On 3 January 1970, George Brown and his ten-year-old son found the decomposing body of a young woman wearing a navy-blue skirt and white slip. She was lying on her back and had a winter coat on.
The skirt was bunched up, suggesting sexual assault; her undergarments, a single shoe, and a purse lay a few feet away from her.
The remains had been partially consumed by animals. Snow had obliterated all tracks to and from the body that might have been visible.
It was not long before Captain Bud Roemer identified the body as Sister Cathy Cesnik.
On the surface, the case looked like another example of an unsolved homicide. Over the years, though, the case has grown into something much more sinister.
Sister Cathy
Sister Cathy was a twenty-six-year-old nun and high-school teacher who had vanished on 7 November 1969. Everybody remembers her as a fearsome teacher. Her students regard her as an inspiration, revering her as a saintly figure.
Catherine Cesnik is the reason I became a teacher. I still regard her as the finest teacher I ever had. - Gemma Hoskins
Her life was not without scandal. She became involved with Father Gerry Koob. She also worked at Archbishop Keough High School, which became best known for the abuse suffered by the young women there at the hands of high guidance counsellor Father Joseph Maskell.
Sister Cathy left Keough in autumn 1969 to teach at Western High School. Many noticed she seemed different in spring 1969. She appeared stressed, exhausted, and extremely nervous. Whether this was why she moved schools, we will never know.
Sister Cathy was aware of the school’s crimes, as students visited her apartment after she left to discuss them.
One student, who remains anonymous, speaks of an incident when she was at the apartment with Sister Cathy when Father Maskell and Father Neil Magnus burst in and threatened everyone with a gun. The girls were sharing stories about their abuse.
The day after this event allegedly happened, Sister Cathy was murdered and her body dumped. It was discovered two months later.
Investigation
The autopsy gave the cause of death as blunt force trauma. One blow to the throat caused suffocation, and she also had another blow to the head.
During the investigation, Father Koob, who Cathy had a relationship with, and Father Pete McKeon came forward saying that during a walk in the early hours, they had spotted Cathy’s car near her apartment block.
If the attack had been random, then how had the killer known where to return the car to and where Cathy lived? The killer must have been someone who knew Cathy, and the lack of signs of a struggle further supported this theory.
Father Koob, Father McKeon, and Sister Helen Russell Phillips, her former housemate, were the main suspects. Sister Helen had called Koob when Cathy did not return home, rather than the authorities. Why?
The two men stated they had an alibi for the night of the murder: they were watching the film Easy Rider in the cinema. Many found it unusual for men of the cloth to watch a film, like that. Koob and McKeon were giving each other alibis, but no one, not even the cinema staff, remembered seeing them there.
Koob’s relationship with Cathy was also a factor. Initially denying it, letters between them revealed their sexual relationship.
However, the priests were polygraphed several times and always passed.
Scandal
During the investigation, the church got involved and told the police they had to charge Koob or back off. By the mid-1970s, the case had died down with no fresh leads.
Theories persist that Sister Cathy was about to expose the abuse at the school and this is why she was murdered. However, we cannot be sure. Who would she have reported the abuse to?
Had she gone to the Archbishop or the Mother Superior, would they have taken action? The church had a habit of not dealing with these claims, opting instead to shuffle priests from one parish to another or send them on retreat when speculation got too bad.
In 1970, it’s unlikely that a single nun could have caused such a significant collapse. The victims would not try to get justice until the 1994s. The victims had to take the power back themselves and reclaim their story. However, when they filed it - it was outside the statute of limitations further prompting people to speculate about a cover-up
Maskell’s brother was a lieutenant in the Baltimore Police Department; he was in the perfect position to hide allegations of sexual assault and maybe even conceal a murder.
Maskell died in 2001 with mounting suspicion against him, not just for the sex crimes he committed, but also for the murder of Sister Cathy Cesnik. Whether he was guilty or not remains a question he will have to answer to God.
Be sure to check out our deep dive article on Monday, where we look at another murder that may have occurred due to what was about to be revealed: Jill Dando.
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