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Murder of Catherine Cesnik
Sister Catherine "Cathy" Cesnik, S.S.N.D. was a nun who taught English and drama
at the former all-girls Archbishop Keough High School in Baltimore, Maryland. On November 7,
1969, Cesnik disappeared. Her body was discovered on January 3, 1970,
near a garbage dump in Lansdowne, Maryland. Her murder remains unsolved.
Cesnik's murder is the basis for the 2017 Netflix series The Keepers.
 Biography 
Catherine Anne Cesnik was born on November 17, 1942,
in the Pittsburgh City neighborhood of Lawrenceville, the eldest child of Joseph Cesnik
and Anna Omulac Cesnik, who married in February 1942. Her paternal grandparents, John
and Johanna Tomec Česnik, were Slovenians who emigrated from Yugoslavia to Pittsburgh,
while her maternal grandfather, Joseph Omulac, came from Yugoslavia and her maternal grandmother,
Martha Hudok, was born in Austria. She had three siblings. She attended St.
Mary’s School on 57th Street and St. Augustine High School,
both in her native neighborhood of Lawrenceville.
She was valedictorian of her Catholic high school class in 1960,
where she'd also been the May Queen and the president of the senior class and student council.
Cesnik's father died in 1985 and her mother died in 2015,
and neither ever learned who killed their daughter. She was buried alongside her daughter
and other family members in the St Mary's Parish Cemetery on 1019 Sharps Hill Road in the suburb of
Sharpsburg, across the Allegheny River from their Pittsburgh Neighborhood of Lawrenceville.
 Murder 
At the time of her murder, Cesnik was a 27-year old nun teaching
at a Catholic high school in Baltimore. On November 7, 1969, Cesnik left the apartment shared
with Sister Helen Russell Phillips at the Carriage House Apartments
at 131 North Bend Road in West Baltimore, en route to the Edmondson Village Shopping Center
to purchase a gift at Hecht's for her sister's engagement. Records found Cesnik cashed a paycheck
at First National Bank in nearby Catonsville that night, and possibly made a purchase
at Muhly's Bakery in Edmondson Village
since a box of bakery buns was found in the front seat of the vehicle.
Cesnik's car was found illegally parked across from her apartment complex at 4:40 A.M.
the next morning by Russell's friends, Rev. Peter McKeow and Rev. Gerard J. Koob,
in muddy condition. Residents of Carriage House Apartments spotted Cesnik in her car
at approximately 8:30 P.M. that night, and others spotted her car
at the illegally parked location across the street around two hours later.
Police searched the area immediately following the murder,
but were unsuccessful in locating Cesnik or the killer. It wasn't until January 3, 1970
when Cesnik's body was found by a hunter
and his son in an informal landfill located on the 2100 block of Monumental Avenue in a remote
area of Lansdowne. An autopsy of the body by Deputy Medical Examiner Dr.
Werner Spitz revealed that Cesnik died from an intracerebral hemorrhage following a fracture
to her skull due to a blow to her left temple by a blunt instrument. The murder case remains open.
Background
During the time Cesnik was at Archbishop Keough High School,
it is alleged that two of the priests, including Father Joseph Maskell, were sexually molesting,
abusing, harassing and raping the girls at the school in addition to trafficking them
to local police among others. It is widely believed that Cesnik was murdered,
because she was going to expose this scandal. Teresa Lancaster and Jean Wehner were students
at Keough and were sexually abused by Maskell. They filed a lawsuit against the school in 1995,
which was dismissed under the statute of limitations Wehner said that Cesnik once came to her
and said gently, "Are the priests hurting you?" Lancaster
and Wehner have said that she is the only one who helped them and other girls abused
by Maskell et al. and they have said that she was murdered prior to discussing the matter
with the Archdiocese of Baltimore. There is currently no physical evidence linking Maskell
to the crime.
It was revealed in late 2016 that the Archdiocese of Baltimore paid off numerous settlements
since 2011 for Maskell's victims. Wehner alleges that,
two months before Cesnik's body was discovered, Maskell drove her to the burial site
and showed her the partially covered body of Cesnik. Maskell apparently told Wehner,
"You see what happens when you say bad things about people?" In 2016,
the Baltimore County Police Department reassigned the case due to retiring officers,
prompting new interviews and further investigation into the alleged sexual abuse at Keough.
After attaining permission from the State's Attorney's office, the BCPD exhumed Maskell's body,
but did not find a DNA match to evidence from the crime scene.
Police spokeswoman Elise Armacost announced that this discovery does not exclude Maskell
from being a suspect in the case. Due to new awareness to the case brought upon by The Keepers,
the Baltimore Police Department created an online form to report sexual abuse that occurred
at Keough.
In popular culture
Netflix produced a seven-part docuseries about the murder mystery called The Keepers,
which debuted on May 19, 2017. The docuseries features interviews
with women who were once Cesnik's students as well as interviews
with some of those who were sexually abused by Maskell and others.
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