Priest named as killer in butchering of nun

By ANDREW GUMBEL

Depending on whom you believe, Gerald Robinson is either a quiet, somewhat remote, white-haired cleric who has faithfully served the Catholic Church for the past 40 years, or he is a sexual pervert and participant in bizarre satanic rituals who once slaughtered a 71-year-old nun and then successfully covered up all traces of the crime - until now.

Either way, the 66-year-old priest is the talk of the Rust Belt town of Toledo, Ohio, where he has been arraigned on murder charges and thrown into jail following his sensational arrest last weekend.

His case is replete with details straight out of a gothic melodrama, including one lurid report of a ritual involving a teenage girl, a snake and a human eyeball.

But more than that, it is once more throwing an unwelcome spotlight on the moral integrity of the Catholic hierarchy, which in this case supported Father Robinson and allowed him to continue his pastoral duties even after he was formally placed under investigation for murder last year.

At the heart of the matter is the vicious killing of Sister Margaret Ann Pahl in the sacristy of a church hospital on Easter Saturday 24 years ago.

Sister Margaret Ann, who was one day shy of her 72nd birthday when she died, was strangled then stabbed between 27 and 32 times.

Police now say Father Robinson was a suspect from the start, a factor that did not prevent him from officiating at Sister Margaret Ann's funeral. They also believed some kind of ritual was involved, since the nun's lifeless body was found covered with an altar cloth.

But at the time, the evidence trail went cold, in part because the murder scene had been scrupulously cleaned before the police arrived. The authorities offered nearly $30,000 for information that could crack the case, but none was forthcoming.

Nothing new emerged until last year, when a woman whose identity has been kept secret testified before a diocesan commission in Toledo that she had endured years of sexual, physical and psychological abuse by a group of priests during her childhood and teenage years.

She alleged Father Robinson had sexually assaulted her as a teenager and participated in bizarre satanic rituals in which she was an unwilling participant.

Some of her testimony seemed frankly unbelievable, particularly the part in which she described being placed in a coffin crawling with cockroaches, forced to eat a human eyeball and penetrated with a snake "to consecrate these orifices to Satan".

She further alleged that the priests had killed children, mutilated dogs and performed an abortion on her as part of their devil-worship.

Something about her testimony, however, stirred the interest of the cold case department of the Toledo police, because it triggered the reopening of the nun murder case.

Police officials have refused to discuss what they found that they had previously overlooked, saying only that a part of their evidence involved a criminological technique known as "blood transfer patterns".

Even Father Robinson's lawyer has not been informed of the details of the prosecution case, which is expected to be the centrepiece of closed-door grand jury hearings in the next few days. A decision on whether to remand Father Robinson for trial is likely to follow shortly afterwards.

Challenged by child abuse victims' groups on why they did not launch their own investigation into the allegations of satanic rituals, church officials said the allegations simply were not credible.

But they have not explained why Father Robinson was not placed on leave after he was formally named as a murder suspect, in apparent violation of their own policies. He celebrated mass up to last week.

"Their policy dictates that they step down the priest and launch an investigation," Claudia Vercellotti of a local group called Snap, or Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, said.

"Why was Father Gerald Robinson not stepped down, given the seriousness of the allegations?"

Father Robinson was granted bail at US$20,000 ($31,770) at an arraignment hearing on Monday, but remained in jail as supporters scurried to collect the money to free him.

- INDEPENDENT