From the 40s until 2002, around 600 children were victims of SA at Archbishop Keough High School in Maryland. Former Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosch launched an investigation in 2019 which found that over a hundred priests and other archdiocese personnel participated in the repeated in their own community.
Sister Cathy - Two student reported abuse by the chaplain, Father Mascell abuse 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, 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 on November 7th, 1969. That day, she was headed to the Edmondson Village Shopping Center. And that same night, on November 7th, she cashed a cheque at the First National Bank in Cattonsville, Maryland. Sister Cathy's car was found at 4:40 a.m., the morning of November 8th 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 lived in said that they noticed Sister Cathy's 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 January 3rd, 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 who were out that day hunting. Autopsy results ruled that the cause of Sister Cathy's death was blunt force trauma.
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 the nun knew of the abuse, and that she would suffer the same fate if she told this story to anyone else. Two years later, in 1994, those same two students filed a $40M lawsuit for the abuse that they suffered at the hands of Father Maskell; fruitless.
Sister Cathy's case was looked at again by detectives, interested this time in recent technology advancements involving DNA; also fruitless. 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.
In 2016, the Archdiocese of Baltimore confirmed that they had been paying out settlements to victims of by Father Maskell since 2011.
In May of 2017, a woman came forward alleging that she had been Sdd 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 Florida, 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-1990s, two police detectives visited her and told her that: ''we know the priest was involved in Sister Cathy's death.''
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 which 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."
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.
Father Maskell's brother was a high-ranking police officer in that local department. Father Maskell's Father Maskell himself was also a police chaplain who often worked closely with police officers in his local town.
Father Neil Magnus - Jean Wenner stated that she went to Father Magnus to confide in him that she was being SAd by her own uncle. Jean alleged that Father Magnus then proceeded to SA her after she had confided in him about what her uncle was doing to her and she even stated that father Magnus that priest blamed gene for getting for being promiscuous.
Between February 2011 and January 2017, the Baltimore County Police Department started to take a look at three different unsolved murders that they believed could possibly have some sort of connection to the murder of Sister Cathy. Joyce Malecki, was 20 years old when she disappeared on November 11th, 1969. Now, in mind, Joyce disappeared just four days after Sister Cathy did; her body was also found by two hunters. Pamela Lynn Conyers, 16 was last seen at the same mall that Joyce Malecki was seen at, the Arundel Mall; found dead. Grace Elizabeth Montaigne, 16, was last seen at Franklin High School after meeting a stranger in nearby Risertown at a shopping center; found dead.
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 Father Maskell inflicted on them while they attended Keough High School, the youngest being a 9-year-old girl and an 11-year-old boy.
The Archdiocese had reached settlements with 15 of Maskell's victims; despite knowlege of the abuse and allegations of the murder, the Archdiocese continued to financially support Father Maskell through the year 2000.
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 she arrived there with Father Maskell, 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.
Jean Hadad Wenner stated that Father Maskell, once again, was the one who... Jean came forward and said that she was one of the girls who initially went to Sister Cathy to tell her what had happened to her. Sister Cathy had then told Jean that she would take care of this for her, but soon afterwards, she was murdered. Jean 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. According to Jean, Father Maskell told her: ''You see what happens when you say bad things about people?''
Father Maskell, even though he had been questioned about Sister Cathy's murder and people obviously believed that he was complicit in it, was never charged for any of these crimes. Instead, the local diocese placed him on leave. And during that time, he was able to get out of the country and travel to Wexford, Ireland; he has two confirmed victims in there. The Ferns Diocese in Ireland kept their own file on Joseph Maskell from 1995 to 1998. And during that time, the Ferns Diocese received information from the Baltimore Diocese regarding Maskell. They were informed that Joseph 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 on school grounds during the school day.
Father Maskell was said to have been removed from one institution for asking Boy Scouts, young children, young boys, about their abuse during one scouting outing. From 1992 to 1993, Joseph Maskell was sent for treatment at a psychiatric facility. The place was called the Institute for Living, and it was run by the Archdiocese.
Towards the end of his life, and this is disturbing as well, Joseph 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 that were eventually paid out, 16 victims that they believed were legitimate, that actually had suffered at the hands of Joseph Maskell, and the total paid out by this church was $472K.
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 authorities in the state and the courts believed that that this 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. That's a great thing. And the bill went into effect on October 1st, 2023. Archdiocese of Baltimore filed for bankruptcy protection on September 29th, 2023, as they prepared for the act to become effective. This was clearly a preemptive move to this... lawsuits that they expected to be filed once the statute of limitations was removed. Any lawsuit that followed had to be made a part of their bankruptcy proceedings. This move protected the archdiocese further, while leaving these victims without a chance to tell their stories in civil court. It also limited the payouts that the victims could receive.
The Archdiocese listed approximately 163 individuals who had been identified as allegedly committing acts of SA against children.
By: Colin Browen...
Raped by: Otto Heckel
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