All language subtitles for The Keepers S01E02

Hey, Tom. How are you?
Hey, how are you?

Come on in.
Hello.

Good to see you.

Being Jane Doe,
for me, that was paramount.

I didn't want anyone to know who I was,
I didn't want anybody to know my family.

For quite some time, I trusted
that I had some privacy with that.

Because I was always afraid
of what people were gonna say

and think about what I had said.

What's your view
of what most likely happened to her?

I believe
that Cathy Cesnik was murdered...

by someone she knew.

I believe that it wasn't a stranger
who killed Cathy Cesnik.

It may have been a stranger to her
who moved her body,

or a stranger to her who cleaned up after,

but I don't believe that it was a stranger
who killed Cathy Cesnik.

Cathy Cesnik was killed
because she was going to talk

about what went on at that school,

and I believe
that there were more than one person

who was really afraid
that she was going to, um, out them.

And they used her death to keep me quiet.

Baltimore has always been
a quintessentially Catholic city.

Baltimore is the home
of Roman Catholicism.

John Carroll founded
the first archdiocese here,

maybe the late 1700s.

Baltimore is a city of firsts.

The first telegraph...

the first streetlights...

the trains.

And it is the first diocese
in the United States.

Every neighborhood had its own parish.
Everybody went to church.

I mean, rosary,

May processions were a big thing,

First Communions.

All the Sacraments were a really big deal.

You were not only going to school
with people that were Catholic,

going to church with people Catholic,
you were living in Catholic communities.

But Baltimore has always been
a working-class city.

In 1969, when Sister Cathy dies,

we lived in a much more basic,
simplistic, primitive society.

This is a world of blue-collar folks,
they're working in these factory jobs.

They are living in little row houses,

they are tending
little postage-stamp lawns.

They are living for that glorious moment

when their little daughter puts on a veil
and goes for her First Communion.

I was one of ten siblings.

There were three boys...
me, then three boys,

then there were two girls and a boy.

It was a good Catholic family.
Eleven months later you had another baby.

My parents were good Catholic parents.

Everybody went to church on Sunday,

and if you didn't have a ride
because dad was a policeman

and he worked shift work,
you'd walk to church.

You know, it was unheard of

to either miss church on Sunday
or eat meat on Friday.

During the Cuban Missile Crisis,

we all knelt down and said the rosary.

The Catholic religion, the Catholic faith
was part of who we were.

We were all altar boys.

We were told it was an honor
and a privilege to be an altar boy.

The priests were the authority.

You don't question them.

Uh, you... You...
Whatever they told you to do, you did.

My mom was very devout.

It was an integral part of the family,
which came from her.

But my dad was there.
I mean, like, if we went to confession,

it was nothing like seeing your father go
to confession first and then come out.

It was kind of like... If he believed
and trusted the confessional,

then we all did, too.

My mother was, in fact,
a true Christian.

If you lived right and you loved God,

that faith that you exhibited,

plus the love that you had
for your fellow man,

would provide the hope that you need
in order to succeed.

Got you some cereal,

put some strawberries on it today
instead of banana.

So, there's that, okay?
Mm-hm.

Your coffee.

We'll let that cool a little bit.

Alrighty?

This is my senior.

This was the end
of a pretty horrific experience.

And I probably was relieved
that it was... ending.

She holds memories,

and I've been afraid of those memories.

Archbishop Keough was the jewel
in the archdiocese.

It was a really nice new school.

It had that spanking-new type
of, uh, look to it.

Run by nuns,
the School Sisters of Notre Dame.

It was really a big deal
to be accepted to go to Archbishop Keough.

You had to get in.
You had to take an entrance exam.

So, the big day in eighth grade
would be when you came home for lunch

and your letter was waiting for you
that you had been admitted to Keough.

It was prestigious.

I was very excited because that's exactly

where I wanted to go. It was
within walking distance of my house.

I really was excited about going.

I remember my freshman year,
I was very, very happy to be there.

My parents worked hard
that I could go to it.

It was very exciting...

but really strict.

There was order, discipline.

You know, you had nuns all over the place.
There were a lot of nuns.

Our administrators were nuns,
our principal, our assistant principal.

Joseph Maskell was the chaplain.

There was also a priest
by the name of Father Neil Magnus.

He was responsible for studies or...
Christian education or something...

I never saw the man, that I remember.

They had language labs
and really state-of-the-art equipment.

They had a science room.

They had a large gym.

It had a large outdoor field
for different sports.

They even put
"we are women of a new age" in their song,

and it was just supposed to be women
being able to reach their full potential.

It was supposed to be a safe place.

My life would have been very different
if I had not gone in that confessional.

I was at Keough.

I was a freshman.

I went to confession there.

It took me five tries
to get to the confessional.

I got in the confessional...

and I told the priest something
that I was feeling very guilty about.

I had been abused by an uncle
when I was younger.

He was a pedophile
and he was sexually abusing me.

That had ended, there was some guilt.

And I always remembered it was Magnus
and always remembered that he said:

"Can I look at you,
and what is your name?"

And I always thought,
"God, this must have been so terrible

that he had to look at me
and ask my name."

And at the end of it he said:

"I don't really know
if God can forgive this.

I'm going to have to pray more on this
and I'll get back to you."

Probably a couple weeks later,
the same priest, Magnus,

walked up to me in the hall...

and he said
he wanted to see me in his office.

And Magnus was there...

and he proceeded to just reiterate
that I was so bad...

that it was going to take a while
before there was going to be a real answer

to whether God could forgive me.

And that if I emptied myself
of these behaviors

that were so sinful, so bad...

that it would make room for God

to be able to fill me
with the Holy Spirit...

and that I could be forgiven.

The things that he was doing
was "sacramental,"

you know, quote-unquote.

Um...

That, you know, he talked about, uh,
his come as the Eucharist, you know.

He was doing symbols on me
of the crucifix with it

as if it was, uh, sacred.

He was also saying that his come was
the Holy Spirit that I was to swallow.

I was very naive.

I was extremely innocent.

I had no idea
that this was, um, abusive.

I felt that it was a man of...

Of authority, of faith,

who was helping me become a good person.

He was reminding me
that the things that I had done were...

Weren't done to me.
That I made those things happen.

After a couple of my therapy sessions
with him,

I went into the room...

and then Maskell came in.

From the beginning,
I was afraid of Maskell.

He had no qualms being angry with me.

He started very early on
calling me a whore.

They would pray in Latin over me
as they were having me do things to them,

or they were doing things to me.

Or one would be praying over me in Latin

while the other one would be,
you know, kind of saying:

"Take the Holy Spirit," and, um...
You know, through his penis.

So, it is a very interesting dynamic
to feel both of them in the room,

to be cornered by them both,

to feel two men of not only great size,

but that they were powerful
because they represented God.

I... I wanted to get out of that room,

and yet I felt that
I had to be in the room in order to...

to... be a good person.

It was... It was the beginning
of some of the thickest confusion

that, um, probably could be imagined.

At a particular point...

I went to the room
and it was just Maskell there.

And it was a very scary point.

He was angry at me
because I wasn't getting better.

I remember one time he was real angry
and he was raping me.

And I can remember
my head hitting the... the wall.

He was really upset and angry
about something...

and he was really taking it out on me.

I couldn't figure out what I could do

because I kept feeling
like every time it was over, I thought:

"Well, maybe this time God forgave me."

I had never been in a school
where a priest had a presence

like the priests had there,
because they had offices at Keough.

Father Maskell wielded a lot of power

and fear in people

because you didn't wanna be called
to his office or get in trouble.

He was chaplain
and school counselor at Keough.

The building itself was a very long...

rectangle with some corridors
that went off in different directions.

And his office was far
from the administrative offices.

He was down at the far corner
where there was an exit.

You used to see a lot of girls
coming in and out of his office,

which was kind of strange.

But then I learned that:

"Hey, you know what?

If you wanna smoke, you... You can go
in Maskell's office and smoke.

Just go in there, talk to him,
just hang out and talk."

Maskell was an Irish priest

right out of the traditional
working-class Irish-American community.

His mother often dressed her boy
in Mass vestments.

She used to sew him vestments
and he'd dress up in them and...

Mm-hm.

Call the neighborhood kids over
to say Mass for them.

She went and bought NECCO Wafers
and she segregated the white ones out

so that they could serve
as imitation hosts for Communion.

While the other boys were playing
football and baseball

down two blocks away at the park...

he would say Mass in the yard.

From 15 years old,
he was priest-in-training.

In '65, he was ordained.

And then his first assignment
from 1965 to 1966

was at a Baltimore parish
named Sacred Heart of Mary.

In '66, he was transferred
to St. Clement Parish, which is adjacent

to Archbishop Keough High School.

He was made associate pastor there.

And he supervised
the Boy Scout troop there.

This is my, uh...

I guess...
My wife calls it a dust collection room.

That was my retirement certificate.

There's my grandfather.
The great-great-grandfather

I was telling you about,
Southern District policeman in Baltimore,

and there's a picture of him later.

Me and my brother worked

in the police station
he worked out of, so...

Kind of like family tradition.

When I started Catholic school
in the early '60s,

it was a pretty harsh environment.

We were paddled.

I mean, the nuns...
We feared the nuns and...

Not only the nuns, but the priests,
they were on a whole different level.

The priests were...
more like godlike figures, and...

I mean, they'd walk in the room,
it'd just be silence, and, um...

But this priest, Father Joseph Maskell,
there was something about him.

He had a... coldness about him.

And I've served Mass
for different priests.

And one day,
we were getting ready for Mass...

You know, the altar boys,
we'd get there a little early.

He'd come into the sacristy and, um...

He takes a handgun out of his pocket
and put it on the...

the counter in the sacristy.

And being a street-smart kid,
you know, from the city,

growing up watching Adam-12
and things like that, I mean...

Probably most kids
wouldn't have questioned him, but...

I just let it go.

And I asked him,
"Father, why do you have a handgun?

You're a priest."
And I'll never forget that.

But I'll also never forget
the look he gave me.

I mean, he...
Like as if he looked through me:

"How dare you question me."

I didn't get a look like that...

until years later
interviewing violent offenders...

talking to someone
who had murdered somebody,

looking in their eyes.

That's when I got that look again.

One time I went into the room
and he said,

uh, that it was time for me
to participate in this.

And he went over
and took something out of the drawer,

and it looked like a penis.

And I was, like, not sure

what in the world he was doing
or what that was.

He said, "So, now, you're gonna be
participating in your therapy."

And so he began to use it,
and I remember crying and saying:

"Please stop that, please stop that."

And as it began to take effect...

he came down real close
and, you know, he was like:

"Okay, let's see
how much the whore likes it," you know.

Um, and so then I had an orgasm,
not knowing what that was.

He came in close.
He always liked to come down close.

And he said, "You hated that...

and I'm glad."

And he said,
"Get back to class. Don't be late."

He never gave me a napkin.

He never would hand me a handkerchief.

He never told me I could use his bathroom.

It was always...

Uh, "Pull yourself together
and get back to class."

And I'd hear the click of the door,

and it was like I forgot everything
that had happened.

I was walking in the hall...

and I couldn't figure out
where I was supposed to be.

And Cathy Cesnik looked down
and she said, "Jean, where are you...?

Where are you supposed to be?"
And I said, "I don't know."

So, she told her class to...

She'd be a minute
and she went across the hall

and she asked the teacher,
"Is Jean supposed to be in here?"

And she said, "Yes." And she said,
"Jean, you belong in here."

Then I went in and I sat down in a desk.

Sister Cathy was the type of person
that was approachable,

and you knew that you could talk to her.

You didn't get that all the time
from the older nuns.

You didn't feel
like you could connect with them.

They were more authoritarian.

Sister Cathy was my favorite teacher.

I played guitar,
so I had my guitar with me all the time.

And Sister Cathy played guitar, too,
so I did a lot of practicing with her.

She had more energy
than any person I've ever met.

Very upbeat and happy.

You could talk to her about anything
you wanted to talk to her about and...

Sometimes she would give you advice
and sometimes she would just listen.

She just had a way of soothing your soul.

At Keough, she was probably around... 25.

So young.

All through elementary school,

the majority of the nuns
that taught you were older.

I mean, I had the same second grade nun
that my father and his brothers had.

So, she must have been a hundred.

When we got to Keough,

there were a lot of older ones.

But there were a few young ones, too.

Cathy was the standout beauty of them all.

Physically beautiful,
and her spirit was beautiful.

It was like, "Why would you be a nun?"

She approaches the altar
to become the spouse of God,

promising to serve God faithfully
until death.

These are calendars
called Nuns Having Fun,

and they're absolutely fabulous.

This is called
Sisters on the Dock of the Bay,

instead of Sitting on the Dock of the Bay.

Oh.

This is called Mass Transit.

Mass Transit.

Get it?

"I'd yell, too,
but I took a vow of silence."

My very first day of school,
two nuns came out.

I'd never seen a nun before
in my whole life.

Immediately, I thought,
that's what I'm gonna be when I grow up.

I had no idea what that meant.

I'd never seen a nun before
in my whole life.

I just knew in my heart
that's what I wanted to do.

I loved elementary school
and I loved the nuns.

They were mentors to us.
They were other mothers.

So, I decided that if I wanted to do
something special with my life,

I could go into the convent.

So, I decided to enter
the School Sisters of Notre Dame.

We had 51 girls that entered.

You're measured for a habit.

And then the habit is sent to you,

and then you go to the motherhouse,
and I can see it in my mind.

That day was so happy.

I waited for that day
since I was in the first grade.

For me, it was a real honor
that they accepted me

and that I could get...
I could begin that journey.

There's, like, over 150 people

that were between the ages of 18 and 21
that were there.

It was very, very inspiring.

We became canonical novices,
which meant that we were cloistered.

It's exactly like military boot camp,
and it's pretty, uh, rigorous.

I call what we had to go through
spiritual boot camp.

We'd get up in the morning at 5:15,

we'd go to Mass,

we'd have meditation.

We'd go to breakfast,

and after breakfast,
you would have your chore to do,

whatever you were assigned.

Then we had classes.

And we had to learn
how to walk with our hands in our sleeves.

We had great, big, giant sleeves
and our eyes mortified, cast down,

and our shoulders back and very erect,
and without looking about.

Cathy Cesnik was definitely
not one of the dominant postulants

in the beginning days.

She was like a rosebud
that gradually opened.

She was kind.

She was very spiritual.

And when I got sick, she was there for me.

We had what was called
the Great Silence at night.

We were not able to speak.

And so it was a big deal
to speak to somebody.

But Cathy could see
that something was wrong with me.

She would just knock on the door
and come in and ask me if I was okay,

and ask me
if she could do anything for me,

and she would sit on the edge of the bed
and just hold my hand and say:

"You're gonna be all right."

She was so full of compassion
for everyone and everybody.

She had compassion for the Earth,

and I think that's one of the reasons
we entered the convent.

Remember, it was the '60s.

There was a complete change...

in our society,

in our culture,

and in the Church.

Vatican II was
a big calling together of all leadership

at the Catholic Church at the Vatican
by the pope

to look at religious life

and to look at life in the Church
and how it can be renewed.

There were a huge amount of changes.

Religious communities decided
to change their religious habits

that they had been wearing
for hundreds and hundreds of years.

The pope said
you've gotta get involved in injustice

to be a part of these great movements,

the civil rights movement,

stopping the Vietnam War.

This was the role of us as religious,

to be a part of changing the world.

We'd be sitting there. All of
a sudden, you'd hear Maskell's voice:

"I'd like to see so-and-so..."
And he would say their name

and he would have...
"Have them come to my office immediately."

And then he'd click off like...
There was no if, ands, buts.

You just sent them right away.

It was almost like he had
the teachers afraid of him, too.

I was standing at
Joseph Maskell's door and I knocked on it.

And Cathy walked down
the corridor behind me,

and she said, "Hi, Jeannie.

I didn't know you needed these services."

And he opened the door,
and he looked at me,

and then looked over my head at her,
and I went into the room.

And she said, "I didn't know
Jeannie needed these services."

And he said, "Oh, yeah, yeah.
It's been very effective, real effective."

And he closed the door.

She had the courage
to not only address me,

but she also addressed him.

It was almost like
she was letting him know

that she was also observing.

I think that she was watching
a number of us.

His sessions would be
supposedly guidance sessions,

'cause he was the counselor
for the school.

He started asking personal questions

that were really something
you didn't wanna talk about.

And he says, "You're gonna have
to be punished for this,"

because it was a sin.

Just getting called to his office
was pure trauma to me.

I could be anywhere in the building
and hear my name overhead.

And I remember,
like, one time I was in Spanish class,

and he called my name again,

and I, um... would start crying
and telling the teacher:

"I don't wanna go. I don't wanna go."

One teacher, uh, said:

"I know he's weird and all,
but you have to go."

When you were called over the
loudspeaker to report to Father Maskell,

a dead silence would
come over the classroom,

and other, um, girls would look at you
with sad eyes.

And the teachers, they... They would just,
you know, look down or whatever.

It was like...

They knew something was going on.

They had to.

At a certain point...

could've been more into my sophomore year,

he would bring other people into the room.

I would get there and there would be
someone sitting in a chair,

and I didn't know who it was.

There were things
that Maskell had gotten from me...

about what had happened between my uncle.

One of the things that my uncle would do

is, um...

There was a bar that he would frequent
and he would take me in the back room.

And when he would let
people do things to me there,

he would be stand by the door.

And I always thought that it was, uh...
Like he was my protector.

So, what started happening
was Maskell would stand by the door

while other people
were doing things to me.

So, it was as if Maskell became
my protector.

One time, it was this person,
and he referred to him as a Brother Bob.

I don't know that Bob was his real name...

or if it was just a pseudonym
that Maskell gave him.

Brother Bob was more like a loose cannon.

He was violent.

So out of control.

And he proceeds to rape me
from the back...

and isn't pulling out.

And Maskell comes over
and he, um, grabs him, and he said:

"You need to be careful.

This is a pup of a whole litter of pups.

We can't have that."

So, he's very aware
that my parents are very fertile

and there was a lot of kids.

And so I understand now
what he's referenced to.

I see myself leaving the room
and I wonder if they just sat and laughed.

I talked to Sister Cathy
after school one day

when we were playing guitar.

I told her that Father Maskell
was not very, um...

religious.

I think that's how I put it.

And she asked me, "What do you mean?"

And I told her that, um...

he gets a little physical in his office.

She acted like she didn't know,
but yet her face said she did know.

Joseph Maskell also was
the chaplain for the police department,

for the Air National Guard,

for Maryland State Police.

Maskell was covered
because his brother, Tommy,

was a respected Baltimore city policeman.

And just over the city county line,

he was chaplain
for the Baltimore County Police,

and he was close friends
with several of the police.

Maskell had access to a lot of protection,

and he also could maybe provide men
with what they wanted.

One of the persons
who was standing in the room one time

was a policeman in full uniform.

Okay? If you can imagine
having to do something to a policeman,

your father is a policeman.

I remember them walking in
through a back door

and me laying on the black couch.

And I could see the shirt and pants
of the officer

with the very bright light
coming in the back.

And that's when I heard
the police officer say:

"I don't want to,"
and Maskell encouraging him.

I was sitting
across the table from him...

and he had a gun.

And he's taking
the bullets out one by one.

And he's saying that if my father

ever found out that I was whoring around...

And then he took the gun,
he put it up to my... my temple,

and he pulled the trigger,
and he said he will do the same thing,

but he'll keep the bullets in.

I was terrified.

He used my father against me a lot.

My father was a policeman,
my father carried a gun every day.

He was very aware of the families
that were in the school.

In my case...

there was a lot of abuse in my life
prior to meeting Father Maskell.

He would find out
what happened in your life,

find out your personal life and what...

what was going on...

and then he would use it against you.

Did I get chosen by him

because he knew
I had been previously abused

and the relationship
with my mother and I was broken,

I would be easier prey?

And, you know, I thought about that
in nursing school years later.

I entered Keough in 1967,

and I was doing exceptionally well
at school.

My father was an old-fashioned man

who believed that girls
really shouldn't go to college.

And so, even though
I was getting really good grades

in, um, academic subjects,

he wanted me to take shorthand
and business courses as well.

So, I did that.

And in my junior year, I suddenly got
a call from the school office

to go see Father Maskell.

And he told me
that he needed someone he could trust,

someone that would keep absolute
confidentiality about my classmates...

that would be typing notes
on their psychological counseling,

and that I could get out of...
tests, classes, you name it.

I jumped at the chance.

I already had two jobs.

I wanted a car just so badly
and I was saving up for that.

I would just suddenly get a call
over the loudspeaker:

"Lil Hughes, report
to Father Maskell's office immediately."

You know, and there I would go.

He would always give me a Coke in a...
a paper cup.

So much of what I was typing
was almost all sexual.

It involved incest,
it involved bestiality,

it involved girls having group sex,
venereal disease, on and on.

And these are people
that I was sitting right next to in class.

And so many of the records
that I did type were about him

helping the classmate
by taking them to a gynecologist.

I must've been so totally naive,

because it didn't dawn on me
that this was something

that was totally inappropriate.

At the time, I just was taken in
by his flattery, his attention,

and the fact that I was being, uh,
made to feel very important

by someone
who was very important in the school.

Joseph Maskell,
he earned a master's degree

in school psychology
from Towson State University.

At some point after that,

he went to Hopkins
for a counseling certificate,

they called it, from Johns Hopkins.

Having the psychology certification
gave him access to all these young people.

Maskell was heavy into psychology.

He knew how to manipulate people,
I think, from that.

And I forgot to tell you about Marnie.

Marnie was a movie that was part
of the religion class curriculum.

If it had anything to do with religion,
I don't know.

The whole point of it was,
she had repressed memories.

And one of them in the white suits.

Shut up, Marnie.
No.

Remember, Marnie.

Sean Connery grew to love her
despite her problems.

What happened to you?
Happened? Nothing.

Nothing happened to me.

I just never wanted anybody to touch me.

You ever tried to talk about it?

To a doctor
or somebody who could help you?

It was suggestive, you know,
that maybe I have... things

that I should talk to a counselor about
so I don't turn out like Marnie.

And eventually, he helped solve
what had happened in her childhood

that she had repressed.

I won't let anything bad happen to you.
You're all right.

And then it all came out and...
"Do you think I'm gonna be all right?"

"Yes, Marnie,
I think you're gonna be all right now.

Yes, you are."

And then,
Maskell was our school psychologist,

how convenient that he picked that movie
for us to go and watch.

He was a psychologist.

He would hypnotize me sometimes.

Sometimes it was
with a pocket watch he had.

There are blocks of time
when I have no idea what happened.

He did do psychological tests on me.

He did Rorschach tests.

Every ink blot was
some kind of sexual thing.

He did hypnotize me.

He... But he presented it more
as a challenge, you know,

and with me saying, "Oh, you can't,"
and he's like, "Oh, let's just see."

I think there was something in the Coke.

I've never been certain
of what happened.

There's so many gaps in my memory

of being with him,
and I only have fragments.

It was my...
end of my sophomore year,

so the summer was starting.

I had gone back to the classroom

to get a book
that I thought I had left there.

And Cathy was in the front of the class
and she started just, kind of

light conversation with me,
you know, how...

How was I doing, what was going on,
how did I like Keough?

And I said I didn't really like it.

And Cathy said:

"Oh, no. You know,
is there something in particular?"

And... I said, "Yeah.
You know, there's different things,"

but not really wanting to talk about it.

She said, "Okay."

She said, "Well, how about if I just ask
and you shake your head?"

And I was like, "Okay."

The last time
that I was called to his office,

it was after school,

and I was in the classroom
with Sister Cathy

and my sister was with me.

Father Maskell came on the PA
and asked for me to come down the hall.

And I looked over at Sister Cathy,
and Sister Cathy looked at me.

I know that it was a look of panic
on my face.

And Sister Cathy told him
that I was leaving to go home

because it was after school.

My sister told me later on
that she saw a flicker of acknowledgement

between me and Sister Cathy.

And that's when she knew
that Sister Cathy and I

knew something about Father Maskell.

So, she asked me...

was anyone making me do something
that I didn't wanna do.

And I shook my head.
I remember looking away,

and I shook my head, and she...
She said, um...

She said, "Is it...? Is it the priest?"

And I looked up at her
and I shook my head.

And she said, "Oh, dear God.

I thought as much."

And she then hugged me.

And she said,
"I'm gonna take care of this.

I want you to go home

and I want you to have
a wonderful summer."

And I told Cathy, "Okay."

And I left.

Like soap bubbles are we...

all echoing in an elastic chamber...

always the fear of exploding to air.

Bubbles touch.

And, true, they break...

but some are coupled
in a rainbowed joining and float,

and are, and burst together.

It is dedicated to Gerry.

We were soul mates.

I was her best friend, she was mine.

We first got acquainted
in the summer of '66.

We were corresponding in letters
by July of that summer.

And I would say that we discovered
a real genuine love

for each other at that time.

There were very few people
who knew what our relationship was.

There was no going out somewhere
to dinner or anything like that.

We couldn't do that.

She was facing a crossroads in her life...

because she was coming up
on the expiration of her temporary vows.

The... The nuns took vows
for X number of years,

but then they reached the point
where they would shift

taking temporary vows to take final vows,

and she was facing that.

I was still a year away
from being ordained.

We're sitting next to each other
outside Keough, it was a warm day.

And we're sitting side by side.

And I said to her:

"I feel like I'm about to jump off
a cliff, but I'm gonna do it anyway.

You're facing a decision
to go take final vows.

A year from now, I will face a decision
to become a priest.

And I'm gonna say no to both
and ask you to be my wife."

And she turned me down.

She said, "No.

You're meant to be a priest,
I'm meant to be a nun, so we'll go on."

In spring of 1969...

Sister Cathy was still teaching English
at Keough.

Then the summer came and we were off.

And when I came back in the fall of 1969
to start the senior year,

she was not there
and she was no longer on the faculty.

And it was not real clear to us
what happened to her or where she went.

School started up again.

Cathy wasn't there, and Maskell was.

At one point, he called me to the office.

It was the first time
that I was called to the office

since I was back in... in my junior year.

He was upset because, uh, he...

Someone approached him during summer
and said that they had heard that he was...

Uh, he was, um... hurting the girls.

He was making the girls do something
they didn't wanna do.

And I'm looking at the floor,
you know, and he's, like:

"That wasn't you, was it?

You weren't saying that about me,
were you?"

And I looked up at him and it was like,
"No, no, no, no," you know.

And he said, "Wow," he said, "I hope not."

He said, um,
"I think we need to reacquaint you

with who the real whore is in this room."

He was done, he said:

"You get yourself together
and get out of here.

You just remember
who's got the whoring mouth in this room."

And I left the room.

And Cathy was nowhere to be found.

Cathy's dilemma was
that we are not in touch

with where these girls are coming from.

We don't know what it's like
to be living in the world.

We're protected behind this convent thing,

which limits our understanding
of what a teenage girl is going through.

She had gotten permission
from her local superiors

to try living outside the convent
in an apartment in Catonsville

with Sister Russell.

This is what she looked like
when she left Keough

to go teach in a public school
while remaining a nun.

Cathy Cesnik and Russell Phillips
were trying this experiment.

I understood that Mother Maurice
gave them permission

to experiment with teaching
in public high school

and being nuns out in the regular world.

I was surprised
that they were the ones engaging in this.

They were compliant nuns
following the rules all the time.

Two days before Sister Cathy disappeared,

a friend and I went to her apartment,
casually,

for a visit...

and we talked shortly.

We didn't talk in-depth

because my friend didn't know
what was going on.

Sister Cathy asked me how things were,
and I knew what she meant.

I was... hesitant to answer.

And she says,
"It'll be taken care of, don't worry."

We know of two women,
Jean and Kathy Hobeck,

who shared with Cathy
that they were being abused

by Joseph Maskell.

We also know now
that there is a third woman

who, in fact,
was in Sister Cathy's apartment

the night before Cathy disappeared.

She and her boyfriend arrived
to visit the two sisters,

Cathy and Russell,

and she was sharing with Cathy
about the abuse.

And Joseph Maskell
and Father Neil Magnus

came into the apartment without knocking.

I asked her specifically
what expressions were on their faces,

and she said Maskell was furious,
Magnus looked dumb.

Sister Cathy sent her out,
and her boyfriend out of the apartment.

The next day, when she went to school,

he called her into his office and said:

"If you say anything,
I'll kill both of you and your families."

She never said anything.

Later that day is when Cathy disappeared.

This woman,
who has chosen to remain anonymous,

has lived with fear all her life.

Cathy and I were supposed to get together

the day after she was actually killed.

She said there was something serious
she wanted to talk to me about.

I thought she might...
Wanted to reopen the question

of whether or not
we should leave and get married.

But I look back now and say,
if at that time she was aware...

of priests sexually abusing the girls
at Archbishop Keough,

then maybe that's what she wanted
to talk about.

Would've been a hell of a conversation,
I'll tell you.

But it never happened.

When I was called to the room,
it was after school...

and he was frantic.

He said, "I know you're close
with Sister Cathy...

And I just... I wanted to let you know
that she's missing."

And he said, "But I know where she is."

And I was like, "What do you mean
you know...? You know where she is?"

He said, "I know where she is.
Want me to take you to her?"

And I was like, "Yes."

We leave his room.

I remember walking through the corridor
of the school...

and we go out, and we get in a car.

There's two unbelievable emotions
that are going on at the same time.

One was total shock.
"What do you mean she's missing?"

Like, it hit me like a...
Like, in the stomach.

And the other was,
he knew where she was, relief.

And I just knew I needed to see her.

We pull up into this kind of a...
It was a bit like a barren area.

There was grass, and dirt, and, um...

And I'm thinking,
"What is she doing here?"

And I'm following him.

And he moved over...

and there's a clump on the ground
and I knew it was her.

Before I knew it,
I was kneeling down next to her.

And there were maggots in her face.

And I was wiping her face and just saying:

"Please help me. Please help me.
Please help me. Please help me."

And I'm, like, looking at my hands...

and he came down real close...

and he said:

"Do you see what happens
when you say bad things about people?"