0:01

In Toledo, Ohio in 1980,

0:03

a man murdered a woman. While

0:06

every death is tragic, and every

0:08

violent death especially so, there's

0:10

nothing inherently remarkable about that statement.

0:14

A man murdered a woman. It happens

0:16

all the time. He got angry with

0:18

her, he stabbed her, and she

0:20

died. Actually,

0:25

he stabbed her over and over. In

0:27

the chest, the face, the neck.

0:30

31 times in all. That's

0:32

a bit more unique. But still, if you've

0:34

been listening to this podcast for a while,

0:38

you probably know that it's not all that uncommon for us

0:40

to come across cases where

0:42

a person dies from dozens of stab wounds. But

0:45

what if I told you that woman was a killer? But

0:50

what if I told you that woman was a Catholic nun?

0:53

With the full habit and everything, we

0:56

picture nuns as being isolated from the anger

0:58

and violence of the outside world.

1:02

So what if I told you that her body was found

1:04

not in the outside world, but

1:06

on the floor of a chapel? And

1:09

perhaps the most surprising fact of all,

1:12

what if I told you the main suspect was

1:15

a priest?

1:18

From A&E,

1:20

this is Cold Case Files, the podcast. I'm

1:23

Brooke, and this story, adapted

1:26

from a classic episode of Cold Case Files, is

1:29

told by the distinguished Bill Curtis.

1:50

We're

1:50

headed to the detective bureau at the safety building

1:52

here in Toledo. Tom Ross and Steve

1:54

Forrester are cold case investigators.

1:57

In 2005, they were arrested for the murder of a woman.

1:59

In 2003, they reopened the murder of Sister

2:02

Margaret Ann Paul. This

2:04

is Sister Paul. This is

2:06

Father Robinson. This was at the dedication

2:09

of a new intensive care unit.

2:13

On Easter Saturday, 23 years earlier, Sister

2:16

Paul's body was discovered on the floor of a

2:18

chapel

2:19

with an altar cloth covering it.

2:22

Lieutenant Bill Keena was the original detective

2:24

assigned to the case. She

2:26

was stabbed 31 times in

2:29

the chest and in the neck and face

2:31

area, even in the ear.

2:34

To slaughter a person

2:36

in that manner, there had to be a deep-seated

2:39

hatred attempt

2:40

to defile

2:43

the victim, besides killing her, to

2:45

defile her.

2:46

There were lots of people

2:48

that they looked into. After the

2:51

first week, the focus was clearly

2:54

on the priest.

2:56

Father Gerald Robinson was considered a prime

2:58

suspect at the time of the murder,

3:01

found inside his quarters a letter

3:03

opener, shaped like a dagger.

3:06

We were at the desk, and I'm

3:09

right next to Art. And he opened up

3:11

the center drawer, and he said, oh, what

3:13

have we got here? And he

3:15

reached in there with his fingers and pulled out this

3:18

dagger-type letter opener

3:21

with a knuckle guard

3:22

and a blade about eight inches,

3:25

about 10 inches long.

3:27

Father Robinson was given a

3:28

polygraph in 1980 and

3:31

showed signs of deception. Before

3:33

charges could be filed, the Catholic Church,

3:36

in the form of the local Monsignor, stepped in,

3:38

and the case was dropped.

3:41

The deputy chief in charge of the detective

3:43

bureau was standing there, and behind him

3:45

was a Monsignor

3:48

from the Catholic Church diocese,

3:50

and behind him was a defense attorney.

3:53

And all of them walk out of the interrogation

3:56

room, arm in arm, and out of the safety building.

3:59

We had no charges against him. at that time. And

4:03

I asked Father Switecki, I says, hey, I says, what

4:06

are they going to do with him? And Switecki

4:09

says, they'll put him on a funny farm

4:11

someplace and you'll never see him

4:13

again. He says, that's what they

4:15

do with wayward priests. When

4:22

we opened this up in 2003, we had

4:24

access to both of these. We

4:27

had known that this came from his room, and

4:31

we knew that this was not

4:33

looked at since 1980. Detectives

4:36

Ross and Forrester pick up where Bill Kena

4:38

left off two decades earlier with

4:40

the altar cloth

4:42

that covered Sister Paul's body

4:44

and the dagger-shaped letter opener

4:46

pulled from Father Robinson's quarters. When

4:49

we made a comparison here, what started

4:52

at first was, you can see this

4:54

finger guard on this dagger-shaped

4:58

letter opener matches

5:00

this and the blade matches this. Now, obviously,

5:02

we're not experts, but we can see that

5:04

there's some great similarities there. So

5:07

it was startling, really. I mean, we looked at each other

5:10

and said, you know, we were just

5:12

shocked. Ross and Forrester

5:14

bring in Detective Terry Kuzno, an

5:17

expert in the analysis of blood transfer.

5:20

With this pattern, you have sort of

5:22

a ribbed pattern. You look

5:24

at the letter opener, it has a ribbed handle. Size

5:27

and shape are consistent. Right

5:30

off the bat, eyeballing some

5:34

preliminary measurements, I told Sergeant

5:36

Forrester that these

5:38

blood transfer patterns, to me, appeared

5:41

to be consistent with this letter opener. Immediately

5:44

then, I began to look at the puncture

5:46

defects that were in the cloth. The

5:49

killer stabbed Sister Paul through the altered

5:51

cloth. These puncture defects

5:53

had a very distinctive shape to them. I

5:55

call it a Y-type puncture,

5:59

rather than a... straight slit

6:01

or a rounded hole, they have a very distinctive

6:04

Y shape to them. The

6:06

Y shape is pretty unique.

6:09

I measured these puncture

6:11

defects. They're consistent in size and

6:14

shape with the letter opener. Next,

6:17

Kuzno turns his attention to the overall

6:19

layout of the stab wounds on the altar

6:21

cloth. To Kuzno's eye, they

6:24

seem anything but random. Random

6:30

would indicate to me just free

6:33

stabbing, no pattern, and

6:37

looking at this, that's not random at all.

6:40

Three sets of two pairs, okay,

6:43

and then when you have these two on the

6:45

outside that are exactly six inches apart

6:48

and equidistant from these, not

6:51

only are we talking about no longer being

6:53

random, but I

6:55

don't even believe they're freehand. In other words, this

6:58

would indicate to me that something was used as a template.

7:02

The template Kuzno suspects

7:04

might have been a crucifix. They

7:07

would have been on her chest basically

7:10

with the cross in an upside-down position

7:12

going across

7:14

her chest this way up to her left

7:17

shoulder.

7:18

It was a startling find to

7:21

be able to say that there's definitely a

7:23

pattern. It appears to be a cross-type

7:25

pattern and that an object was used as

7:27

a template. It

7:30

was surprising. It was

7:32

a shocking find.

7:33

The chapel altar cloth provides detectives

7:36

with fresh insight into perhaps the

7:38

ritual underpinnings of murder. The

7:41

next step, exhume the nun's body and

7:43

examine her bones.

7:46

We wanted to see if any

7:48

of the puncture wounds to her flesh

7:51

would uncover any markings to her skeletal

7:54

remains that we could perhaps

7:56

use to firm up our theory of murder.

8:00

that the letter opener was the murder weapon.

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This is where we brought Sister

11:45

Margaret Ann Paul the day that we

11:47

exhumed her.

11:49

Dr. Diane Barnett is the Deputy Coroner

11:51

for Lucas County, Ohio. In

11:53

May of 2004, she

11:55

opens the waterlogged casket of Sister

11:58

Margaret Ann Paul.

13:54

Meanwhile,

14:01

investigators confront their suspect,

14:04

Father Gerald Robinson.

14:09

Between 1974 and 1981, you

14:12

were one of the

14:15

two chaplains assigned to Mercy Hospital.

14:18

That cracks her.

14:20

Father Robinson is asked to come down to

14:22

the station. At the time of the murder,

14:24

he denied any involvement in Sister Paul's

14:26

death. Now he says he walked

14:28

into the chapel just as another priest,

14:31

Father Switecki, was performing

14:33

last rites on Sister Paul. He

14:36

advised at this point that Father Switecki

14:38

looked up at him and asked him why

14:41

he did this to

14:44

the sister.

14:45

He said there right in the center, Steve, in

14:47

front of everybody. The sisters and everybody

14:50

else. He said, you did this. And

14:52

I just looked at him.

14:55

And Father Switecki said, yes, it's very challenging seeing

14:58

a sister and to confirm to say something like

15:00

that, it might not

15:01

be or what he was taught.

15:03

When Father mentions it during the

15:05

taped interrogation, I

15:09

asked him how he responded to that. And

15:11

he said that he was kind of a meek and mild

15:14

type personality. That was his character

15:16

and that he couldn't respond at all concerning

15:18

that.

15:19

Paul, you probably had to say, Father,

15:22

what are you saying? Well, that's

15:24

what, you know, but I'm not

15:26

one to answer. I'm not a forceful person

15:28

and that's my trouble. What you're going

15:31

to stand on, take that, did you? I

15:34

took a lot.

15:40

And we felt that that was quite unusual

15:42

due to the fact that you just enter a murder

15:45

scene and you're being accused of murdering

15:47

a nun. Why, when you respond to something like

15:49

that?

15:51

What did you ever think? You

15:53

did. Why didn't you get a gun to death by

15:55

I couldn't answer. I didn't have any picture,

15:58

I had no idea why.

16:00

Detective Ross believes Father Robinson

16:02

is lying, playing a game

16:05

with detectives, although the reason

16:07

why remains unclear.

16:09

Later in the interview, I

16:12

asked him a direct question when

16:15

he kind of had his mouth in kind of a smirking

16:17

fashion. I said, Father, you're

16:19

smirking and this is quite serious. I wanted to see

16:21

how he would react to that and

16:23

he immediately came back to me. I'm

16:25

not smirking.

16:27

Father, why do you smirk at me? I mean, this

16:29

is serious. I'm not smirking. I

16:32

didn't. I didn't know how

16:34

to audition.

16:37

And I thought, okay, you responded to my question

16:39

concerning smirking. Why wouldn't you respond

16:41

to an accusation concerning a homicide?

16:45

Sister had 31 stab wounds and they were involved.

16:49

That is an act of rape. That's somebody that's

16:51

angry. Did

16:54

she ever make you angry?

16:58

He's a hard person to explain because he's never

17:00

fully really, I think, showed himself

17:03

to any individual as

17:05

to who he actually is. I

17:07

think he's a secret.

17:09

I'll be back. Father

17:16

Robinson does not confess to

17:18

killing Sister Paul, but he does not deny

17:21

it either. The interview

17:23

ends and Father Gerald Robinson

17:25

is arrested for first-degree murder.

17:28

Father Robinson is

17:30

not guilty.

17:32

He's not

17:34

guilty. And that's

17:36

solely and simply because

17:38

this table,

17:41

the state of Ohio, is

17:43

not proven to you beyond

17:46

a reasonable doubt that

17:49

this letter opener, is

17:53

the murder weapon.

17:54

letter

18:00

opener and its alleged links

18:02

to the wounds that killed sister Paul.

18:09

They talk in the language of cannot

18:12

exclude. Ladies and gentlemen,

18:16

that is not reasonable doubt. And

18:19

I would tell you, you

18:22

don't need an expert to come in here and tell you about

18:24

blood transfer. All you need

18:26

is a pair of eyes, a

18:28

pattern, an object, and

18:31

a vivid imagination. Not one

18:33

expert, not one with any

18:35

credibility anyway, came

18:37

in here and said, ladies and gentlemen of the jury,

18:41

this is the weapon. Not

18:44

one. They

18:47

can't make their case beyond a reasonable doubt,

18:49

forensically. You listen to this

18:51

evidence.

18:53

You heard what took place in that sacristy.

18:56

Is this some sort of satanic cult

18:58

killing?

19:00

The prosecution offers a broader focus,

19:03

including speculation on the motive

19:05

behind this murder.

19:07

We felt that the real reason was

19:10

perhaps the most common reason for most

19:12

of the homicides that occur in this country. A

19:14

man got very angry at a woman

19:17

and the woman died. He had

19:19

had enough the

19:22

man had decided he had

19:24

had enough and

19:26

he got behind her and

19:28

he choked her down, either with

19:30

his arm, like Dr. Barnett

19:33

had described, or with a ligature, that

19:36

altar cloth that we find in the hallway

19:38

and he choked her and he choked her down. It

19:40

would have taken a minute or two to get

19:44

her to the point where

19:46

she's very, very near death.

19:49

What do you do over the dead

19:51

or dying? You perform

19:53

last rites and

19:56

that's what he did. Oh, a bastardized version

19:58

of last rites to be sure. But that is

20:01

what happens. He covers

20:03

her with that blessed altar cloth, and

20:06

he marks her with the sign of the cross, but

20:09

an upside down cross. Why?

20:13

Father Grob told us why. To

20:15

degrade her, to mock her,

20:18

to humiliate her, to bring her

20:20

down to the lowest point

20:23

he possibly could.

20:25

And what's a more humiliating way for

20:27

a nun to meet her maker than to be

20:29

branded with an upside down

20:32

cross on her chest? What's

20:34

a more humiliating way for a

20:37

nun to be discovered

20:39

than to be stripped naked in front

20:42

of the Eucharist?

20:43

And what is it that he has left there on the

20:45

floor? He's left a message.

20:50

A message to Sister Margaret Ann Paul,

20:52

to be sure. Maybe to the church,

20:56

maybe to God himself, see how angry

20:58

I am, see what you have made me do. This

21:02

is how angry I am.

21:05

And one of the things that I argue to the jury

21:08

is that if

21:09

Gerald Robinson believed

21:11

anything in terms of what that white collar

21:14

represented, is that he always

21:16

knew that one day, one

21:18

way or another, he was going to have to

21:21

answer for what he

21:22

had done.

21:23

And that he had been spending most of the past 26

21:26

years waiting

21:28

to be held to account. And

21:31

finally, the jury held him to account.

21:35

The jury deliberates six hours and

21:37

returns with a verdict, guilty

21:40

of first degree murder.

21:41

You always want people to be

21:44

held accountable for their criminal conduct.

21:46

You hope that that happens sooner rather

21:49

than later, but later is better

21:51

than never.

21:53

That very same day, the judge

21:55

sentences Father Robinson to 15

21:57

years to life in prison.

22:05

Father Gerald Robinson was the second

22:07

Catholic priest in the U.S. to ever be

22:09

convicted of homicide,

22:11

the first since Father Hans Schmidt,

22:13

who was executed in 1916.

22:17

According to an article in the New York Times,

22:19

Father Robinson was also one of several

22:22

priests in the Toledo area accused

22:24

of molesting children. Father

22:26

Robinson appealed his conviction in 2008 and again in 2012,

22:28

and both times denied by

22:33

the Ohio Sixth District

22:35

Court of Appeals.

22:37

Robinson likely would have continued with the appeals

22:39

process,

22:40

but on July 4, 2014,

22:43

he died after suffering a heart attack a

22:45

few months prior. A federal

22:47

judge denied his request to be released to

22:49

Toledo for the end of his life.

22:51

He instead died in a prison hospice

22:54

unit. Cold

22:59

Case Files the Podcast is hosted by

23:01

Brooke Giddings,

23:02

produced

23:03

by Scott Brody, McCamey Lynn,

23:05

and Steve Delimator. Our

23:07

executive producer is Ted Butler.

23:10

We're distributed by podcast one. The

23:14

Cold Case Files TV series was

23:16

produced by Curtis Productions and presented

23:18

by Bill Curtis.

23:20

Check out more Cold Case Files at

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