this happened. She says one of
her abusers was just referred to as brother Bob. She
believes that he alluded to knowing about her murders, sister
Kathy's murder, and about being present for it. But that's
(10:02):
all she remembers. She doesn't have a lot of details
about the body, and what they're claiming are recovered memories again,
are things that happened a long time ago, but that
she seems to remember specifically. And like I said that
the newspaper reports were that there was a lot of
information that she knew about the scene that there's no
(10:23):
way she should have known. Let me tell you a
weird story. So, according to the doc series, an anonymous
student in her boyfriend had gone to Sister Kathy's home
the afternoon of the day she disappeared, so not that
night before she went out shopping, she was alive. The
student and the boyfriend say that Father Maskell and Father
(10:45):
Magnus burst into the apartment without knocking, and that sister
Kathy sent the student and her boyfriend away. So that
was a story that came up in the keepers. But
the research note says, you know, we don't know where
Sister Russell was. Jerry Kob says that he doubts that
this happened because Sister Russell never said anything to anyone
(11:07):
about that, but the student is insistent that this is
what happened. The student also says that Sister Russell was there,
so I don't know why they would be making it up.
I'm sure I could figure many reasons out why they
were making it up. But essentially, Sister Russell never said
this happen, but the student was very clear that this
is what happened. These two men accused of sexual abuse
(11:28):
at Sister Kathy's school. First in and Sister Cathy said, okay,
you two, you student and boyfriend.
Speaker 3 (11:34):
Need to leave.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
Yeah, and this the student. This is also a statement
that's being made twenty five years later, longer, even longer. Yes, okay,
you know, and we know memory is elastic. It's kind
of tough, you know for this type of witness statement
from my perspective, to put a lot of weight on that.
(11:56):
And I think, you know, there's aspects to this investigation.
You know, was Magnus interviewed back in the day, do
you know?
Speaker 1 (12:05):
Not that I know of. I think it was completely squashed.
This sexual abuse stuff never came out, even though there
was one person the Archdiocese of Baltimore said that Gene
was the first one to come forward about maskal in
nineteen ninety two, but there was a guy who said
he did come forward in sixty seven, right before Maskell
(12:27):
was transferred to Keo, to the high school. So people
had set stuff, but nothing had come out about the
sexual abuse to the police or to any kind of
authority figure. There was no reason to interview these guys.
There there were no suspects, with the exception of father Jerry,
and that was just because they had a personal relationship.
Speaker 2 (12:45):
Yeah, you know, and this is where you know, I
think Sister Russell is critical because before the archdiocese is
kind of squashing the investigation. Sister Russell is reporting Kathy missing,
she is being contacted by law enforcement at one thirty
am in the morning. So if Magnus and this other
(13:05):
guy what was his name, Maskeal Maskeal and this other
guy burst into their apartment complex the day that Kathy
went missing, how comes Sister Russell isn't telling that to
law enforcement at one thirty am. There's something not adding
up here. Sister Russell to me, is critical in terms of,
you know, what is going on. There's there's some goofiness
(13:28):
in terms of the timeline with her calling up Jerry
and Pete and them driving over the relationship between Jerry
and Kathy. It seems like if there had been these men,
even though they are you know, men of the cloth,
but bursting into the apartment earlier that day, that there
would be a statement to that effect by Sister Russell, right.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
I think that's why it's confusing for Jerry's part. Father Jerry,
he says that Kathy wanted to talk to him about
something serious. They had planned to get together the day
after she disappeared, but he insists that she never told
him about the abuse. So he says, I didn't know.
I can't imagine that, but who knows. He says, I
didn't know, and she didn't talk to me about it,
(14:08):
but she sounded like she wanted to talk about something
very serious, you know, on November eighth.
Speaker 3 (14:13):
You know.
Speaker 2 (14:13):
I think one of the things I want to point out,
as I've thought about this case is Kathy's car is
a critical piece of evidence, not just because of what
it could potentially have from a physical evidence standpoint, but
also how it was left. And Kathy scenes sitting in
her car in the proper parking space for apartment complex
(14:36):
by a neighbor. I have great confidence that that neighbor
is telling accurate information. And then the car is obviously
gone to a secondary location where it gets the mud
the vegetation on it. Inside of it, there's items from
Kathy that are missing out of this car. And then
the car is deposited back across the street from Kathy's
(14:59):
apartment in a half hazard manner.
Speaker 3 (15:00):
It was done in haste. Why is that car brought back?
Speaker 2 (15:05):
It's because the offender's vehicle was at Kathy's location somewhere
in that area. So the offender took Kathy killed Kathy
and had to get back using Kathy's vehicle in order
to get into their vehicle and drive off. So, you know,
the scenario that I'm seeing is the offender is seeing
(15:25):
Kathy either sitting alone in the vehicle or contacts Kathy
when she's trying to get into her apartment, and then
ultimately takes control of Kathy and her own vehicle, drives off,
kills Kathy, dumps Kathy at the dump site that looks
like it's what half hour away from where she was
abducted from, and then drives back to get his own
(15:46):
vehicle and drive off. This isn't Jerry and Pete. This
is somebody else. Now is his father Maskell?
Speaker 3 (15:53):
You know?
Speaker 2 (15:53):
Is he going to Kathy's apartment, sees her isolated and
takes advantage of that He at least per gene is
expressing knowledge where Kathy's body is. I have to assume
that authorities sufficiently vetted the gene's statement so that they
have confidence that this recovered memory. And I'm not even
(16:16):
sure it classifies as a recovered memory. She just didn't
come forward. She was a kid when this happened to her, right, Yeah,
you know, so I'm just going to trust that the
authorities vetted her statement and say, yes, she is accurate
to the details, that we believe that Gene is telling
the truth about what happened. Well, now this becomes important.
(16:37):
I think it's a very small circle of suspects that
are responsible for Kathy's homicide and they just need to
be vetted one by one and figure out, well, who
is it and if they still have Kathy's clothing, you know,
whatever is covered from her body, if they still have
stuff out of the vehicle, Leyton Prince, whatever they did,
(16:57):
you know, there's potentially physical evidence that can help sort
this out.
Speaker 1 (17:03):
Let me wrap up this part of the story. None
of this information about abuse that Keyo comes to light
until about nineteen ninety four, and that's when Jane hires
an attorney because she was being stonewalled by the church.
This lawyer puts an advertisement in the Baltimore Sun asking
for any information about are their survivors of abuse that
(17:25):
went to Archbishop Keo school. That ad doesn't say anything
about Father Maskeal in particular, but about forty women come
forward and nearly all their stories are about him. This
information is given to the state's attorney, but Mascal is
never charged, never charged. Okay, so let me just tell
you one other thing and then we need to get
to other suspects too. In ninety four, Jean and another
(17:48):
former student, who's a woman named Teresa Lancaster, sue father Maskal.
And this is a suit that's ultimately dismissedly because the
statue of limitations had lapsed. The case went to trial
in the first place because because it questioned if the
statute applies to memories that only recently surfaced at that time,
this is considered a question of recovered memories. Though you know,
(18:10):
there are a lot of new laws that have passed
allowing child victims to come forward and sue as adults.
This is interesting. The Baltimore Archdiocese has recently declared bankruptcy
to avoid paying more of these settlements. So the recovered
memory I had not really even I haven't crossed paths
with that yet, and controversy around it, and I know
we talked about it, and the questions about whether what
(18:31):
Gene and any of these other students were experiencing were
not It doesn't sound like recovered memories. It sounded like
we're you know, we're pressed or you know, not coming forward, scared, forgotten,
hidden for a while, something that hadn't been processed by
the person, but not drawn out by somebody. And that's
right to you.
Speaker 2 (18:51):
Yeah, you know, and I'm trying to remember the exact details.
California has been statute, you know, and I think California
uses the term repressed memories, but I'm not entirely sure
about that. But there's something to the effect that if
a person comes forward with a repress memory and at
(19:12):
the time of let's say their sexual abuse, they were
fifteen years or younger, they have like thirty years after
the crime occurred to come forward and then the case
could potentially be charged. I may be way off base
on that, but that's kind of what's ringing a bell.
I had one case, and it had nothing to do
(19:34):
with sexual abuse. It was a woman who came forward
with a repressed memory saying she remembered her dad burying
a body in the backyard, you know, and of course
ended up never finding anything.
Speaker 3 (19:50):
But I do know that these types of.
Speaker 2 (19:52):
Memories you do have, from a psychological standpoint, there is
the possibility of somebody just bearing this memory and then
having it come forward at some point. But you have
to kind of, you know, tease out the people that
are being honest and truthful, people that are misremembering things,
and then people who are just making stuff up.
Speaker 1 (20:14):
Yeah, I mean, just like in a normal witness repress
memory or not, you're just having to figure out who's
truthful and who's not, what their motives.
Speaker 3 (20:21):
Are, right, absolutely, yep, for sure.
Speaker 1 (20:24):
Well I wish this had a better ending that you know,
father Maskell got punished in some way. He doesn't. He
dies of a stroke in two thousand and one, which
is too bad. At that point in time, the archdiocese
says that the allegations against Maskal were credible, quote unquote,
and confirmed that he did have guns in his residence.
(20:45):
I don't think we're surprised by that. Sister Russell died
not long after. She was not a nun any longer.
She had been married and had a family, and she
died just a couple of months after. And a friend
called her when he died, when mass died before she died,
and Sister Russell said, well, he took his secret to
the grave. Now there's been renewed interests starting in two
(21:07):
thousand and five, and there's a reporter named Tom Nugent,
who writes a story for the Baltimore City Paper that
rehashes everything that has happened, and for the first time,
he starts looking at the connections between father Maskell and
the other victim, Joyce Malecki, who we weren't sure is
connected or not. So she's the other young woman who
(21:28):
was killed right after sister Kathy disappeared. So tell me
what you think about these connections. I'll go through half
of them and stop, and then you can tell me
if you think these are strong connections. Okay, So this
is what Tom Nugent comes up with. He looks at
the nineteen sixty eight sixty nine Kio year book. So
this is the high school where Maskal was and it
(21:49):
shows that a gift was made that year by the
Malechi family on their patron's page. And the interviews with
the remaining family members revealed that when they lived in Lansdowne,
which is less than a mile from where Cathy Saysnick's
body was, they attended a church, Saint Clement Church. The
(22:09):
Maluche siblings, including Joyce, went to week long retreats as
high school students, during which they spend entire days engaged
in religious instruction with priests, So that might not seem
like a big deal, except the Baltimore archdis and records
confirm that Maskel served at Saint Clement in Lansdowne from
(22:30):
sixty six to sixty eight, And this is essentially saying
that they would have likely crossed paths. Joyce Maluche the
dead Girl and Joseph Maskell. So what do you think
so far? So they would have crossed paths. And I
don't know. The family apparently gave money. I don't think
the current family or the family that's around now knows why.
(22:51):
But they gave money to the high school where Mascal worked,
and it sounds like she attended week long retreats where
Mascal would have been for sure.
Speaker 2 (23:01):
Yeah, you know, I don't know. I'm not putting much
weight on this, this gift of money to the high school.
If they could confirm that Mascal and Joyce were at
the same location at the same time, you know, that's
where now Mascal at least could see a victim as
you know, maybe established a relationship you know, with this victim,
(23:22):
just as this authority figure within this this location. But
it's I mean, it's weak, you know, it's it could
just be coincidental.
Speaker 1 (23:32):
Yeah, so let me tell you a couple more things.
It looks like the records show that father Maskal was
Joyce Malech's parish priest during a two year period shortly
before she was killed. I don't know if that means
that they were just because he was, you know, her priest,
doesn't mean that they had really personal interactions. I don't
know if she took confession. I don't know any of that.
(23:53):
We just know that they would have been certainly in
the same vicinity. And Father Maskal sent her family a
condolence card after she was found murdered. Oh interesting, Yeah,
I mean, so he knew her for sure. If we're
going to talk about Joyce Malucky briefly, she was twenty
and again she goes missing four days after Kathy Sesnant
(24:15):
goes missing. Her brother was at a fast food restaurant
outside of Baltimore, and she stopped by. Joyce stopped by
to switch cars before heading to the mall, and she
never came home. She was found at a nearby military
base with signs of severe trauma, and an autopsy determined
(24:35):
that she had been strangled. Okay, One police officer said
that there was evidence she had put up a fight.
It doesn't say anything about sexual assault. The night of
her disappearance, she had plans to meet up with her
boyfriend who was stationed at that military base, but he
was ruled out as a suspect pretty early on in
(24:55):
an investigation. I'm assuming he had some kind of great
alibi or something. So this was an article written last year,
about nine months ago, and it looks like Paul the
FBI exhumed Joyce Maluche's body to try to figure out
who her killer was. There were a couple of other
people who went missing around that time period, and they
(25:16):
solved one case using DNA in genealogy.
Speaker 3 (25:20):
Yeah, you know, I think you know.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
What I wanted to hear was sort of the crossover
in details between Kathy and Joyce's case. Basically, you have
abduction homicides of two young females. So, you know, I think,
you know, first it's the victimology you have, you know,
two young women that are victims of abduction homicide. Even
(25:43):
though we don't know the circumstances of what exactly happened
with Joyce outside of strangulation, she was beat and she
put up a fight. But I mean a twenty year
old female being abducted and killed in all likelihood it's
a sexually motivated crime.
Speaker 3 (25:58):
I think there's at least.
Speaker 2 (26:00):
Enough parallel from the circumstances you know that it could
be the same offender. Now, if we throw gene statement
out about Maskull showing this is where Kathy's body is,
you know, it is entirely possible that you have a
single predator that abducted and killed Kathy and abducted and
(26:23):
killed Joyce and maybe did other things. That's where Gene's
statement is so critical because what it does is it
narrows down instead of it being a random or stranger
type crime, it's a crime that Kathy's crime is a
crime that is being committed, you know, by an individual
or a group of individuals that had an association with her.
(26:45):
And if it's maskl who it's shown that he has
an association with Joyce, you know, this becomes critical because
there's no question he is a child predator working. You know,
he has access to all these young girls at the school.
Predators go to where the praise at and so envisioning
(27:07):
Mascal taking a crime further past sexual abuse and actually
committing homicide that is well within the realm of this
type of offender. You know, So I right now don't
have I don't have an issue assuming Gene is completely
accurate about her statement that Mascal Is by himself is
(27:29):
responsible for these two homicides, but they need to get
the evidence.
Speaker 3 (27:34):
To prove it.
Speaker 1 (27:35):
I've found a few more details. I doubt they make
any kind of a difference about Joyce Malecki. So you know,
she had been found with her hands tied behind her back,
with scratches and bruises on her body. That's the part
of the struggle I told you about. And they said
that there was a single knife wound found in her throat,
but it was not sufficient to cause death. But she
(27:56):
had fifteen superficial cuts on the neck and abrasions on
her fore head, nose, and chin. And the FBI took
over the case because they were found obviously on federal
property because it was the base Fort Meade. I don't know.
I mean, essentially, what they were saying was they had
similar builds, these two women. Here's the only connection, real
connection until you look at mascl They had similar builds.
(28:18):
They were shopping in close proximity, but they were abducted
days apart and that was it. So it sounds like
people are still working on the case though.
Speaker 2 (28:27):
Yeah, hopefully, you know, because there is a chance with
both cases that there is you know, physical evidence that
can solve these cases. You know the fact that the
FBI went through the process to exume Joyce's body that
tells me that they felt that the initial collection of
evidence from Joyce's body was inadequate, which you know from
(28:47):
nineteen sixty nine, nineteen seventy. Of course, they're not focusing
in on the possibility of DNA evidence. You know, they
would process women's bodies for sexual assault evidence, but all
they could do is you know, identify, Okay, there's there's
seman presence, so yes, this is a sexually motivated crime.
And that they literally would throw that kind of evidence
out back then you know that possibly is what happened.
(29:09):
And now the FBI is going, oh god, we need
to hope that there's still that foreign DNA material on
this body that has been buried for decades, and it
is entirely possible they could get something. But then it's also, well,
what about our clothing, just like Kathy's clothing, you know,
is there a possibility that there's a thunder DNA off
of those items, and so, you know, it's interesting. I've
(29:32):
just experienced enough that I think there is a possibility
that Kathy and Joyce's killer is one and the same person.
But I would also say it's entirely possible that these
are two completely unrelated crimes and you just have two
different predators operating in the same area at the same time,
doing kind of the same thing. I've seen it, I've
personally experienced that. So it's until they get that objective
(29:55):
identifying evidence on these cases, it's going to be hard
to se a Father Maskal is their killer. They need
to do more than just show you the connections that
each one of the victims had to Father Maskal. Gene statement,
I think is really sort of the big thing in
the case, at least with Kathy's case, because again, if
(30:16):
that is been proven that she had details that only
somebody who observed Kathy's body out there at the dump,
then I'm like, yeah, either Father Maskal or somebody closely
affiliated with Father Maskal is responsible for Kathy's homicide.
Speaker 1 (30:31):
Well, for due diligence, let's go through two other suspects.
That are not related to Father Maskal or the high
school in particular, just because these are people that have
floated around. This guy is named Ed Davidson. He's alive,
at least when the keepers was made he was. He
gives an interview. He's very frail. He says I have
nothing to do with the murder. But his name gets
(30:53):
brought up, and here's why. In twenty thirteen, former students
of Sister Kathy's named Abby's Stow and Jimma Hoskins create
a Facebook page to share their resources. It becomes a
centralized resource on the case, but also for survivors from
the abuse, and the documentary centers on these two women
(31:15):
and their dogged research into the case. They're great characters.
After this Facebook group is taken off, Jimma gets a
text from a woman named Debbie Yawns who says that
her uncle killed Sister Kathy. It is this guy, Ed Davidson,
and his first wife tells the same story firsthand. The
(31:36):
woman who doesn't want to be named in the documentary.
The wife had recently given birth to twins in November
of nineteen sixty nine. This is when you know Sister
Kathy goes missing. One of the twins was in the
nick you and just before nine point thirty on November seventh,
that night that she disappeared, a nurse called and said
the baby is going to be discharged tomorrow. This is
(31:57):
why the wife remembers that day in the time. Just
after hanging up the phone, Ed walks in the door
and his shirt is covered in blood. He tells his
wife that he got into a fight with his boss.
But then a few days later, when sister Kathy's disappearance
is reported on the news, Ed's wife looks at him
and sees that he's smirking. He says her body is
(32:19):
going to be covered with snow soon and will take
months to find. Shortly after that, he buys all new
tires first car, even though he doesn't really need them
and the family doesn't have any money. A few weeks later,
Ed is arrested in a stolen car which Paul. He
has been trying to lure girls into Adam Middle School,
(32:39):
very close to sister Kathy's apartment, and that Christmas, Ed
gives his wife a necklace. It has a wedding bell
pendant with a greenstone that looks like paradot, which would
have been an August birthstone. I think the idea is
that this might have been the gift that Kathy bought
her sister. So perhaps Kathy bought her sister a necklace
(33:04):
with the burthstone of her sister's fiance in it. What
do you think so far? Covered in blood?
Speaker 2 (33:10):
I mean, good lord, this is a dime a dozen
type of suspect that we see in these who don't
homicides all the time. I can't say if this Davidson
is responsible or not, but so far, this type of
circumstantial evidence is weak. You know, it's it's there's something there,
(33:31):
but it all could just be coincidence, you know, and
covered in blood. Yeah, we will get these types of suspects,
and there are things like this that happens, you know.
You know, I don't know if Davidson's boss would still
be alive, you know, to be able to verify. Oh yeah,
we got into a fight and I was bleeding like crazy.
(33:55):
Seems like, you know, law enforcement may have been called
to something like that.
Speaker 3 (33:58):
So I don't know.
Speaker 2 (33:59):
You know, right now, I'm not blown away with the
evidence that you've presented right now on Davidson.
Speaker 1 (34:07):
You know, the filmmakers interview him, and he said, listen,
like I was kind of pulling my wife's leg on this.
I did not kill this woman. I actually you know,
I hurt my hand. That's why there was blood all
over my shirt. Yeah, I kind of led her to
believe I did something, but I didn't do anything, and
that was that I made it up, you know, in general,
(34:30):
so it doesn't really go anywhere. There is another person though,
who's interesting unless you want to do you have a
comment on that.
Speaker 2 (34:36):
I was just going to, you know, because this is
what happened. Sometimes, you know, we get the street chatter
where you do have guys, believe it or not. Guys
will pretend that they were, you know, involved in some
homicide because it gives them street credibility or some level
of credibility with whoever they're wanting to impress by being
(34:57):
capable of committing these horrific crimes. Just that's part of
the reason why law enforcement has holdbacks, right, details that
don't get made public because you get these nut jobs
that are willing to whether they come into law enforcement
confess or they just start. They're at a bar and
they're trying to impress their their bar buddies. That hey,
(35:19):
I killed her, you know, and believe it or not,
they feel that they're impressing somebody by, you know, making
that type of statement. They have nothing to do with
the crime.
Speaker 1 (35:29):
Well, I have another suspect. This actually seems a little
more credible to me. So there is a woman named
Barbara Schmidt. So Barbara Schmidt is telling this story about
her husband. He has a drinking problem that comes out
of nowhere in the seventies, and one day her husband
says to her it's because he and his brother Billy,
killed a woman behind the shop, meaning behind the family's business.
(35:52):
So we're talking about this guy, Billy Schmidt, and it
sounds like this woman is saying that her husband helped
his brother dispose sister Kathy's body. But she also says
that one night, she's not saying specifically November seventh, he
came home covered in blood and said he had been
in a bar fight. But he doesn't look like he's
gotten hurt at all, like at somebody else's blood. Now
(36:15):
here's the weird stuff. Billy, the guy that we're talking about,
was sister Kathy's neighbor. He lived right across the.
Speaker 3 (36:21):
Hall from her in the apartment complex.
Speaker 1 (36:24):
In the apartment complex. And here's something else that was
really weird. The small dump where her body had been
found is behind the Schmidt family business and very close
to Billy's house where he and his brother grew up.
Speaker 2 (36:37):
Okay, so Billy has two anchor points. I'm kind of
throwing out a geographic profile term. An anchor point is,
you know, a location within a person's normal living pattern,
such as a residence, such as a place of work,
a hangout spot like the bar you know that they
(36:57):
go to. Billy has two anchor points instead, are significant
in the case the last location where Kathy was seen alive,
sitting in the parking lot of the apartment complex that
Billy and Kathy share.
Speaker 3 (37:09):
As well as the.
Speaker 2 (37:11):
Body dump location of Kathy's body, which is behind the
Schmidt shop. So this is where now Billy has the
local familiarity that you know, authorities are saying somebody must
have had in order to have dumped Kathy's body there.
So that checks a couple of boxes for me. The
circumstances of the crime itself is Kathy never makes it
(37:36):
back into her apartment, so she's contacted either in her car,
getting out of her car or en route from her
car into the apartment and her car was taken to
a secondary location, which I'm going to assume is the
dump site that night, and that the vegetation and the
mud is probably from that dump site. I saw, you know,
there was vegetation in terms of it looked like almost
(37:59):
you know, little swaths of force that surrounded the vacant lot,
if you will, where Kathy's body was, and it looked
like her body was on the edge. And then Kathy's
car is brought back after her body, after she's killed,
and her body's dumped back to the apartment complex. So
(38:20):
Billy living in that apartment complex, that checks a box
there because he needs to get back home, and if
he's taken off in Kathy's car, he's got to use
Kathy's car to come back. So there's at least more
of a nexus with Billy from the circumstances then with
that Davidson. You know, that's where I'm evaluating these two
(38:41):
individuals going, Yes, Billy is a stronger suspect from that perspective,
but there needs to be more, of course, But he's
he's more interesting to me than Davidson, you know, And
this is just well, how if let's say Billy's the
one responsible for Kathy's homicide, then how is Gene's statement
(39:02):
with father Maskell? You know, how does that fit in?
From my perspective? If I were to be starting to
dig into this case, you know, one of the earliest
things I would be doing would be truly assessing gene statement.
And if she's still alive, reinterviewing her, I need to
(39:25):
be confident that what she is remembering is spot on
with what somebody would have observed of Kathy's body out
at that location.
Speaker 1 (39:36):
Well, let me wrap up Billy real quick. So Barbara,
the woman who called this in, says that Billy's mental
health deteriorated after Kathy's murder. He talked about the case
all the time. He was obsessed with nuns. She says,
he kept a nun's habit in his attic and sometimes
talked about it like it was a real person, like
it was haunting him. And he died by suicide a
(39:59):
few years later after this happened.
Speaker 3 (40:01):
So he's been dead for a long time.
Speaker 1 (40:03):
He's been dead for a long time. There were cigarette
butts found near Kathy's body, and they were Salem's which
is Billy's brand. But you know, I'm sure you could
throw a rock in Maryland and hits somebody who smoked Salem's.
But just to transition into DNA stuff, they did take
a DNA sample. Right before The Keepers aired on Netflix,
(40:24):
they exhumed Joseph Maskell's body. They took a DNA sample
to compare it against DNA that was recovered from those
cigarette butts found near sister Kathy's body. We have no idea,
I know, that's what you are grimacing. We have no
idea who's those are. And of course this DNA doesn't
match the cigarette butts, and I'm sure they didn't decades later.
They didn't compare DNA to this guy, to Billy Schmidt.
(40:48):
But the DNA butts are kind of the thing that
they have. It sounds like, yeah, this is where you.
Speaker 2 (40:55):
Know, assessing the evidence that the DNA's coming off of
it is is it's not just an all or nothing.
So most certainly, let's say Mascal's DNA is found on
those cigarette butts, that is compelling because what is his
association with that location?
Speaker 3 (41:14):
You know, So that's.
Speaker 2 (41:15):
Significant, even though it might be very tough to say, yeah,
the killer is the one that's responsible for smoking those
cigarette butts. Now with Billy Schmidt, it's right behind his
family business. Yeah, if it is his DNA on those
cigarette butts, the evidence against him is is weaker because
(41:36):
he has an association with that location, so that you
always have to interpret, you know, that the DNA evidence
or any physical evidence within the context of the case
and within the context of the suspects and the victims,
et cetera. So you know, my hope would be is
that they like exhooming Joyce's body or going after maybe
(41:58):
Kathy's clothing, that they find foreign DNA from the victims
themselves or the victims personal items that are found at
the homicide location or the crime scene, and that becomes
more compelling because now you're getting into that intimate contact
between the offender and the victim, and it's harder to
(42:21):
come up with with either of these suspects, you know,
innocent explanation for their DNA being on you know, the particularly.
Speaker 3 (42:30):
If it's if it turns out it's let's say, semen.
Speaker 1 (42:33):
Right, well, you know everything I read was from December
of last year, and it doesn't I don't see results back.
So they exhumed her body in December of twenty twenty three.
Is that a reasonable amount of time? Is that bad
news if we haven't heard anything, you know, in ten
months or however long.
Speaker 3 (42:52):
No, not at all. You know, this is okay, you know,
with a case that's old.
Speaker 2 (42:57):
If let's say they're submitting that to this is the
FBI that exhumed the body from Joyce with Joyce, So
if they're submitting that to FBI lab, it's going to
take a while. I mean, this is a you know,
federal level lab with you know, agencies from across the
nation sending them evidence. Backlog is is extraordinary, So this
(43:20):
case isn't going to have priority relative to maybe other
cases that are more active. So no, that doesn't surprise
me at all. So hopefully, you know, fingers crossed is
that they did have success and maybe Joyce's case will
have probative DNA evidence and with Kathy's case, I hope
that they're able to go after whatever physical evidence still remains,
(43:44):
you know there.
Speaker 1 (43:45):
To wrap up this section. You know, they're hopeful. There
were in seventy and seventy one, two different sixteen year
old girls in Maryland disappeared after last seen at shopping centers.
One of those was solved. I mentioned it earlier, so
you know they're trying for sure. While the allegations of
abuse at Keel by Magnus and Mascal were credible, some
(44:07):
people thought that the idea of sister Kathy being murdered
because of them is more of a stretch than the
idea that she was abducted and killed by a random person.
I don't believe that. I think it's much more. I
think it's much more likely that these two men people
have killed for far less fears than being turned over
for sexually abusing girls for years. I mean, I don't
(44:29):
understand why anybody wouldn't think that that's not a motive
to murder somebody to keep them quiet about that.
Speaker 3 (44:36):
It's not a stretch at all.
Speaker 2 (44:38):
You know, I made the observation earlier that Kathy's homicide,
you know, in the state of her clothing, you know,
it's not merely an elimination homicide. I mean, there is
a sexual component to her homicide, absent genes recovered memory
or her memory of being taken out by Mascal to
Kathy's body. If that statement didn't exist, then I would say,
(45:01):
you know, what all possibilities are on the table. There's
plenty of cases just like Kathy's across the nation. There's
a case out of Iowa. I believe Jody wesen Throutt
news anchor that you know, she looks like she was
contacted by an offender out in the parking lot and
has just disappeared. Those types of crimes do occur. You
(45:23):
could have an active predator that's responsible for Kathy and
Choices cases, or you have multiple predators, or because of
Gene's statement, I put you know, I'm putting Mascal in play,
and maybe associates of Mascal in play.
Speaker 1 (45:39):
Yeah, I agree. I mean bringing this right back to
the original victim, Kathy. You know, her mom died in
twenty ten not knowing what happened to her daughter, which
I can't think of anything more upsetting. The family doesn't
talk much about the murderer, certainly in the media over
the years, but her sister Marilyn said that when their
mom died, cleaning out the house and she found boxes
(46:02):
and boxes of newspaper articles about the case on every
single development, And I read that as sort of the
last thing for us to talk about, because that really
is what this comes down to. This was a woman
who was very likely the closest confidante to many people,
many of these girls, who seemed like she wanted to
(46:24):
try to do something to help them, who was trying
to protect them, and she ends up dead. And not
only does she end up dead, but the real killer,
the person who murdered her, gets away with it. And
what a miscarriage of justice? Geez.
Speaker 2 (46:39):
You know, it's it's the ultimate frustration as an investigator.
You know, when I've worked cases and have failed to
close cases, which is many, many of these unsolved cases.
And you know what, my biggest frustration is thinking that
the killer is out there and they're living their life,
and it's a life they don't deserve because they stole
(47:00):
somebody else's life and all the life experiences that that person,
the victim would have had, or what their family members
would have had, et cetera. You know, so it is
that's a hard thing to live with. Families don't get
the answer, and justice isn't served and the killer gets
away with it, and it just, I know, it eats
(47:22):
at me.
Speaker 1 (47:23):
I teach a class at UT that's sort of an
ethics in true crime podcasting class essentially what to look
for when you're listening or watching true crime, what's ethical,
what's not. I will say I think The Keepers is
one of the best. And I know you don't like
watching true crime stuff. You don't have enough room in
your pretty little head for the current case is in
(47:44):
barely enough room for what I'm telling you, let alone
watching some case you have no involvement with. But I
think that there are certainly podcasts, definitely shows out there
that we should all support that are victim forward, that
are not glamorizing in any way the Killer, and I
think Keepers is one of them. Is It is a
phenomenal show that has brought a lot of this to
(48:07):
light that I had not heard of. You know, I
really applaud them for that. So my goal between now
and when I see you next week is to convince
I've got to find something that's going to draw you
in into kind of like the true crime world, where
you're not having to solve something that you can just
look at it and we can have a discussion about it.
I guess Bury Bones.
Speaker 2 (48:25):
Should be enough for you, though, right just like here
with Buried Bones, it's you know, I'm I'm wanting to
solve you know, that's what I you know, that's why
I got into the work. I got into Yeah, and
sometimes you know, I can get frustrated watching some of
the true crime stuff because I'm not given the information
that I need to move forward with the case, you know,
(48:46):
And I know that's part of it.
Speaker 1 (48:49):
I know. Sorry, Paul, I want to help. I want
us to solve everything. But next week we'll have some
fabulous case that you'll learn something about. It could be
like how they made a krts and a horse and
carts in the sixteen hundreds. It could be some wacky
new way that they tested ballistics in the nineteen tens.
(49:10):
Who knows what it'll be on something weird.
Speaker 3 (49:12):
I'm sure, Yeah, nope, I'm looking forward to it.
Speaker 1 (49:15):
Okay, see you then, all right, Thanks Jig. This has
been an exactly right production.
Speaker 2 (49:24):
For our sources and show notes go to exactly rightemedia
dot com slash Buried Bones sources.
Speaker 1 (49:29):
Our senior producer is Alexis Emrosi.
Speaker 2 (49:32):
Research by Maren mcclashan, Ali Elkin, and Kate Winkler Dawson.
Speaker 1 (49:36):
Our mixing engineer is Ben Tolliday.
Speaker 3 (49:39):
Our theme song is by Tom Bryfogel.
Speaker 1 (49:42):
Our artwork is by Vanessa Lilac.
Speaker 2 (49:44):
Executive produced by Karen Kilgarriff, Georgia hart Stark and Daniel Kramer.
Speaker 1 (49:48):
You can follow Buried Bones on Instagram and Facebook at
Buried Bones.
Speaker 2 (49:53):
Pod Kate's most recent book, All That Is Wicked, a
Gilded Age story of murder and the race to decode
the criminal mind, is available now, and
Speaker 1 (50:00):
Paul's best selling memoir Unmasked, My life solving America's cold Cases,
is also available now
Hosts And Creators
Kate Winkler Dawson
Paul Holes
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