From the 40s until 2002, around 600 children were SA victims of the Boltimor Catholic Church at Archbishop Keough High School in Maryland. Former Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosch launched an investigation in 2019 which found that 163 priests and other archdiocese personnel participated in the repeated SA of children in their own community.
An investigation into the Archdiocese began formally in 2018. The 2023 report includes similar victims' accounts which stated these children had been threatened both verbally and sometimes with a gun. A total of 16 different victims provided detailed accounts of the abuse that the school's chaplain, Father Anthony Joseph Maskell inflicted on them while they attended Keough High School, the youngest being a 9-year-old girl and an 11-year-old boy.
A lawsuit was filed by two individuals against the Archdiocese of Baltimore, Cardinal William H. Keeler, Christian Richter, the school gynecologist and father Maskell; the lawsuit was dismissed as the courts believed that the whole thing was past the statute of limitations.
Still, the lawsuit included the following descriptions: ''Joseph Maskell subjected the girls to repeated sexual, physical and psychological abuse including vaginal intercourse, anal intercourse, cunnilingus, fellatio, vaginal penetration with a vibrator, administration of enemas, hypnosis, threats of physical violence, coerced prostitution and other lewd acts, physically striking the plaintiff to perform sexual acts with a police officer.''
On the same day that the Maryland Attorney General's office released their final report into these allegations on April 5th, 2023, the Maryland House approved a bill that would limit the statute of limitations on child's SA, and the governor signed the bill into law. The bill went into effect on Oct. 1, 2023. The Archdiocese of Baltimore filed for bankruptcy protection on Sep. 29, 2023, as they prepared for the act to become effective. This protected the archdiocese further, while leaving these victims without a chance to tell their stories in civil court; it also limited the payouts the victims could receive.
The Archdiocese reached settlements with 15 of Maskell's victims. Despite knowledge of the abuse and allegations of the murder, the Archdiocese continued to financially support Father Maskell through the year 2000.
Father Neil Magnus - Jean Wehner stated that she went to Father Neil Magnus to confide in him that she was being SAd by her own uncle, Father Magnus had proceeded to SA her himself, blaming her for getting raped for being promiscuous.
Sister Cathy - In 1969, two student reported abuse by Father Maskell to Sister Cathy, a teacher working there; the next day, Sister Cathy went missing. While they were there, Father Maskell interrupted them, and witnesses claim that he was very angry, yelling profanities about her. A report that was generated also said that Father Maskell threatened to kill one of the students if they reported the ongoing abuse.
After learning all of this, Sister Cathy left her apartment the next day. In 1994, a witness stated that Sister Cathy had told them that she had told Father Maskell that he had a couple of days to resign from his position or she would report him.
Sister Cathy's car was found at 4:40 a.m., the morning of Nov. 8 by two of her friends, Father Peter McKeon and Father Gerard Jacob. Sister Cathy's car was in a muddy condition and was parked illegally across the street from her residence. Residents of the apartment building that she had lived in said that they noticed her car parked at 8:30 p.m. the night before. Other tenants claimed that they had seen her car illegally parked two hours later around 10:30 p.m. Sister Cathy's body wasn't found until Jan. 3, 1970. That's almost two months later. She was found in a landfill near Lansdowne, Maryland, and her corpse was discovered by a hunter and his son. Autopsy results ruled that the cause of Sister Cathy's death was blunt force trauma.
Jean Wehner - Jean Wehner was one of the girls who had gone to Sister Cathy to report what had happened to her. She claimed that two months before Sister Cathy's body was discovered, Father Maskell drove her to a wooded area and showed her Sister Cathy's body, telling her: ''You see what happens when you say bad things about people?''
In 1992 two student came to the police, one of whom claimed to have met a random man in Father Maskell's office, who told her that he had been the one that had beaten Sister Cathy to death because she knew of the abuse, and that she would suffer the same fate if she told the story to anyone else. Two years later, in 1994, those same two students filed a $40M lawsuit for the abuse they suffered at the hands of Father Maskell; this was fruitless.
Father Maskell, even though he had been questioned about Sister Cathy's murder, was never charged for any of these crimes. Instead, the local diocese placed him on leave. Dduring that time, he was able to get out of the country and travel to Wexford, Ireland, where he has two confirmed victims. The Ferns Diocese in Ireland kept their own file on Father Maskell from 1995 to 1998. And during that time, the Ferns Diocese received information from the Baltimore Diocese regarding Maskell. They were informed that he was placed on leave before he fled America following claims of abuse against children.
It was said by witnesses that Father Maskell would summon girls over the PA system in the high school and ask them to come see him in his office, where he would SA them.
Father Maskell was said to have been removed from one institution for asking boy scouts about their abuse during a scouting outing. From 1992 to 1993, Maskell was sent for treatment at a psychiatric facility called The Institute for Living, run by the Archdiocese.
Towards the end of his life, Maskell, after quitting his job as a priest, worked as a clinical psychologist for the Southeastern Health Board, where he counseled Children, specifically victims of SA.
There were a total of 16 victims victims of that were eventually paid out, collectively at $472K.
Teresa Lancaster - Teresa Lancaster went to a school counselor to get advice on what to do because she was being raped repeatedly; she claimed that Father Maskell drove her to a location where students usually gathered. When they arrived there, two police officers approached and told all the students who were hanging out in the area to leave. Once the students left, the police officers raped her while Father Maskell waited outside of the car. Teresa was eventually awarded $40K by the church for her injuries, documented by doctors.
In May of 2017, a woman came forward alleging that she had been SAd by a police officer, who was now dead, in the early 1970s. The officer in question had been associated with Sister Cathy and Father Maskell.
Survivor, Teresa Lancaster stated during an interview with a high-ranking Baltimore law enforcement officer that she had been told in the past that the police knew that a priest was involved. Another nun who had worked in the same area, Sister Mary Florita, said that she knew many of the children at Keough High School and that one of them told her that three or four of the girls being raped by Father Maskell had gone to Sister Cathy for help shortly before she was killed. Sister Mary also stated that in the mid-90s, two police detectives visited her and told her that: ''we know the priest was involved in Sister Cathy's death.''
Between February 2011 and January 2017, the Baltimore County Police Department looked at three different unsolved murders which they believed could have had a connection to the murder of Sister Cathy.
Joyce Malecki - Joyce Malecki, was 20 years old when she disappeared on Nov. 11, 1969, four days after Sister Cathy; her body was also found by two hunters.
Pamela Lynn Conyers - 16-year-old Pamela Lynn Conyers was found dead, last seen at the same mall that Joyce Malecki was seen at.
Grace Elizabeth Montaigne - 16-year-old Grace Elizabeth Montaigne was found dead, last seen at Franklin High School after meeting a stranger in nearby Risertown at a shopping center.
Cover-up
''church sensitivity'' - A pair of city detectives stated on the record that they had been interviewing a local priest about Sister Cathy's death; in the middle of this interview, the police commissioner was visited by representatives from the local Catholic archdiocese; after that, they stopped the interview and cut the guy loose. A county officer also said that they had to destroy investigative documents because of "church sensitivity."
The Police - Father Maskell's brother was a high-ranking police officer in that local department. Father Maskell himself was also a police chaplain who often worked closely with officers in his local town.
Payouts - In 2016, the Archdiocese of Baltimore confirmed that they had been paying out settlements to Father Maskell's victims since 2011.
By: Colin Browen...
Raped by: Otto Heckel
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