"The Keepers" on Netflix

Surprise spoiler alert. A just completed DNA test clears the priest Netflix tried to pin with the murder.

womp womp.

I watched the first two episodes earlier today. I'll probably keep tuning in.

The nun killed her. Duh.

The Catholic Church is just a glorified front for pedophilia and extortion.

I live in the Baltimore burbs, even now the Catholic church is predominate here and people still blindly give money and support the organization without question . The amount of prime real estate the church owns in this area is astounding ! The dirty secret behind of huge rise of Catholic Schools in the 50s and 60s is centered on two things racism and white flight .

The city government and police department are still corrupt despite the predominantly minority make up of the hierarchy now. The city itself is on the verge of collapse much like Detroit. The tax base has dwindled to nothing so the infrastructure is crumbling. There are no "safe " areas in Baltimore city anymore from a crime perspective. There has been some gentrification but the relationship between the black community and gay community is very strained. Some of most vocal opponents of marriage equality came from black churches.

The era depicted in the series was when there were still blue collar jobs that paid enough to support a middle class lifestyle , own a home , buy a new car every 4- 5 years , pay tuition to Catholic school etc. Hetrosexual white men used power and intimidation being in control of everything to keep the marginalized groups from gaining power. The pendulum has swung in the other direction now , whats really needed is a happy medium.

We thought we had a happy medium in the 1970s and 1980s, but that seemed to start falling apart in the 1990s.

R1, no one suspected the priest of killing the nun. What is suspected is whoever killed the nun KNEW the priest and participated in the sex with the children (a cop, Brother Bob, etc.)

Wow! Just binged through this investigative series and I'm absolutely floored. Fuck that Catholic church.

The Keepers trailer.....

I finished watching it last night. Shocking. Horrifying.

DNA tests just exonerated the priest in question.

I just started, OP. So far, so good. All of our DL frauen would love this. Right up their alley.

Not sure I wanted to watch maybe I will try.

I rarely feel like murdering someone, but I would happily shoot the tag team priests, along with their cohorts in the police dept., the doctor, etc.

These men were sadistic, deliberate, and beyond cruel.

These poor women. Did you see what some of them look like now? They are still broken. My heart goes out to them. I believe their stories. I know I was a very naive kid. I was book smart, but I was very sheltered, while verbally and physically abused at home. I would have been a prime candidate for sexual abuse by pedophile priests. I'm grateful that at least I was spared that.

Amazing series! Riveting, if perhaps a couple of episodes longer than it needed to be.

But I have some questions:

Why didn't the dentist come forward in the 1990s with his story when all the publicity about Maskell and Janes Doe and Roe hit the press?

What happened to the husband of the woman with the aparrot and all the dogs who seemed to be implicated in the nun's murder?

Were is Skippy?

Fuck me, I should have started watching this earlier. It's 4am and I just finished watching all 7+ hours in one sitting. Tired as fuck and now I probably won't be able to sleep. I've seen a ton of documentaries and this is definitely in my top three. The first episode left me thinking they were making a 7-hour documentary out of nothing, but then that second episode sucks you in big time.

I was wondering the same thing as R16...where's parrot woman's husband today? Also, the one supposed witness (who died of a heart attack) said on the tape recording that he saw his uncle carrying Sister Catherine's body out of her apartment rolled up in either a carpet or a blanket, but she wasn't found wrapped up in anything when her body was found (or when she was allegedly seen by her female student with maggots on her). I'm sure if she was ever wrapped in anything, her killer(s) would have kept her wrapped when she was dumped in the forest. I also don't believe the story about her being hit and accidentally killed. She had a fucking hole knocked through her skull--whoever hit her that hard intended to kill her.

Oh, and one other question: Was Sister Catherine pregnant?? The letter she wrote saying she was 2-weeks late had me confused.

I don't believe Catherine sent that typed letter to Koob. And Sharon May what a useless bitch!

Did you people actually watch it?

The documentary presents multiple suspects who possibly carried out the murder, either on their own, together, or as hitmen. And "Jane Doe" claims that while the Priest took her to look at the body as a threat to keep quiet, "Brother Bob" actually killed the nun.

It's suggested that in some way the Priest either ordered a hit or if you believe Jane Doe's account (she's dealing with recovered memories after years of trauma and sexual abuse), "Brother Bob" killed Cathy by accident when confronting her.

The fact that the Priest's DNA was not on the cigarette does not fully exonerate him from the possibility he ordered a hit, sent someone to threaten her and it went too far, or killed her and had someone else dump the body. It just shows someone else dropped the cigarette.

r16 Skippy's identity is lost to history. He was the gay friend/possible lover of a guy who committed suicide in 1969 or 1970. So if he was involved in any way, you can be sure he won't be coming forward.

I can't believe the woman who made those claims...The imagery she suggests is far too creepy and cinematic to be plausible in real life. She finds herself in a car chase and a man wearing a nun's habit pulls along side her to flash a terrifying smile? Her brother in law claimed to be communicating with a nun in their attic (and then had a nun's habit dressed on a mannequin, who he believed was alive or a spirit)? These sound like something out of a horror movie. And why would a man in a nun's habit be chasing her car through red lights but never make a specific threat? And never contact her again? It's all too interesting.

As for Koob, I find it fascinating that the journalist and the police seemed to think he was involved and his alibi didn't add up at the time, but he seems incredibly level headed and his wife of over 30 years vouches for that as well. If he killed her, it was almost definitely a crime of passion and this guy is preternaturally calm. But here's what bothers me about his stories: so many tiny details. If you haven't watched, pay attention to the little details he throws in as part of his alibi. He even mentions the specific chocolate liqueur he was drinking when he got the phone call from Cathy's roommate. None of it proves anything but it does fit the behavior profile of a liar. Liars love to over-elaborate.

R18 I was confused by that too. If Koob was just a friend, Cathy would not divulge such personal info like a late period.

If Cathy was killed in her apartment, where was Sister Russell? In the beginning of the doc, I thought Cathy and Russell must of been lovers.

And what about Koob's claim that the questioning policeman brought Cathy's vagina to him? What does that even mean? I don't understand why the filmmaker didn't pursue this claim......like "what do you mean??" when he said it wasn't a photo it was her vagina.

Am I being dense?

And why didn't the director confront Koob about Sister Cathy's typed confession of love for him when Koob said they were just platonic friends?

Ultimately I think Koob is innocent and I did enjoy the documentary but there are a lot of frustrating loose ends, especially considering the series is 7+ hours long.

[quote]Am I being dense?

No, you're not. I actually had to rewind that part and watch it again in order to try and understand it. Watching it twice didn't help me understand it any better...I eventually just had to say "WTF?" and move on.

There are things about Koob that makes me think he knew about the abuse going on or was a participant. He stated that he and Peter *his alibi* weren't close, and when he sheepishly asks if they've found him, that told me that something happened between them. I think Koob used Peter as an alibi to lie and say he and Koob were together, when they weren't. Also, the typed letter didn't sound like something Sister Catherine would have said. Catherine would handwrite her letters, not type them. Koob then says he moved to MN a celibate priest.. yet the letter had a pregnancy scare. I think Maskell sent that typed letter to Koob, possibly making him the fall guy. One of the many questions I have is: Where are and who's the couple that visited both Russell & Catherine the night before, when Maskell and his flunky barged into the apartment?? How did Maskell know the couple were there?? Perhaps Russell tipped them off? I believe she was spying on Catherine and feeding info back.

The whole communion seance thing that Koob said the other nun and the two priests did with the breaking of the bread the night Sister Cathy went missing was really strange. Agree the letter was weird too.

Oddly enough I lived directly across the road from Sister Cathy's apartment 20 years after this happened (in the townhouses you can see opposite - where her car was found halfway sticking into the road). It wasn't such a great neighborhood by 1990.

If the part is true about the killer taking the necklace meant for Sister Catherine's sister and gifting it to his wife for Christmas, it's one of the most disturbing things I've ever heard. There's just so much wrong with that.

Here's what I am genuinely curious about regarding Jean's recovered memories: is it possible to block out that type of sexual abuse at 14? It seemed to have gone on for years, it was frequent, it was at times violent, and there were multiple abusers. And then she witnessed a dead body of a person who was her teacher.

I have heard of people who suppressed abuse as children. When I was 5 or 6, I had a babysitter whose husband tried to choke me. I hadn't even remembered it until I turned 40. I don't quite remember what triggered the memory, but it was real and it had happened. Now, that being said, I don't think that I would have lost that memory for so many years, had it happened when I was 14 or older. I remember my teens very well, so even though I believe a child could deeply suppress memories of abuse, can teens?

One thing is for certain, State's Attorney Sharon May was, and continues to be, a lying scumbucket; but then, aren't most willing tools of the Church?

One of the most touching things about this documentary is hoe Jean's (Jane Doe's) family, her husband, her kids, her 9 siblings, all stood by her and supported her through this ordeal. I'm not at all religious, but these appear to be good, Catholic people. Real Christians.

It's curious how little can be found online about another of the alleged rapists, Rev. Neil Magnus, other than that he died in 1988. Magnus' photos tell us two things: (1) he would still have been rather young to die in '88, and (2) he had major gayface.

Was that enough potentially career wrecking information Rev. Markell had on him to lure Magnus into a coverup? Was it Magnus who had the connection to Sister Catherine's neighbor, the elusive and suicidal "cousin Billy", whose own family claim disposed of Sister's body?

Magnus wouldn't have been the first, or last pedophile priest to cross gender-preference lines to get a blowjob. In the 1980s, at the height of the AIDS epidemic, youngish priests were dropping like flies. Is there a link? Throughout the documentary, it struck me as odd that "he died" resulted in no further investigation into his actual role or motives.

I was also curious about Father Magnus. He was rather young when he died. I wonder what he died of. The AIDS?

If Maskell paid to have Cathy killed, I wonder if the police ever checked the bank accounts of Billy the neighbor and Edgar Davidson. Neither had any real money. Edgar's wife said they were broke.

Was old man Edgar wearing a wig? He looked like the crypt keeper.

The Maskell DNA results do no such thing, R1. At best, they indicate he may have had an accomplice do his dirty work.

I was surprised at how interesting the series was. I thought it was only going to be about the nun's murder but it was so much more. And that State Attorney is a lying sack of shit. Didn't believe a word she said.

You don't bury boxes unless they're incriminating.

R36, she is a lying pos. Why would this man go through the trouble of burying boxes, had there not been incriminating evidence? I'm also surprised how much hubris this priest had. Why did he keep incriminating evidence? He should have burned it all. Instead, he buried it. I can only assume he did so for blackmail purposes.

I was kind of surprised by the dentist appearing toward the end...there hadn't been any mention of abuse of boys until then. He seemed so much more broken than the women did.

I love Jean (Jane Doe)... What a strong woman.

"Those fuckers!!"

The nuns knew Father Markell was a pedo long before they finally fired him and sent him packing to another parish. If the dead nun knew, so did others.

That poor nun would still be alive today if others had stepped up to the plate before her death.

No, but I will now.

So many pertinent comments and questions here that remain unanswered in the film. I'm appreciating this thread as much as the documentary itself.

I agree with the above. I was also confused as to why they would mention the late period. She and Koob had to have been having sex. He didn't come off sincere, but as a potential suspect to murder on a Dateline or 48 hours episode. I also thought she and Sister Russell must have been lovers. The whole thing just reeks of Catholicism: do bad, confess, your soul is clean, then repeat one hour later. Such stupid shit...but my family buys into it.

What I found interesting is that Sister Russell ended up leaving the order and married and two children but none of her surviving family members appeared in the documentary. One would assume that she would have at least told her husband something over all those years before she died in 2001 I would have loved to have heard from them. Also why did she call Koob and why was there a delay before they called the police? And I'm also confused about the vagina thing that Koob claimed are we supposed to believe that the police had her body parts just laying around.

I believe Jean when she says she saw Cathy's body, which means he may not have dealt the final blow but clearly Maskell was in on it. Why was Cathy's car returned basically to the front of her building in the middle of the road? That to me suggests maybe she managed to get out of the car and run for her apartment.

Yeah, I want to know more about that vagina thing...that was very weird.

R38 Maskell buried it because one of the detectives said pedos can't part with evidence of their crimes. Like keepsakes.

R44 Because the murderer lived nearby. The bond lady said her uncle lived directly across the street from where the car was parked.

Blond lady

[quote]So many pertinent comments and questions here that remain unanswered in the film. I'm appreciating this thread as much as the documentary itself.

It's movies like this that make me miss the IMDB discussion boards. There's zero discussion about this documentary on moviechat.org.

As the documentary developed it became clear that Maskell was seen as a player in a much larger web of corruption and cover ups within the Catholic Church in Baltimore, probably with the collusion of the police. The depravity of Maskell provided a breathtaking contrast to the humanity of his victims and the compassion and dedication of sister Cathy's ex students determined to get justice for her.

i just got past the 'jane doe's' confessional leading to the disgusting abuse by 2 priests and i want to vomit. that poor little girl and woman. it never leaves you.

just disgusting behavior in the name of god. not shocked just sickened and sad.

Her roommate, the nun, killed her.

[quote] Does John Waters even spend much time in Baltimore anymore?

That's where he lives.

thanks [52] i haven't finished watching it yet.....

R54, he is just speculating.

Another aspect that frustrated me was all of these women who were at same parochial school between 1969-1971 who didn't seem to know each other when they were brought together in the 1990s during the first trials or 20 years later when the documentarian got them together.

When they finally meet, including the 2 lady amateur detectives (who should get their own spin-off!), there was no chatting about the old days (at least not on camera). It's like they weren't at the same school.

R50 Based on the things the victims have said, Maskell seemed to be part of some kind of pedo ring that existed in the city that involved prominent people in it hence the ability to cover it up. Jean's memories have turned out to be accurate so far, so I believe that hew knew where Cathy's body was which means he was involved in it.

Sister Russell obviously knew something and I think she was afraid and very telling that she left the convent very soon after Cathy was found dead. Also her conversation with her friend a day or two before she died saying "Maskell went to the grave with his secret" suggestions she knew what he did. R44 I agree that its said that none of her family talked to the documentary crew. I can't believe she wouldn't have told her husband or children something about what happened.

The question is were Billy or Edgar (the two uncles) really involved in Cathy's death and if so, how were they connected to Maskell?

I think the good thing about the series is that you are left as clueless as the students.

The documentary gives you the evidence , but does not provide the answers. All those students don't have answers. They are searching for it and by showing us this documentary so are we.

I love the two researchers who gave so much time to their project.

I also love the way thefilmaker makes us the viewer. He doesn't point out the obvious. For instance when you go into the apartment of Edgar the camera just pans around the room looking at the stuffed toys and as the audience you are left going " WTF" But it doesn't do what a normal documentary does and make the filmmaker ask the obvious. The audience is just left there pondering what that means.

Why did Edgar cut the top portions of his shoes out?

Never saw so many middle-aged women with no makeup.

Lol, r60! Some were wearing makeup.

Part of me wondered if Edgar was Bi or trade and had a sexual relationship with the Gay guy , that was found out by the priest or police and was therefore easily able to be blackmailed to dispose of the body of the nun.

R62 I wonder is Edgar was Skippy the guy Bill hung out with. Since we know Maskell was bi, it's possible that how he knew Bill (the gay uncle).

[quote] "Maskell went to the grave with his secret"

I think that could also be referring to his child molestation/rape, though. I was surprised that NO ONE in this documentary spilled the beans on their death bed. But then again I was also surprised that the priest was able to molest 40+ students without a single one of them telling their family. He sure knew how to pick 'em.

I thought it was interesting, R64, that the only male victim of Maskell's to be interviewed, was the only one to tell other kids to watch out for the priest, and eventually tell his mother... he also appears to be the victim carrying the most baggage into adulthood.

That leads me to the compensation settlements. IIRC, the range was $25,000. to $50,000. Even in 1990s dollars that seems low. Not that there's any amount to right the wrongs, but I wonder if the Church can withstand the wave of anger the general public hearing insulting numbers like that will (hopefully) generate. Eventually Catholics will connect the dots, realizing it could have been (maybe was) their own children or extended family and friends. Churches, parochial schools, etc, closing is already taking its toll on the RC Church's wealth. With luck, this kind of candid exposure will create the kind of "optics" that result in empty Sunday Mass collections.

Fascinating documentary. I started Sunday night, thinking it might be interesting enough to watch a couple of episodes and catch the rest later. No way; I watched until I finished the last episode after 3 a.m.

Sister Cathy must have been an amazing person if Gemma and Abby cared enough after all those years to be so persistent in investigating her death in spite of the Catholic church's obstacles and all of the dead ends. That high regard would have made her even more dangerous to Maskell and his pedo ring. I seriously doubt her murder was unplanned because who would abduct her, take her to a secluded area to talk to her and just happen -- surprise -- to have a weapon in his hand to inflict that kind of damage. It seemed fairly obvious she was sexually abused, but I hope for her sake it was post-mortem.

I was very impressed with Jean, Jane Doe, and her wonderful husband Mike. She was obviously stunned when Charles came forward and she realized the Archdiocese had the corroboration all along and they lied to her about it. Ryan White's sister went to Keough and knew Jean; he conducted a 5-hour interview with her that led to the documentary. I'm providing a link to an interview where he talks about all of that and describes Jean as one of the most compelling people he has ever met.

It seemed fairly obvious that Edgar and Bill were somehow involved, at least in disposing of her body, but Edgar is such a slime it's impossible to know what he might have done.

The other and by far worse slime was Koob. I didn't believe a word that came out of his mouth. As if the police kept a vagina around to intimidate him. What was obvious is that he was involved sexually with Sister Cathy. He admitted he asked her more than once to leave the convent and marry him, but she refused. She may have had good reason to turn down his proposals. After finding out about Maskell and the others, it seems doubtful she would have gone on to take final vows at the end of the year. She referred in the letter to Koob's life as frenetic or chaotic or something like that, so she doesn't seem to have been impressed. They had a pregnancy scare and I'm wondering if there was something in his behavior about it that put her off. We only have his word for their deep feelings. I totally understand writing a letter to someone like Koob who would not have shut up long enough for her to say what she wanted him to hear. I have to admit he reminds me of an ex, who was never satisfied with telling a lie; he always embellished and confabulated until it was impossible to believe any part of what he was saying.

My real question what happened that evening in the apartment? There is actually no solid proof that Sr. Cathy bought anything at the mall that night. I have a hunch something happened to Cathy in the apartment. Why did it take so long for the police to be called, why was her car in the driveway? Why did Sr. Russell call Koob not the police?

Cathy bought a box of rolls at the mall that night, R67. The box of rolls was in her car when it was found.

As for why the police were not called, it seems likely Russell was part of the cover-up, probably because she was afraid.

All of the people who were in the apartment that night (that we know of) are dead with the possible exception of Edgar. We're not likely to learn what happened there.

Any idea how Father Neil Magnus died? he would have only been around 50 when he died?

I agree with R67 that something happened in the apartment itself. And Yes R68 Russell knew something and was clearly scared. After Cathy died she allegedly never talked to any of her fellow nun about it and ended up leaving the order.

R69 Magnus was 51 when he died and is buried with his parents in St. John the Evangelist Cemetery in Baltimore. I do find it odd that Mangus was buried with his parents, aren't priest provided with plots by the diocese? There is no known cause of death. It was the height of the AIDS crisis?

It's not that unusual for priests and nuns to be buried in family plots, R70.

R71 Is right. Priests and religious sisters can be buried with family if they want. Priests, nuns and monks in religious orders often get buried with their fellow sisters or brothers.

Koob went to Sister Russell's apartment when she called him, but according to him, they all just sat around the apartment? Until one point when Koob aaid he and his alibi "went out for a walk"? You aren't out looking for her but you'll go later to stretch your legs? And then he was the one to allegedly find the car. We don't know that. Maybe he fucking drove it back.

The letter was likely fake. He said Cathy turned down his proposal. But she continued fucking him? Was that a lie or did he rape her? Something's not right with this guy. Did you catch how his wife said, nothing that is covered won't be revealed? A line from Luke, I think. Was she saying this discovery would exonerate or incriminate her husband?

Did they ever say what drugs the dentist was using? He's been clean for years now. He was a surprise when they inserted him into the story.

[quote]The letter was likely fake. He said Cathy turned down his proposal. But she continued fucking him?

Not sure she continued fucking him, although she said in the letter she wanted him inside her. It sounded like may not have been ongoing. They fucked, she got pregnant, he proposed, she rejected him, then she got her period.

Has the Catholic church in Baltimore given any statement after the release of this Netflix thing?

No, R76. They've been asked, but they continue to refuse. They retweeted something that some of the victims were pissed off about.

R69... Magnus died at 51, of "cancer"... a fairly typical cause of death at the height of the pandemic.

R73... Something is off with Koob. My sense is that while not "guilty" of anything criminal, nor is he quite "innocent". He (and I suspect his wife) knows much, much, much more than he's telling. Whether it's about Cathy, Russell, Magnus, the Diocese, the 2 teens' visit the night prior, or something else, we presumably will never know. My hunch, however, is it's about Magnus. My suspicion is Russell and Koob's suspiciously unfindable friend could have confirmed some information Koob would rather remain unknown. My hunch is that Koob and Magnus, and later Koob and the missing buddy, were once "particular friends", as the term was at the time. I also suspect Cathy and Russell had a similar "particular friendship".

R75, when was the last time you typed "I want you inside me"? My money is on that letter being bogus. More likely, in my opinion, is the student/typist Maskell routinely drugged can't recall preparing it for him to mail when the need arose.

R78, she typed "I want you inside me" in 1970. She was a nun and I assume somewhat naive.

I agree that letter could have been Maskell's doing, R78. We're caught between two lying priests and no way to know if either of them ever told the truth.

Did she, R78? Or did someone who couldn't forge her reportedly unique handwriting type it, as if it were from Cathy?

I think the latter is the more likely, obviously.

R81 is directed to R79, not 78.

I wonder why she would have put any of the first part of that letter in writing, the sex stuff and pregnancy scare. Doesn't make much sense. Even if she didn't plan to take final vows, that could have destroyed her teaching career.

R83... doesn't it make more sense that someone trying to undermine her credibility would have written the letter?

Yes, and given the timeline it could have been after they killed her.

Just my opinion but my impression of Sister Cathy was that she would not have given up her virginity. From everything we're told about her, she didn't seem frivolous and/or impetuous. I think the letter is a fake.

It said in the doc that the police "came across" the letter while questioning Koob. What does that even mean and why didn't Ryan White directly confront him with the letter and ask for an explanation?

R86, I agree. I don't think Sister Cathy was parting with her virginity. The letter was not authentic.

Sister Cathy may have been experiencing serious doubts about staying in the order, but she was too week put together and mentally healthy for indiscreet behavior. Well, at least what was considered to be indiscreet behavior for a young lady who was a devout Catholic, living in the 60s.

^^^ "too well put together"

Watching it now.

I actually found Koobs believable ::ducks for cover::. But now you people have me wanting to watch this a second time now that I've read your perspectives and know all the players in the story start to finish. There goes another seven hours of my life!

It was the two priests and possibly another person. The cop brother??

This thing is creepy as shit. Glad I didn't go to a Catholic school.

It all ties to John Waters and I believe it will be revealed that he was the killer.

Cathy's sister said their father thought if Cathy left the Order she wouldn't be able to survive in this difficult world because she'd been a nun for so long. If Cathy hadn't taken her final vows yet, how could she have been a nun for so song? That doesn't make sense.

"I want you inside me"? In the 1960's? Even a woman who wasn't a nun wouldn't write a racy letter like that to her boyfriend in the 1960's. Also, if Cathy had a pregnancy scare, Koob was already inside her. I wish the producers had asked Koob flat out if he ever had intercourse with Cathy.

I think Sister Russell was a Lesbian. Maybe Maskell knew that and used it against her. That Maskell was a dirty motherfucker.

Sister Cathy entered the convent at 18, and died at 26, R94.

R95 And she hadn't taken her final vows yet?

R96 She was due to take her final vows in 1970. Most religious orders require an eight year transition period from postulant to final vows. I think Cathy was planning on leaving the order, her sister recalled that she had come home a few weeks before she died basically planning what her life would be outside of the convent.

The 60s was an interesting time for religious orders because of Vatican II. Religious life that was unchanged for centuries suddenly began to shift. The rigid life within the convent was easing up, most orders first modified and then got rid of their habits and convents began to be downsized to much smaller communities. It's also around this time that the number of people entering religious life began to plummet and Cathy was clearly lost up in all these changes.

Interesting side note, today many orders of nuns will become extinct because of the lack of women entering religious life. The only religious orders that are seeing large numbers of vocations are the very traditional orders of nuns that retain the original habits and live in cloister.

R90 I'm now rewatching this for the second time and I no longer suspect Koob has heavily as I did. Based on what was said in episode 2, Cathy goes out shopping and after she fails to return home after two or three hours, Sr. Russell calls Koob apparently because she assumed that Cathy had met up with him. He then rushed over and they wait an hour in which they held mass and then called the cops about an hour later. Why Russell didn't call the police after speaking to Koob I don't know but remember in the Catholic church nuns were not meant to act independently she would have taken her orders from priests.

The other major thing is Jean's claim of Maskell showing her Cathy's body, which would mean he was involved in some way.

I thought it was pretty obvious who did it. Billy, Bob, and Skippy the trans nun. Under the direction of father maskell.

Can someone remind me of what happened to Koob's fellow seminarian who was with him the night of the murder? Did Koob and the producers say they tried to get in touch with him over the years and just couldn't find him? That sounds so lame these days. Was his name Peter something?

I'm not sure I get all these assumptions about Sr. Russell being a lesbian. Because she had a man's name? And I don't think It was odd that she called Koob before the police. When Cathy disappeared there wasn't at that time necessarily any reason for her to be particularly alarmed. It wasn't yet that late at night. I think it makes sense that she would have called Koob first to be res=assured that there wasn't anything yet to be worried about.

Gemma and Abbie were riveting characters. I wish their opinions about whodunnit were ultimately addressed. Would it have been a case of slander if they sugested someone who is still alive like Koob or Edgar murdered or were involved with Cathy's death?

Thanks R97.

R100 There's a scene where Cathy's sister talks to Koob's friend (Pete) on the phone and apparently he is 85 and not in good health but basically repeated Koob's claims of what happened that night. I was left with the impression that after Cathy's death, Koob and Pete never really spoke again? I still suspect Koob for two reasons, remember an eyewitness said they saw Cathy appearing to be waiting for someone that night and Russell's first thought was to call Koob which makes me wonder was Cathy supposed to meet Koob that night?

Sr. Russell likely wasn't a lesbian. She ended up leaving the order within a year of Cathy's death and married and had two children. One of the journalists who covered Cathy's story in the 90s said that he interviewed Russell but while being extremely friendly and warm to him, she really didn't want to talk about what happened that night. He thought that all those years later she was still terrified about what happened. Russell died of breast cancer in 2001 and Director Ryan White allegedly did reach out to her husband and children but they said Russell didn't really talk about her life as a nun and they had no information that would have been helpful.

Gemma is no shrinking violet, R100! I'm fairly sure, if she had a prime suspect, that she'd have subtly shared it. She plays her cards close to her chest, but calls 'em as she sees 'em. I loved her cat-and-mouse banter with the old ex-cop (detective?) who was the first called to the scene, immediately after Sister Cathy was found. I think it was in a voice-over, but she definitely shared that she thinks he's still hiding key information. The way she compared him to Paul Newman clearly was her way of accusing him of acting... and he got it. She's and Abby are a perfect team. Just yesterday, by the way, Gemma made a public statement (on a Facebook page a friend linked to me) that they're still on the case and asking anyone who has even a small bit of information to contact her. Meanwhile, I keep wondering if there is a Joyce Malecki connection, and will that be the basis for a season 2.

Regarding the two men who supposedly returned home to their wives covered in blood: Was Cathy's head wound capable of causing such a bloody mess? And why didn't either of the men change their damn shirt before returning home?? If her murder was planned, it was bad planning.

Cathy had a huge hole on the side of her head. I think crooked cops may be involved. They raped girls too.

R103 I believe​ Malecki either went to Archbishop Keogh or knew Maskell. There was some kind of connection.

Abby and Gemma deserve their own series. Each season featuring a new "whodunnit".

R91, after re-watching, I feel even more strongly that Koob is a liar and all-around slime, but I don't think he murdered Cathy. My impression is that he was involved in some things he is still ashamed of, maybe on some level in covering for Maskell and the pedophiles. He might have known or suspected more about her murder than he is willing to admit. Remember he was a Jesuit in the 60s and 70s and they had their own ugly scandals, and he was both sneaky and shady. He and Edgar are both chronic liars but Edgar seems a more likely suspect in her actual murder and body disposal (along with Billy). Edgar was a pedophile himself, so Maskell could have been blackmailing him.

R94, I think it's likely that Cathy's parents were so proud their daughter was a nun they didn't want her to leave the order. They were old-line Polish Catholics for whom having a daughter in the convent would have been the source of great pride. They refused to talk about her murder, and only after their deaths did their daughter and son come forward and become involved with Gemma, Abby, Jean and the others among Cathy's former students who were investigating her death and the pedophile ring coverup.

I haven't finished it yet but I am really shocked at how far the ring is reaching into the church and police as well as politicians and businessman and that creepy fucking doctor watching the priest fuck the girl in the stirrup bench. Ugh! I also cannot believe how naive some of the parents are. A priest driving young girls to a movie? Are they fucking kidding? They had to know the rumors of pedo priests even back then.

R109, I wonder how many abortions that doctor performed for girls who were impregnated by Maskell and his pedo friends.

I forgot Edgar was a pedo. That makes sense of his involvement in the murder.

R104 She had a massive hole through her skull, yes lost of blood possible. The interesting thing is there was no sign of blood where her body was found or in her car, which means she was killed elsewhere.

R109 Pedophilia or sexual assault was not a subject that was talked about openly in the 50s or 60s this was a very different world then. I grew up very Catholic during the 80s and our parish priests were very much involved in our family life. I remember my friends and I used to hang out in the Rectory and our parents never gave it a second thought.

Funny enough I'm pretty sure I had a close call with a priest when I was a young kid. I don't remember specifics anymore but my best friend and I would ride our bikes in the church parking lot a lot. I remember one of the priests asked us to come into the church to help with something. I don't remember much but he said something (and don't ask me what it was) but I remember when he went to get something in the vestment room, my friend and I ran out of the church before he got back. I just remember we felt uncomfortable and after that the priest was distant to my friend and I.

Considering the number of girls raped, and the number of times they were raped, surely some of them must have gotten pregnant.

Do you think the priest and the Dr. performed abortions on them?

I would not be surprised R113. Some of the girls said they experienced "lost" time and he would give them cokes probably laced with drugs. The one woman explaining how the priest would douche her was creepy and he even explained to her parents that she needed them. If I was a parent I would definitely question why a man was involved in my daughter's gynecological business.

I watched this with my dad over the weekend and he's a retired cop who worked in the sex crimes division of his force and he believes Sr. Cathy was the victim of a pedo ring. Most pedos don't act alone they're like cockroaches you find one you know there's another dozen around nearby. Maskell was well connected so no way he'd kill Cathy himself. Rather he'd get some low lifes (Billy, Edgar) do the deed for him. Also I found all the stuffed animals in Edgar's house to be fucking creepy.

[quote]Also I found all the stuffed animals in Edgar's house to be fucking creepy.

I haven't gotten this far yet but that sounds like a ploy to placate kids and make them feel safe or that they are having "fun".

I don't think Koob is lying but that retired cop with the beard and the black woman in charge of the sex crimes division were either hiding something or prevaricating in the case of Ms. Mays.

R116, if you've gotten as far as Koob's story about the police detective putting Cathy's newspaper-wrapped vagina on the table in front of him?

#1, why would her vagina have been removed by the medical examiner? I asked a friend who does autopsies and she said it's not any kind of standard procedure.

#2, why would the medical examiner provide her vagina to the police?

#3, why would the police think her vagina would make Koob change his story?

Haven't gotten that far R117. I'm planning on trying to finish it tonight.

Sorry, R118. I think you'll change your mind about Koob being a liar, although I don't think he killed her.

Oh, I don't mind spoilers at all R119.

Good, R120. I was feeling guilty.

there is a 2nd season? I could barely get through 7 episodes....Everything was so fucking repetitive....it got really annoying and drawn out. I survived catholic schools, elementary and high school.....this whole case is evil and wicked. don't think i will even try to watch anything about this again. i have never had such a hard time getting through a series....it seemed like it took forever.

Wow... those.RC recruitment camps sure did a number on you, R122!

R123. ROTFLMAO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Amen!

Pardon the pun!

My cat likes this show.

I'm grateful for the bit of time I spent in Catholic school. I learned all about racism at an early age which turned me into the skeptic I am today, and brought about an understanding that organized religion is bullshit.

So see, good things can come out of going to Catholic schools.

[126] you are right....when i had to go to public schools after my parents could not afford tuition at the catholic gulags i was so far ahead

of the kids there i spent a lot of time at the beach smoking pot and making candles in the sand.....what's to complain??

While I think Koob is an attention seeker and a bit of a creep, I don't think he killed Cathy. Remember that the night before she went missing, there was a girl from Keough at Cathy's and Russell's apartment allegedly complaining about Maskell and then Maskell allegedly barged into the apartment. That girl (woman now) to this day refuses to speak publicly about what happened that night. Next day, Cathy goes missing. I think that letter that Cathy allegedly typed up for Koob about "wanting him inside her" was planted by someone to cast suspicion onto Koob.

Both Jean and two other women who were interviewed stated that they were raped by police offers which looks like Maskell was part of some citywide pedophile ring made up of important figures in the city. Maskell didn't kill her directly (which is why the DNA test came back neg) but he was definitely involved in planning something. I also wonder if Cathy's death wasn't originally the plan, I wonder if she tried to flee and then the person hit her on the back of the head which caused her death? My other wonder is was she raped? They found her with her clothes pulled up exposing her breasts and vagina. Also I can bet Sr. Russell knew more but her life was probably threatened something like if you blab you'll end up like Cathy.

I'm only in the second episode. Jean is getting on my nerves and has since she started getting airtime. I don't believe her....she is like a magnet of the outrageous. Her uncle abuses her and takes her to a bar for others to abuse her? She is abused by policeman and priests? A murderer or conspirator brings her to see the body of the murdered nun? She's also on the hyper-religious side which always makes me question a person's grasp on reality. The second episode is all about her. I hope the focus shifts because I'm weary of her.

Someone mentioned Koob said they doing the eucharist service in the women's apartment while waiting to report the nun missing to the police, I, too, found that detail bizarre. I have never heard of priests doing impromptu communion rituals. He even said they saved a piece of the consecrated bread for Cathy, I think that was a distracting detail.

Jean is used to not being believed, R130. You're neither the first, nor the last. In fact, that is one of the concerns of the documentary.

Jean is religious but also drops F-bombs and appears to practice mediation/yoga and be open-minded.

Jean was right about seeing maggots in winter.

Did somebody say BALTIMORE?

R130 here. I just finished the the whole series. I'm believing Jean more. However, I doubt she saw the body and seriously doubt she wiped the maggots off a decomposed body of a loved one. No one would do that, least of all a 16 year old.

What about Koob saying the detective threw Cathy's vagina on the table? WTF?

Did the documentary say how long after Cathy's disappearance Jean supposedly saw her dead body? It may not have been decomposing quite yet. Plus it was late fall/winter so...natural refrigeration.

R136 The body seemed to be intact. No decomposition. So I assume it was shortly after her death.

R129 I bet Maskell told one of the abusing cops and the cops got Edgar and Billy to kill her for exchange for something. Maybe an expunged criminal record, money. Who knows.

Jean did see Sr. Cathy's body within a week of her disappearance. Gemma and Abbie checked the weather reports for that week which said Baltimore was in the mid-60s, unseasonably warm.

I would have thought the suspicious old geezer cop with the white hair and beard and blue eyes ("Paul Newman") was a quite a looker back in the day but then when they showed his early photos he just looked like some young geezer.

OMG, Sr Cathy's car! A 1969 green Ford Maverick. It triggered me and I remember in 1976 buying a 1972 green Ford Maverick. One of the most hideously ugly and shoddy cars ever manufactured.

Watch the very opening of episode six when Edgar is given a picture of Maskell and Cathy and his reaction speaks volumes. When he's first handed a picture of Maskell he instantly recognizes him then catching himself he claims hes' seen him in the papers but never knew him. The he looks at the picture of Cathy. Director: "Do you know who that is" Edgar: "Cathy" and then he looks away and begins to almost hyperventilate. He may not have killed her, but he clearly knew these two people. This is a guy who clearly is in the throws of some kind of mental illness but her remembered these two faces so clearly. He would be my top suspect.

That fucking Edgar was FUCKED in the head. Was it schizophrenia/dementia? God he was painful to watch. What a documentary! I feel like something is wrong with me, am I the only one who found Koob thoughtful, honest, and kind???? I feel like that I have missed something and I am gullible. The vagina part was SO. FUCKED. UP. That was the only part that made me wonder about him.

Lots of discussion on the official Facebook page for the doc

R143. I thought he seemed pretty decent. He may have lied about the nature of his relationship with Sister Cathy (saying they were just friends instead of admitting a romantic relationship) but I can understand why a priest would be hesitant to acknowledge that. I also don't think he made up the story about a cop showing him a "vagina." I'm sure it wasn't actually a real vagina but I'm guessing someone was trying to scare him.

Just to be clear, I am talking about Koob being decent not Edgar. Edgar is as creepy as they come.

I felt like everything out of Koob's mouth was a lie. He completely creeped me out from his first second on screen.

Did the autopsy note whether or not Cathy was pregnant?

What would stop an unethical cop from obtaining a removed vagina---ANY vagina---from the coroner's lab just to shock Koob into some kind of misstep and/or confession? It needn't have been Sr Cathy's actual vagina, as just the thought of it would have and DID have a devastating effect upon Koob that has lasted for decades.

Did somebody say BALITIMORE?

R145, I'm so damn naive. I never occurred to me that it might be fake. DUH.

The one story in which she was killed in the apartment doesn't make sense. It was known that Sister Cathy went shopping and Sister Russell was home for part if not all of the evening. When did the killing actually take place? There was no signs of struggle or blood? Did the police search the apartment.

I thought it was interesting in episode six when they told the new detective (Childs) about the missing letter. The look on his face was revealing - he seemed pissed to learn of it. It appears that the letter from Sister Cathy was logged into evidence with the Baltimore city police department at the time of her murder but never turned over to the new investigators with the county when they took over. It disappeared and the new investigators never saw it. I don't think Childs liked learning about it for the first time from the film maker. I wouldn't be surprised if he decides to look into it a little further. He's from a different agency than the original detectives and has no reason to protect any of the old-timers who might have been involved in a cover-up.

R150. I only say it was fake fake because how many people would recognize a vagina that has been surgically removed from a body and wrapped up in a piece of paper?!?! I'm a woman and I wouldn't know what a "real" one looks like in that context. It could have been any random animal part from the butchers shop wrapped in paper. Plus, he was a young priest. Would he even know a vagina from chopped liver? :)

I hope more people leave the church after watching this documentary. Bankrupt the motherfuckers. I still don't know whether to believe Deep Throat or Sharon May, though.

Unfortunately, R153, it is not so black and white. There are many admirable people in the documentary, religious and non-religious. I was raised Catholic and never experienced any of this but do know some acquaintances that have. I am ambivalent but went I get over that I realize I was given some pretty good values that have guided me pretty well through life. I have to thank the many people in my parish and school who gave of their time and caring with no reward expected.

edgar was a fucked up ugly hot mess gemma has a butterface and she and abbie checked every motherfucking bit of minutia ad nauseum....

seriously did these people have no other lives?? and yeah, what was with koob stating poor sister cathy's vagina was thrown on the table in a bag? wtf over? vaginas are NOT removed in autopys.

I loved that Jean's family stood by her. This is unfortunately not always the case with Catholic families and abuse victims. There is a line from Jean that resonated with me a lot. She talks about her relationship with her mother and how the abuse destroyed that. That's exactly what happened with me and my mother.

Btw, there are a lot of discussion threads on reddit about this documentary.

I assume R5 was neither murdered, nor ever a victim of RC clergy.

The first thing I thought when the cunt DA said she rode up in her new, shiny red convertible was if the church 'bought' it for her. I've never seen someone so obviously lie. They could write the textbook based on her facial expressions.

Is it typically part of an autopsy to cut out a vagina? If so, why?

That Sharon May seemed like the smuggest CUNT of the highest order. What human garbage.

And I am telling you that dead nun roommate had tons to do with this.

And honestly, what a vile human being to take all she knew to her grave? God bless her wherever she is, but my feeling is she should have told everything she knew on her deathbed to bring that family some peace and to help others.

Makes me really wonder if she was heavily involved...

"Our plan as of now is not to do a season 2, but we are following along with all of the developments. It has been crazy to see what has happened in just the past few weeks, including the news about the exhumation of Maskell’s body, and a lot of information coming out of Ireland about the time that Maskell spent there.

We were focused on one perpetrator and still found that the abuse was happening in multiple places across the city (Maskell was abusing inside and outside the school), and now, sadly, all around the world. The Irish press has been researching the time that Maskell spent in Ireland and we have already had people come forward with their experiences there.

I recommend looking into some of the dogged reporting that's happening in Ireland right now uncovering Maskell's time there. I'm very afraid of what they're finding out -- we know he was masking as a family psychologist and operating still as a priest -- so it's chilling to think he still had access to children."

Vagina transplants are the norm these days, but not in the 60's...they must have taken one from a lab to spook Koob.

I was kind of surprised that Sister Cathy had a brand new car--a 1969 Maverick, which cost about $2000 then. Not that it's THAT weird, but I would have thought a nun back then wouldn't have been making enough money to have a new car.

The black ex prosecutor laughing about her new red convertible was a tacky, lying grifter. The neck rolls and her confrontational "code switching" speech at the end of her interview were just unbelievable.

She and Marion Barry were cut from the same cloth.

Unreal.

Exhuming Maskell? New evidence?

What I still do not understand is who did Sister Cathy tell? Surely she wasn't stupid enough to confront Maskell directly? Did she tell the principal, other teachers, parents, etc.? If she knew something was up, why did she transfer to the public school and leave those girls to fend for themselves? Seriously, what the hell took her so long to tell someone? If the diocese refused to listen to her, she should have gone to the parents or media. It just made her seem indifferent to me or put herself ahead of the victims. Was the transfer to the public school some kind of bribe to keep her mouth shut? A whole summer passed, and it seems as though she kept this information under her hat for personal gain. I just do not understand her actions at all.

That intrigued me also, R166. I think '69 was well before most communities permitted nuns to live out of convents, even if their careers took them into the public sector. I have a sense her Mother Superior allowed her to leave, hoping to put Sister Cathy out of harms way . She probably thought Maskell was a lone wolf.

But don't you think Sister Cathy was being irresponsible for leaving Keough before the issue was resolved, especially since she was a key confidant? To me it came off as "Well, girls, I just got this awesome new gig, so you are just going to have to put up with being tag teamed for a little while longer until I get around to being your beloved advocate.

What if she confided in Koob. He urged quiet until they could get witnesses and facts straight as a team. Maybe he was in with Maskell---or Maskell found out and elicited Koob's cooperation---she wouldn't let it go, and Maskell had her silenced.

Your suspicion is certainly possible R166 / R168, but , although we actually know very little about Cathy with any certainty, her being that irresponsible seems out of character. I think it's telling that her former students ( Gemma, Abbie), including some who were victims of Maskell/ Magnus / et al (Jean, Teresa, Kathy, Lil and others) don't appear to think Cathy abandoned them.

I think it is important to keep the time frame in mind. In the '60s, women clergy were not permitted to take independent action on anything. At that time, Sister Cathy's living out of the convent and teaching in a public school would have been more than highly unusual ; it would have been extraordinarily rare. Under no circumstances would it have been a choice she made on her own. She, with the support of her convent's superior, would have had to receive permission, in the form of a directive, from her Mother House' Prioress General. Since Cathy appears to have been an exemplary nun up until the time of her leaving Keough, and since we can assume her continuing good standing within her order indicates she was acting as directed by her superiors, I suspect both her Mother Prioress and convent's Mother Superior were at least somewhat aware (possibly through Cathy, but equally likely through reported suspicions from Cathy's fellow Sisters) of at least Maskell's abusive nature, probably that his exposure was imminent, and directed Cathy to leave Keough and live in a non-convent setting, naively thinking she would be safer away from Diocesan control, temporarily working and living "in the world". A dreadful notion, as it turned out.

Meanwhile, it is another source of information that continues to intrigue me. Who, I wonder was "Deep Throat", the anonymous detective reportedly working on the Maskell case in 1994? Presumably, he refuses to be identified because he fears reprisals from people responsible for the cover-up of Sister Cathy's death and Maskell's abuse. If I recall correctly, he claims to have interviewed more than 100 girls in the case who knew of or were involved in sexual abuse. Is he another whose secrets will go to his grave with him?

The only thing that threw me about Edgar and the black woman with the glasses is...if they had anything to do with this, why'd they agree to be interviewed for the documentary?

On another note, does anyone know of any other long documentaries like this one that I can spend an entire day watching? I've already seen Making a Murderer and The Staircase which are the only two I can think of that are this long. Any others?

"The Jinx" is worth seeing, , R171. It's a six-part documentary that delves into the history of real estate heir Robert Durst, suspected in the unsolved 1982 disappearance of his wife as well as the murders of a family friend, and a neighbor.

Valid points, R170. I just do not know what to make of this case. Everyone seems to be untrustworthy, shady bastards. This just proves what a frustrating job detectives have. Moreover, we know the other nuns were probably aware as well, as declared by Jane Roe. Seriously, a parade of girls was being called into Maskell's office on a routine basis, and no one raised an eyebrow besides Sister Cathy? So much fuckery of the highest order!!

Exactly, R171! I am not sure if Sharon May is telling the truth, but at least she is being transparent. Sorry, but I can't accept Deep Throat's information when he refuses to "come into the light."

I agree, R173 , etc.

Once again, these raised points and questions are what I find so frustrating about the documentary. Ryan White did not demand clearer explanations from so many that participated.

In White's defense, R175, a documentarian can only document facts as presented, when solid evidence does not exist. White, it seems to me, likely in an abundance of caution, purposely avoided personally taking on the role of an investigative journalist. In what I feel is a savvy way of bridging that gap, White employed the interestingly compatible investigative approaches of Gemma and Abbie. God knows the various professional investigators did a piss-poor job! Ultimately, the success or of "The Keepers" will be determined by how much awareness it's created, rather than how well it's has, or hasn't solved cold-case crimes.

I can easily see why parents were so trusting of the priests. I remember when all these scandals broke in the 90s. My aunt, who was probably early 70s at the time, said it didn't surprise her that all these priests were being protected. Growing up Catholic, there was one thing she learned - the priests were untouchable. They were the closest thing to God on earth. That's also why you trusted your kids with them. At that time, there for sure wouldn't have been a parent (except probably for my mom) who wouldn't leave their kids along with the priests. And the priests knew that - they definitely abused their power that way. It's sad that all those priests got away free. I grew up in a small town on the Canadian prairies, and we had a local priest who got busted in the 90s. Two or three men accused him of fondling them when they were boys. This priest got squirrelled away to some Catholic 'treatment' place in the U.S., then sent permanently to live in the French countryside somewhere. Some punishment.

I don't see how anyone can criticize white women for entitlement & privilege.

What happened at that school is an atrocity.

The patriarchy only protects the powerful.

R5 So is Hollywood and Washington. I'd love to see Netflix have the courage to tackle pedophilia in those two cities. I'm not holding my breath though.......

Koob didn't see her vagina -- the documentary was (deliberately) unclear on this, I think because Koob thinks it WAS Sister Cathy's vagina wrapped up in newspaper.

But the retired Baltimore police officer says right afterward that he didn't know where Koob even came up with that story, but city cops never played tricks like that, and he's clear that the claim is that a policeman came out with a wad of newspaper that he showed to Koob, and claimed that inside the newspaper was Sister Cathy's vagina. It was interesting that the retired police officer (chief, maybe) said, "Well, maybe COUNTY police would have done that, but not my men, not on my watch."

Clearly it was just a trick to try to get Koob to talk, but the fact that he thinks there really was a vagina in there -- and the fact that he described it as heart-shaped, which would be vagina, cervix, fallopian tubes AND ovaries -- makes me think he either got spooked by something and isn't remembering clearly, or the whole thing is a lie.

[quote]I wonder is Edgar was Skippy the guy Bill hung out with.

Probably not, since Skippy had a prominent handlebar mustache. Fake hair wasn't that great back then (just watch late-60s movies if you don't believe me) so I don't think it would be possible for Edgar to have worn a fake when he was hanging around Uncle Billy.

With cops involved in the mix, as well as politicians, this was NEVER going to go anywhere. That DA is so bought and paid for - right down to her tacky glasses. And for the ones who say DNA evidence clears the priest? No, it doesn't. Who even thought he killed her with his own bare hands? By all accounts, he was too intelligent for that, and probably knew every 'bad seed' altar boy in Baltimore. What I'd like to know is what exactly did Maskell bury in the cemetery? Probably tons of incriminating evidence against him, the police, the doctor and how many others? Sick - anyone who was complicit in this - including the DA - is sick.

[quote]"I want you inside me"? In the 1960's?

It was "I want you within me" -- it was far more chaste than you're all making it out to be! If she hadn't followed it up with saying she wanted to have his children, it could have been taken as poetic rather than the crude "inside me" thing you all are obsessing about. "Within me" would be something even a nun would read in poetry or somewhat lurid 1800s prose; she's the nun who assigned The Scarlet Letter, remember?

And we honestly didn't get enough info about Sister Cathy's personality to know whether she'd write that letter or not. She was nice and honest and exuberant, but that's about all we know.

The documentary really screwed up by not asking Koob or her sister about the letter.

Aaand why is that letter still available while the one that was postmarked after Cathy's disappearance gone?

I think it's a moot point, R188. There is less than a snoball's chance in Hell that Cathy typed the letter in question.

[quote]Jean is getting on my nerves and has since she started getting airtime.

I think she was abused but has done something pretty typical with victims of childhood abuse: exaggerated what happened as a defense mechanism. Turn it into something unbelievable so it's like it was just a movie or TV show and not real, and therefore easier to dismiss. Also, the exaggeration serves to make the story seem as horrendous and damaging as it FEELS to the victims.

I don't think she's doing it on purpose.

But at the same time I could not shake the fact that the "Brother Bob" person she spoke about sounded like KILLER BOB from "Twin Peaks." And her recovered memories apparently started around the time she was 40, which would have been about 1991, just after "Twin Peaks" aired.

I wonder why the other victims interviewed were not asked about Brother Bob? Surely Jane Roe encountered him at one point. It just doesn't seem plausible that Jean, Jane Doe, was the only victim to have interacted with him. Because of this, I too doubt the veracity of Jean's recollections.

Creepy stuff

Not a moot point at all, R184. I think it's a good example of how things get so easily mucked up in an investigation: people coming up with theories based on incomplete and incorrect information, and then defending those theories even in the face of evidence to the contrary.

Koob would not have kept that letter around. It directly contradicted his story about his relationship with her and provided a reason to consider him a suspect. So I get why people would think it was planted, but the documentary for whatever harebrained reason never asks Koob about the letter. Never asks why that letter survives while the one postmarked after Cathy's disappearance doesn't. Never explains where the letter came from, just mentions it and leaves it there.

It's a great series but this particular thing is really poor work on the documentary's part, because it's clearly trying to use the letter as a means to shed doubt on Koob's story in an effort to have him as yet another suspect. It's just this side of dishonest, especially in light of how the doc deliberately made the newspaper/vagina thing so vague that most viewers missed what was really going on.

So I'm not blaming anyone here for getting info wrong, but I'm giving the documentary a bit of the ol' side-eye for its clumsy manipulation of facts.

Have you considered that the most plausible reason for the letter still being around may be that it was planted by someone (I'm guessing Maskeii) to throw suspicion Koob's way, R188?

People hand wrote letters in those days, not typed them. And nuns had beautiful penmanship.

Just finished it, OP. This is truly terribly done. Badly edited voiceovers on top of the same montages of still photos, on top of endless, pointless, droning music. No mystery established, no coherent story progression, no reveals, no closure. No nothing. Would have been better done as a single episode of a true crime show in the 90s instead of being stretched out over multiple endless episodes.

So did they give up linking that random girl's killing to this?

[quote]Plus, he was a young priest. Would he even know a vagina from chopped liver? :)

All this talk about chopped liver and throwing vaginas down on a table is giving me great ideas for a new cafe.

I came away from this documentary with more questions than answers.

R192, of course not.

This was so disturbing, I had nightmares for days. There simply isn't enough concrete evidence to directly link anyone to the murder though, especially in court. There is a great thread in reddit on this case. It brought me to this terrifying article, which shows this extended beyond Keogh (not surprising I guess)...

The size of the hole in Cathy's skull appears to have been done by extreme angry, brutal force. Like from a big guy.

R189, don't get pissy with me if you can't even bother to read what I wrote at R188.

R198 , I read what you wrote, I just don't completely agree.... and something about Koob screams "shady character" to me.

If this were made into a move, Glenn Close would be perfect as Jean. No make-up required.

Go ahead and hate on Jean, she's survived way more than you weak fuckers can throw at her...

And she persists...

No one is hating on Jean. It's just that there are so many holes in this doc that it is difficult to know who is credible. I believe Jean was sexually assaulted and probably saw the body, but I question the existence of Brother Bob. How come none of the other victims encountered him if he is real?

No disrespect meant to Jean, but I got the impression that some of what she recalls as memories are filtered through her struggle to make sense of things that will never make any sense. The best way I can describe my reaction is that I suspect her recovering unconscious has slipped into a form of hyperconsious overdrive. Nonetheless, I accept most of her memories as close to, if not precisely accurate. In fact, in an odd way, it's the spectre of unbelievability that make her memories all the more believable for me.

Another thing about Koob: he said he would *never* forgive the cop for showing him what he believed to be her vagina. What kind of priest or spiritual leader of any kind intentionally decides to never forgive, to hold a hateful grudge, to brag about their conditional love when their entire life revolves around being seen as ethically enlightened and a conduit to divine love?

I think he killed her. And I think he and his wife are both drunks.

I don't think Koob murdered Sister Cathy, R204, but I do think he had a part (most likely unwittingly) in setting her up. I agree with your suspicion that he's sought solace from a bottle ever since. His wife intrigues me. She knows more that she lets on.... much, much, much more. How aware she is of what she knows is another question.

R171 I haven't seen "Making a murderer" but about "The staircase" or "The jinx" I'd recommend looking those up or even searching for threads on DL about them after watching the series because a lot of info was missing from those docs, it made me realize how untrustworthy those type of shows can be tbh.

Jesus christ this is a tough watch. I feel like I have been watching itball day and am only on episode 5. Every single thing from Jane Doe rings true, that poor woman, so many people failed her. I am glad she has such a great family.

I thought the second family with the uncle story was schizophrenia but 46 is generally too old for onset of that.

R207 It is a tough watch indeed. Interesting subject matter but a boring execution.

I wasn't bored at all, R208.

You can put me in the not bored at all category.

I wish they had spent a little more time explaining some things that were left hanging. That is my biggest criticism.

R209 It was a snoozefest of the highest order. Too much bulllshit about the Church abuse in the beginning not enough about Sister Cathy's murder. There's room for the church abuse stories but I felt they were overshadowing the murder at certain points.

I binge-watched it over the weekend. Very compelling story! The editing could have been better. But, I highly recommend it.

I wasn't implying I was bored at r207- although they do a LOT of unnecessay reiterating of things (although I suspect they did some of that in order to cement the idea that it- whatever it was- was remembered by more than one person and more likely to be true).

I mostly meant it brought up a lot of shit for me in the form of empathy and tears for the victims (Mostly Jane Doe) and rage that could go no where at all the people that conspired in this evil thing, either directly or through willful ignorance.

I'm watching it right now. Maskell was one of the most evil men who ever lived, even if he wasn't involved in Sister Catherine's death (which he almost certainly was).

The two perky older women who keep trying to solve the mystery are so cool. I would love to see a series with them solving mysteries.

I didn't like the series when they started interviewing Edgar. He's barely got two brain cells left to rub together, and it's also hard to understand him because his dentures are out.

One of the things that's kind of haunting about the series was how brand spanking new Archbishop Keough High School was in 1969. The school had only been built four ears earlier, and it still looked almost like an architect's model when the story happened.

The trouble with the series is that it's clear the director Ryan White fell in love with the ambiguities of the case--which makes the narrative murkier as it goes and less compelling after the first stunning two episodes. I got bored by some of the details that didn't go much of anywhere, like the necklace with the green rhinestone.

The best thing the series has going for it (as White himself has admitted) is Jean Wehner, who was beautiful then as well as now, and is so likable. While I agree there are some details (like Brother Bob) which don't seem to add up in her account, it's clear she was molested by Father Maskell and that he was deeply implicated in Sister Cathy's death.

The series reminded me all over again how incredibly sick the Catholic church has been in the US (and everywhere) in the 20th century. Its obsession with always being right, combined with its secrecy and its Byzantine hierarchies, made it possible for Maskell to get away with involvement in murder, and have kept the truth from coming to light.

I honestly can't quite convince myself Maskell was involved in Sister Cathy's death, simply because so many people in the church knew about Maskell being a monster and it never really affected him, not until the 1990s when he was on death's door. I don't feel like the documentary really made a case for Cathy having gone so far that it would spook Maskell into murder.

I think it's far more likely there was a serial killer since there were three other victims in similar crimes around the same time and Cathy was one of the victims. Maskell may have taken advantage of Cathy's murder to scare the shit out of the students he was molesting, though -- he clearly had a history of violent intimidation. Jean's story about being taken to Cathy's corpse is hard to believe, but I COULD believe that Maskell told her, "I killed Cathy because she was your ally and friend, I'll kill you too, you'll be out rotting in the woods with maggots all over you just like she is" or something heinous along those lines.

It's a theory, anyway.

Along those lines, R204, I noticed the clip of Koob at his Bible meeting had him slamming the Catholic Church a bit, talking about how confession isn't a good thing but a bad thing because it encourages people to just keep acting poorly and making mistakes, knowing there's a clean slate at the end of the week and they can do it all over again.

I think the whole thing with Cathy tested his faith, and he's now willing to say he's a deeply religious man who ALSO is a man who can't forgive some things, even though he's supposed to.

Something I can't get over is how many suspects there were.

This was a nice woman, well liked, a progressive nun in a town full of nuns. Nothing about her was special, nothing about her particularly attractive to monsters, yet there are a half-dozen men who are easy suspects in her brutal assault and murder: Fr Maskell, Edgar, Gerry Koob, Uncle Billy and/or Skippy, and Fr Magnus. There are probably more suspects known to the police. Even a completely normal, innocuous woman has MULTIPLE men in her orbit who could very well have been willing to murder her.

R12, are you dense? It was never claimed that Father Maskell himself killed the nun, but that he had someone do it for him.

They need to check the DNA on the cigarette against Ed and whatever DNA remains of Billy Schmidt.

I wonder if Jean was ever taken to Dr. Richter's? The documentary should have questioned if she had met the gynecologist. In the very least, it would have corroborated Jane Roe's story. Still can't believe the parents let a priest take their daughter to visit Richter.

R18, I think the letter said she had been two weeks late but her period finally came.

R22, Koob had already said in an earlier episode that he and Cathy had grown very close and he had asked her to marry him, with both of them leaving the clerical life. But she declined. So, even if he doesn't say it outright, they had some kind of emotional relationship which could even have been sexual.

R63, we don't "know" that Maskell was bi, we know that he abused little boys and teenage girls. Abusing little boys does not make an adult male bi or gay, it makes him a child abuser.

R136/r137, the coroner's report actually said there were maggots on the body.

R142, the way he says "Cathy" makes me think that he knew her and loved her in some way. Maybe he was forced to kill her, but his reaction definitely seems to be of someone who had an emotional connection to her.

I thought about that when they talked about moving Maskell from the boys school to the girls school after Charlie's mother wreaked hell with the archdiocese. I think he was willing to abuse any child who was convenient.

As for the parents not complaining about Maskell taking the girls to Dr. Richter, I think it's because Maskell chose girls from families who would not object to anything he did. Even today, there are people who are such dedicated Catholics, they would never consider questioning anything that was done by an authority figure in the church.

R186, I seem to recall that at least one of the other women mentioned a Brother Bob or someone who could have been Brother Bob, even if she didn't give that name. Jane Doe isn't the only one who mentioned that there were other men involved in Maskell's office.

What I'm interested in is the over 4000 pages of the FBI file on this case and the evidence that was apparently "lost" when the case moved from the county to the city police (including the letter Sister Cathy wrote to her sister but which the sister gave to the police without reading).

It's also obvious that the police investigation into the case is ongoing, hence checking the DNA on the cigarette and exhuming Maskell's body (although they should be exhuming Billy Schmidt's - this seems like a continuation of the cover up in order to exonerate Maskell, because no one said he personally killed Sister Cathy).

It's astounding to me that all of these teenage girls who were horribly abused in the same halls of the same high school in the space of 1969-1971 somehow NEVER SPOKE TO EACH OTHER about what was going on.

We are repeatedly told that each girl was publicly announced on the school's audio system to come to Maskell's office so there was no mystery at the time of who might be abused.

I believe the abuse happened, I'm not doubting that. It's the lack of communication between the girls that I simply don't understand. Even when they meet up as middle aged women in the 1990s, there is no recognition between them.

Can anyone explain that?

R231 I assume they were threatened by the priest, no? Also they're Catholic, so there was probably lots of shame involved. I doubt they were going to be shouting their abuse from the rooftops.

Of course they were threatened by the priest and of course there was shame involved......but still? Very odd.

I binged on this, so my focus may have been off. But I did not understand the whole thing about the manikin in the attic. Was the sister-in-law saying that her ex-brother-in-law moved in with her and kept this nun's habit on a manikin in the attic and that he kept saying to her how haunted he was by the nun's death? I'm no Sherlock Holmes but that would have set off some alarm bells.

At that point, the program was more Hitchcock than documentary. I guess the whole thing is like a raw police file where everything that comes up is thrown in and the investigator later has to comb through to see what is worthwhile and what is garbage.

{218] makes a compelling suggestion that the serial killer angle hasn't been sufficiently looked at here. We have a tendency or prejudice to want to come up with an over-arching "theory of everything" to explain these terrible events that may have everything or nothing to do with each other. Conspiracy theories explain away the horrible. Random events are scarier. An example are the killers of "In Cold Blood" fame. There has been an attempt to pin a horrible family murder in Florida on them, apparently because they plausibly may have been in that State at the time of these murders.

Jane Roe said that when someone would get called over the intercom, the girls would look at each other with a scared "oh no" look in their eyes. But the two women investigating the murder said they had no idea abuse was even going on, so I'm sure a lot of them didn't even know what was happening. And the one girl who was the secretary typing everything up wasn't abused herself (I don't think) but she suspects she was drugged with something added to her Coke, which made her lose some memories. She also read all these inappropriate things about examinations and was so naive that it just didn't occur to her that it was a big red flag.

The ladies were also in several classes over a stretch of a few years, 1968 to 1972 I believe, so they may not have even met before.

I think Billy moved back in with his parents and that's where the mannequin was.

It sounded as though Billy really liked Cathy, and he flipped out when Cathy was murdered. This was the late 1960s so drugs could have been a factor in his behavior. His (boy)friend Skippy was described as having a big handlebar mustache, which was very popular in biker/drug culture at the time, and was also showing up in underground gay culture, which overlapped with "straight" biker culture in the BDSM and Nazi imagery they used. (The pic I attached it from the movie Girl on a Motorcycle, 1968.)

That's why when the sister-in-law said she was chased by a guy wearing a nun's habit, I didn't immediately discount it. The first thing I thought of was that it was Skippy deliberately acting out against the strict anti-gay Catholic culture he was living in, and Billy's obsession with the nun's habit in the attic may have been a symptom of the same thing.

[quote] Still can't believe the parents let a priest take their daughter to visit Richter.

In working-class Catholic Baltimore in 1969, before all the sex scandals with the Church came to light? I can. People like that trusted priests with everything in those days--they thought they were close to saints.

R231, apparently you don't understand that Maskell controlled his victims with intimidation and fear. They knew he had the power to hurt them and their families if they spoke out; that's how pedophiles use to control their victims. Remember the story about Maskell getting close to Jean and playing with a gun in front of her face? That's such obvious intimidation that I don't know how you can pretend it isn't powerful, even more so when Jean was the daughter of a cop. When you were a high school kid, could you have blithely ignored that a very powerful priest threatened you with a gun, and chatted with your friends about him abusing you? I don't think so. I know some DL posters have a frightening lack of ability to put themselves in another person's shoes, but this one is too obvious.

Do you honestly believe Charlie was his only victim at the boys school? I sure don't. The documentary alludes to the fact that there were many victims who have never come forward. Maskell proved his power wasn't an illusion when he had Sister Cathy murdered and he was never punished, only hidden in that treatment center and moved to other jobs when things got heated up. The girls were absolutely right to believe he was dangerous. The reason he took Jean to see Cathy's body is more intimidation. It's a clear message that if he could do that to Cathy, he could certainly do it to Jean.

He also had them convinced that no one would believe them if they told. He made sure they knew he was powerful enough to bring harm to them and anyone they loved. Even now, the Archdiocese is covering for his crimes. They came on Reddit to try to squelch discussion there, and their own website has a section to show its side of the investigation (see link).

Priests were the symbols of Catholic church authority. Maskell used that for his own purposes, as did many other priests. In the pedophile priest cases, the victims were all convinced they had no power, that the priests could bring harm to their loved ones and they would be called liars by the very people they were trying to protect. Priests were seen as far more powerful by a Catholic family than the cops.

I doubt you understand what it was like to grow up in the Catholic church in that era. Bad enough now, but children were terrified of the priests back then.

I believe Jean, and am certain that Father Haskell was involved (as well as the police, Sister Russell, Edgar, and many others). But the 4 things that stick out to me as being the odd / hard to believe, are

> Koob's entire story about his relationship with Cathy. From the vagina wrapped in newspaper, to the letter about getting her period, to his and his wife's current situation. The overly detailed recounts, the self-victimisation, I barely believed a word he said.

> Whilst Sharon May was even more unbelievable (he went to the effort of burying tonnes of boxes, but nothing she found was that suspicious?), I don't think Deep Throat was credible either. I believed what he said about her, but he quietly (secretly?) investigated this in the 90s before it exploded and got to speak to 100 witnesses/victims? I know the ladies would be old now and many dead since the 90s, but only 25 came to Gemma, Abbie and the filmmakers. He also never seemed to mention anything about the males being abused at Maskell's previous assignment. If he had gone that in-depth surely he would have known about it?

> The sister-in-law's dramatic tale about the car chase. He was dressed in a nun's habit and pulled it down to reveal his moustache to her?? The nun's habit on the mannequin was strange enough. I don't think her recount was completely out of the realms of possibility, but it seemed a bit out-there.

> Brother Bob. I actually believe Jean that an accomplice would have said that to her... but nobody else had heard of him? Or a similar character? Nobody had a similar experience or was threatened in that way? (At least nobody alive...). Hmph.

"Whilst"???

[quote]He also never seemed to mention anything about the males being abused at Maskell's previous assignment. If he had gone that in-depth surely he would have known about it?

Who is the "he" to whom you are referring?

I assumed "he" to be Ryan White, R240.

^ Directed to R241, obviously.

Thanks, R242. That's probably a correct assumption.

Jean, Jane Doe said something that struck me as really important if she remembers it correctly. She said that 'Brother Bob said Sister Cathy was CONFIDING to him about the abuse she knew about.' If he said confiding, not comfronting him- Brother Bob was someone Cathy knew and trusted.

I think you're right, R245. I thought the same thing.

I missed that, R245. Jean is only human, so it could have been poor choice of words, but she generally struck me as being careful with her wording... I wonder...

it was either the last episode or next to last. She said it really calmly and conversationally- if I am saying, even to a friend about another friend, anything with the word confront/confronting/confrontation, I emphasize the word.I rewound the section because I was sure I misheard her. She's not even aware of what she's saying, it's just another part of a conversation.

If some gay male couple was running around dressed as pregnant nuns in Baltimore in 1968-69 I feel like John Waters HAD to know these people

Father Maskell was not "cleared" of Sister Cathy's murder, despite r1's completely bullshit claim.

All that was determined was that his DNA was not on the cigarette butt found by her corpse. That means nothing.

Only if they were also wearing cha- cha heels, R249.

The coolest thing about this series were the little maps with the red arrows showing where Father Maskell was moved around the city.

Jean came from a large family with multiple sisters who I assume went to the same school. If Maskell picked his victims based on what was going on with their families, wouldn't he have gone after her sisters as well? Or is going after multiples in the same family a no-no for pedos? At the very least, if I heard my sister constantly being called down to the office over the loudspeaker, I'd ask her what that's all about.

r253 wasn't it all under the guise of counseling? He was supposedly "counseling" the girls he brought to his office

[quote] Jean came from a large family with multiple sisters who I assume went to the same school.

I'm not sure that's true. Archbishop Keough HS was an honors college for girls in the diocese--I think you could only go there if you were a very good student. Maybe Jean's sisters weren't.

I understand that these girls would be scared shitless by Maskell not to report him to their parents or to any authority figures but I just don't get why all these girls who were being called into his office on the public address system wouldn't compare notes just simply to comfort themselves.

They apparently did to an extent, R256. As I said upthread, Jane Roe said the girls would look at each other with fear any time one of them got called over the intercom.

And the fact that there were tons of victims and not just a couple may have scared them even more and been MORE of a reason to not say anything. Makes Maskell seem more of a monster, more powerful.

Yes, R256, I'm sure if I were a teen girl in the 60s, I would value comfort over getting shot by that pistol he threatened me with. Gotta get those priorities downpat, comfort over life.

I know I'm an outlier here but I have no difficulty believing a couple of rebellious 20-something gays in late 1960s Baltimore went running around town wearing nun's habits as an edgy prank. Hell, they were probably singing a medley from "Sweet Charity" when they did it.

In the city where "Mondo Trasho" was being filmed at the same time, I would imagine they weren't even the ONLY gays running around town pretending to be pregnant nuns with big hairy mustaches.

R241 and R242 Sorry, I should have been clearer (i'm not a native English speaker). I meant Deep Throat - the anonymous detective whose voice they changed for privacy - seemed to know nothing about Maskell's previous assignments and abuse thereabouts (or maybe it was just not addressed) Which struck me as odd given that he interviewed apparently 100 women who were abused by him (while they were alive, of course Ryan White couldn't go as in-depth as Deep Throat was able to in 1992-4 when so many were still around) and as a rogue investigator probably had gone a lot further into researching Maskell and his past... yet he won't come forward?

He seemed to have it out for Sharon May. I am not saying she didn't deserve it (she seems very untrustworthy at best), but I wonder if he also had previous issues with her when he was working as well.

R260, I wondered if he was limiting his responses and not being more honest and forthcoming because he was afraid if he provided too much information it might give away his identity. I find it unbelievable that he didn't know about the systematic abuse in the Catholic schools. It had been going on for decades, and I know that for a fact. He may have been part of the church/police coverup, and I doubt he would want to divulge that.

I also suspect "Deep Throat" had some role in a coverup.

R253 I believe that Jean's sisters were much younger than her. There were several boys in between. They probably weren't at the school when she was being abused.

[post redacted because independent.co.uk thinks that links to their ridiculous rag are a bad thing. Somebody might want to tell them how the internet works. Or not. We don't really care. They do suck though. Our advice is that you should not click on the link and whatever you do, don't read their truly terrible articles.]

I just discovered the series. It's mind boggling!

The director would make a terrible lawyer. When he was asking Edgar about whether he used to drive with both feet, he told Edgar WHY he was asking before Edgar answered.

Of course, crazy Edgar still answered Yes, but most guilty people would not.

I was pissed at that too, R266.

More stuff:

Almost finished and it is excellent!

Nothing but a cabal of hysterical females playing detective. And maligning a priest to boot with ridiculous "repressed memories."

I doubt if anything sexual happened, but if it did, these little harlots initiated it so they could have something to hold over his head later. They should all be in institutions.

Thank you R270- Mr Cosby!!!

You are an idiot, R170,

"I doubt if anything sexual happened, but if it did, these little harlots initiated it so they could have something to hold over his head later."

Yes, obviously all priests are innocent angels! Seriously, some of the "repressed memories" may be bullshit but there's no doubt that most of the accusations are true. Are you Catholic? You sound like a Catholic frau.

I'm obviously trolling, but I don't have the stomach to take it any further. I can't even pretend to defend this, even as a vile troll character.

Thank you for being honest, R274.

Between watching this and the movie, based on a true story I saw last night, I really think religion, esp the Catholic Church, is a cabal of criminals and an organized pedo ring spanning the globe.

You really have to look at the Catholic Church as a special case. It's absolutely rotten to the core and I am amazed that they can pretend to be anything approaching a moral authority on anything and keep a straight face.

It is basically a criminal organization. They don't just cover up pedophilia. They cover up murders.

I mean, no religious organization on the planet can hold a candle to it in that regard. Some of them wish they could, no doubt.

R277 The British government pedophile ring involved Protestants, Catholics and Jews. Members of the royal family like Lord Mountbatten were involved. It is shocking how much the police and the authorities in The UK protected these people. It's still going on in The UK.

The British government isn't a religious organization.

Did anyone ask the student typist whether the spurious letter Koob got from Cathy seemed to be from Maskell's typewriter?

Did you catch Koob's wife paraphrasing the Bible quote about how anything hidden wil become known? It seemed to be ambivalently disclosing as much about her husband as about the priest and cover up.

Koob: Bullshit he had any romantic relationship with Cathy. I think she knew he was either part of Maskell's band of rapists or he was having it off with the friend he went to the movie with the night of Cathy's disappearance. Nobody showed him a fucking vagina wrapped in newspaper. That is bananas.

I would tithe to Jean for the rest of my life if I thought it could help her. She's a force of nature who has done the best job of the worst crime. Fuck religion.

What's interesting the Archdiocese of Baltimore just closed several schools including the one that was the subject of the documentary. The statement was it due to "a declining student base" I call bullshit , this was due to budgetary shortfalls due all the millions of settlements being paid out. No parent in Baltimore city wants their kid in public school, they scramble to get them into private anyway they can.

Oddly enough, just yesterday I had a conversation with a friend who grew up in Baltimore. I mentioned "The Keepers". He hadn't heard of it, or the crimes involved. When I filled him in on the documentary's topics, he rolled his eyes and said "This is Baltimore in a nutshell; it will go nowhere!".

Jane Doe is not at all credible. Repressed memories are widely disregarded and it is not even remotely accepted as psychological science.. She was basically "raped" by every male in authority she was surrounded by? Come on. Her stories are at the level of absurdity and the lurid graphic details of being raped with dildos and orgasm and come, eye rolling. Remembering sheathes of dialogue verbatim from fifty years earlier? Bullshit. No one has that kind of memory. I don't buy her supposition and she seemed instantly not believable to me. Her case was thrown out, and with good reason.

But what about the other woman and the dentist? Perhaps Jane Doe's memories are partially false but I can believe something happened to her.

Something probably did happen to her and she was probably abused, and there's no doubt the priest was a creep and probably a molester as well (he was a Catholic after all) but 95% of the words out of Jane Doe's mouth were obvious fiction. Her monologues were so grandiose. Wild multiple rape orgies in schoolrooms and in the backs of bars, only she was taken to the dead body and threatened, blahblahblah. Laughable.

I found it very hard to believe that no one on that team of producers realized that they should not base their entire thesis of the case (which completely falls apart by the end, and of which they have literally zero proof) on Jane Doe's word. She was about as credible as that girl who lied to Rolling Stone.

If I were family members of those being accused by this Doe character, I'd sue Netflix's ass off for libel AND slander. There needs to be a serious chilling effect put to this true crime genre popping up, with all of these armchair detectives throwing around wild unjustified and unprovable accusations. There's going to be some serious blowback about one of these series, and Netflix and Audible and its ilk need to be much more careful about how they approach these subjects.

"If I were family members of those being accused by this Doe character, I'd sue Netflix's ass off for libel AND slander."

Even if you don't believe some of the specific accusations, that doesn't mean these guys were angels or that they didn't abuse anyone. Think of that before you pull a Peter Thiel and start suing everyone

Thanks for your input, Donald (@ R286).

[quote]Did anyone ask the student typist whether the spurious letter Koob got from Cathy seemed to be from Maskell's typewriter?

That's a good catch -- she would definitely be someone to ask, considering her job.

I also think Koob was lying about a lot but I'm very willing to believe it's because he felt guilty for not caring about abuse (which he very likely saw, or at least heard about from Cathy) and/or because he lied back in the 1960s for whatever reason and now has to either 'fess up or continue with the charade. I don't get "murderer" from him, especially not after that little zing on the Catholic church you hear him say in his group religious discussion.

I agree, R289. Koob doesn't strike me as a criminal, but I think it's fair to say he has more inculpatory evidence and other related information than he's sharing. My sense is that his wife knows all, or most of what he's holding back.

I don't believe Koob murdered Cathy, but I think he has spent the intervening years lying and covering up what he knows. He confabulates (e.g. the vagina story), so it will always be difficult to know when he's telling the truth. He may be a Methodist now, but it's doubtful he's been able to rid himself of Catholic guilt.

R284 / R286 works for the Archdiocese of Baltimore.

Incredibly engrossing documentary. Like many of you I started it yesterday planning to only watch a few episodes but couldn't stop and binged the whole thing.

[quote]I think the good thing about the series is that you are left as clueless as the students. The documentary gives you the evidence , but does not provide the answers. All those students don't have answers. They are searching for it and by showing us this documentary so are we.

Exactly. It didn't try to pretend to tell you what happened, it just presents you the major evidence that exists and leaves the viewers in the same state all the characters involved are.

I have no clue what r286 is even trying to say which makes me suspect their motivation. They don't present any thesis based on Jane Doe's testimony. They present what she said happened and the audience is free to believe it or not believe it. But it is shocking how accurate what she said ended up being. Many other survivors have provided similar stories of the wide scale abuse involving multiple actors with Father Maskell, at the time she first started saying this she had no idea if that would be the case and voila. And of course we later find out the official autopsy did say there was maggots, so an additional detail from her memory was prove correct. It creates a very compelling case that these memories, including the existence of a "Brother Bob" might just be true.

The dentists story was quite heart breaking. Complained about a priest being a raping pedo, and of course the catholic church just protects him and transfers him to another school. Not surprising given what we know about the Catholic Church thanks to the spotlight team, but still just having another reminder about their widespread protection and aiding of child abuse always hits you in the gut.

The Edgar story and the Billy story, were either of the actually involved in the murder? Who knows. A big blank spot in the Schmidt story was Ronnie Schmidt. He is the one who supposedly came home covered in blood, yet that one taped interview doesn't mention his involvement, the families story keeps shifting it to Billy.

You could tell by Ryan White was family, so you are probably reading this and congrats on your project. You succeeded in getting many of us obsessed thinking about this case.

R292 = delusional DL armchair Nancy Drew. The only people with motivation are the producers and Jane Doe, to draw attention to herself. You queens here are so fucking gullible, exactly the kind of dupes Netflix is looking for. Fortunately, the law never agrees with people like you.

...work r293. I'd respond more but your post is completely nonsensical and I have no idea what you are even trying to say.

Also since the vagina thing understandly caused a lot of commotion I would say what Koob claims is that a cop showed him something wrapped in paper and said it was her vagina. Still a crazy story, but he did not claim to actually see her physical vagina.

One thing I want to bring up is two other people have claimed similar stories about being shown the body before it is found.

[quote]A former high-ranking law enforcement official in Maryland, now retired, said he took a statement from a woman in the mid-1990s who insisted she had been shown the dead nun’s body by a policeman. According to the official, her statement noted that the corpse she saw was “at a different location” from the Lansdowne garbage dump area where it was discovered by two hunters on January 3, 1970.

[quote]A third witness, a longtime parishioner at the Lansdowne Catholic Church where the high school chaplain served as assistant pastor (St. Clement), reportedly told several former St. Clement parishioners that she had also seen the nun’s body at a location more than a mile distant from the dumpster area.

Who knows if it is true, but worth noting.

bump

The whole theory of "Billy and his friend Skippy" as Cathy's killers was a ridiculous red herring and seemed to be added just to fill time.

And Billy's sister seemed like a complete attention-seeking whore, "I looked over and it was a MAN dressed as a NUN!" Other than the fact that they found cigarette butts at the crime scene, she had absolutely no credible evidence to offer - just about EVERYONE smoked in1969.

Billy's sister not only seemed nutty but homophobic - and her main worry seemed to be that her brother was gay and had a close friend who was a cross-dresser.

R293 obviously drank the Communion wine once too often... I'm guessing s/he's also a victim, in denial.

Im only up to Ep 4 & while Im horrified, Im not at all surprised.

I havent seen any of it yet, but did they ever bring in the FBI?

Obviously, Baltimore City & County PDs were complicit in Sr. Cathys murder & the pedo rapist cover ups, so could never be trusted.

The Catholic Church in the US alone, has faced pedo rapist charges in Dallas, Boston, Chicago, LA, NYC & Miami...in addition to Baltimore. Luckily, theyve had to pay millions to victims. IIRC, the Dallas Archdiocese declared bankruptcy over their case.

Probably everywhere on Earth where the RCC has a presence, these pedo rape rings have flourished.

Ireland has gone from a devoutly Catholic country, to one where membership & adherence has taken an unprecedented nosedive. Because of pedo, baby selling & white slavery scandals. Good. Wash, rinse, repeat, globally.

Abbie & Gemma should start a Gofundme, to take out full page ads in the Baltimore Sun, urging Catholics to stop contributing financially until the Church comes clean. If theres one thing the Church cant tolerate, its loss of $$$. Hit them where it hurts.

And why not have protests in front of the Archdiocese HQ? Shame the fuckers.

[quote]The whole theory of "Billy and his friend Skippy" as Cathy's killers was a ridiculous red herring and seemed to be added just to fill time.

You have to add in their story. Whether you think it is true or not is up to the audience, but I'm glad they tried to tell us all the information they've found.

I just finished the second episode and it's totally engrossing.

The abuse stories from the victims, however, seem so over the top. Are child abuse victims really passed around at parties and such?

I can't even imagine it.

Just keep watching r301, you will have a more clearer understanding once you finish it.

I watched the whole series like twice or maybe three times? There is a FB community that seem to think of themselves as some kind of sleuthing nuns themselves. Very prickly too. Do not recommend joining.

Seems to me the only way they'll ever prove anything is to find out who the co-conspirators were. The cops, the dentist, the others. Some of them are undoubtedly still alive --- enough of them to make one of the cops disguise his voice and identity. A useful place to start might be with Sharon May's rolodex and contact lists.

The only reason this is an unsolved crime is that politicians with clout want it that way.

Was disappointed at the end, to see they had been somewhat defeated...no justice for either murder victim, nor all the rape & abuse victims.

The Joyce Malecki murder appeared to be only very circumstantially related to Sr Cathys, if at all. Terrible that the authorities appeared to have hardly investigated Joyce's murder, just passing the buck among them.

I came away thinking Billy Schmidt & Ed Davidson were both definitely involved in disposing of Cathys body, if not in actually killng her. Under Maskells orders.

So much stonewalling, covering up & outright lying by the cops, FBI & the Archdiocese most of all.

I hope Abbie & Gemma keep up the search for justice. They deserve to win.

Jean and Teresa as just so BAD ass and life affirming...I'm inspired by them...

I especially loved the way they handed the Catholic Diocesan who tried to intimidate, torture, and victimize them further through their questioning of these woman (who have never met intentionally to avoid the appearance of collusion or contaminating each other's memories).

Both avoided looking at the Catholic Diocese attorneys questioning them until they were instructed by the judge to look at these men...

And Jean said she suddenly felt some kind of power that felt like, "Oh you want me to look at you. Well I WILL look you in the eye.! Because I have been through things you can even imagine; things you would not have survived - what do you think YOU can do to me?"

Jean and Teresa came right out and said, that motherfucking priest took them to a gynecologict, who undoubtedly did D&Cs on them. How's THAT for church hypocrisy? But more to the point, brother Bob (who remains a murderous mystery) and cops and politicians were there too and gang-raped these 14 year olds.

Cops and politicians who had the power and blackmailing ability to murder and plunder and get away with it. They need to water torture Sharon May, who is the only person who knows who so e of these guys at least, were.

A major mistake they all made early on, was meeting with the Archdiocese when it said it wanted to "help" uncover the rapes & abuse, and giving them the whole story. Which they then used to defend themselves & disparage the victims.

They also seemed to have waited too long to get lawyers involved. Especially Sr Cathys family.

Since Baltimore City & County PD are so obviously corrupt & complicit, they should have gone to the FBI, the Maryland state authorities & kept the story in the media as much as possible.

Several of the women involved had big families. Protest in front of the Archdiocese HQ, 1 day a week.

I think it was Jean Does husband who wanted to kill Maskell, but she talked him out of it. Too bad.

Further exposure of the global child rape clusterfuck that is the Catholic Church.

This one has Pope Ratzenfuckers brother as the ringleader.

"Current Bishop Rudolf Voderholzer has already announced plans to offer victims compensation of between 5,000 and 20,000 euros ($5,730 and $22,930) each"

Those figures merely add further insults to the childrens' injuries!

I just started watching this riveting series. I didn't think it was possible for me to be more disgusted with the Catholic Church, but I guess I was wrong.

just finished and still processing but a couple of things

1. Who were Skippy and Brother Bob

2. It surprised me that Maskell abused boys as well but I guess sexual abuse isn't about the actual sex

3. my first thought was that the sisters Cathy and Russell were lesbianas

4. The doctor part was even more creepy a la the Nassar case with women gymnastics

I'm a little behind on this but something seemed off about Edgar, aside from the obvious. I actually got the impression that he wanted to be a part of the murder or take credit for it, but in reality may have had nothing to do with it.

And I too was pissed off that the question was asked if he drove with two feet and when he wanted a reason for why the question was being asked, they told him before getting the answer. I didn't see him being stupid for answering that he did despite knowing why they wanted to know... it felt more like to me that was precisely why he answered it the way he did.

I actually believe Koob when he says the police threw something down and told him it was a vagina. I don't believe that it was actually a vagina, of course, but I think they probably did tell him that in order to scare him. It seems too odd of a detail to make up and we're talking about Baltimore, to this day, their Police are known for being corrupt and setting people up.

I also believe that Koob's wife thinks Koob knows more than he's saying. The way she spoke about how *if* Koob knows anything she hopes it comes out... was telling.