Sin, Shame & Secrets: A True Story of the Murder of a Nun, the Conviction of a Priest, and the Cover-up in the Catholic Church

By David Yonke

Book Overview

In this unique and compelling true-crime story, journalist and author David Yonke presents and analyzes the only case in U.S. history in which a Roman Catholic priest was arrested for the murder of a nun. Father Gerald Robinson of Toledo, whom friends and associates described as a timid and mild-mannered man, was arrested by cold-case detectives in April, 2004, and charged in the brutal slaying of Sister Margaret Ann Pahl 24 years earlier. The 71-year-old nun had been choked to the edge of death, covered with an altar cloth, and stabbed 31 times in the face, neck and chest. Her body was found in the sacristy of a Catholic hospital, her habit pulled up to her chest and her undergarments around her ankles. It was Holy Saturday morning, 1980, the day before Easter and the day before the victim's 72nd birthday. Cold-case investigators said the first nine stab wounds, made over the nun's heart, were in the shape of an upside down cross, one of many signs that Sister Margaret Ann was the victim of a ritual killing. "Sin, Shame & Secrets" unveils how cold-case investigators decided to reopen the case in 2003 after a Toledo nun testified that Father Robinson abused her in satanic rituals when she was a child. The nun's testimony before the Toledo Catholic Diocese's Review Board also alleged that a number of children had been killed by the cult. A lengthy police investigation followed, resulting in Robinson's arrest at age 66 on April 23, 2004. After a three-week trial, covered gavel-to-gavel by Court TV (now truTV), the priest was convicted of murder on May 11, 2006 and sentenced to 15 years to life in prison. * * * Yonke, the award-winning former Religion Editor and reporter at The Toledo Blade, reviewed hundreds of police files, interviewed dozens of principles, and covered every minute of the trial to give readers a thorough and examined look at events as they unfolded, as well as providing background information for the story and the people involved. * * * In Robinson's legal appeals, the killer priest claimed that his trial attorneys failed to examine the possibility that another hospital chaplain - one with a drinking problem, a bad temper, and a knife collection - may have been the real murderer. Robinson also alleged that Coral Eugene Watts, a confessed serial killer who strangled and stabbed up to 80 women, was living an hour north of Toledo in 1980 and may have been the perpetrator. The story has been covered by news media around the world and featured on many nationally broadcast television programs. Although Robinson's appeals were denied by the Ohio Supreme Court and the U.S. Supreme Court, public debate and controversy continue to swirl in this timeless and controversial case. * * * Nancy Grace of CNN and truTV commented: "Very rarely does a single incident grip the public conscience. The brutal and sacrilegious murder of a true innocent, Sister Margaret Ann Pahl, does just that. Carefully detailing her murder, Yonke describes not only the search for a killer, but the struggle for all of us including both the Toledo police and the Catholic Church, to accept that evil exists everywhere around us, even within the house of God." Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Michael Sallah called it "a murder case for the ages," adding that "Yonke deftly shows how an American Catholic diocese kept one of its own from being charged for more than a quarter century." Father Thomas Doyle, JCD, CADC, commented: "This is not just another murder mystery. It is a true story that enrages, mystifies and terrifies any reader with even a modicum of moral awareness." Barbara Blaine, founder of SNAP, said: "Through painstaking research and gripping narrative, David Yonke presents and analyzes a stunning case of physical, emotional, and sexual pain and the political corruption that kept a horrific crime unsolved for years."

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1507713169
• ISBN13: 9781507713167
• Release Date: January 2015
• Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
• Length: 298 Pages
• Weight: 1.04 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

A factual "Eyes Wide Open" approach to a shocking "closed Mouth" subject.

David Yonke tackles this blockbuster of a subject with the profesionalism of the seasoned journalist he proves to be. He unbiasly weaves a story from events that take place over nearly a fifty year span. He backs up his facts with fascinating interviews with those just and injust. As with interviews culled from all sides of those who played parts in horrific events like war crimes, Yonke's work shows how the passage of time has made some interesting and redemptive twists of perspective with those who participated or had some accountabillity in the matter. Also, disturbing as it is,he illuminates the fact that as well, time has made no difference, to some individuals responsible,yet still obsessed with self preservation,and the image of a culpable institution they will not question.

A Book Not to be missed

This book is a must read if you want to know what is really going on in the church. Very sad state of affairs

Couldn't put down...

I read this book over Christmas with much activity going on but couldn't put it down. Living in Toledo I was well aware of the events and the trial yet only after I read the book did I understand what had really happened. I am not interested generally in this genre. This book, however, reads like a novel as far as "interesting" and reads like a documentary as far as "information". I highly recommend it!

The Truth Comes Out

Author David Yonke has done a wonderful job of sorting through and explaining a tangled web of cover-ups, lies, and tabu subjects that have been supressed by the Catholic Church for years. He lays it out and explains technical information in a clear and entertaining way. Once you pick it up, you can't put it down.

How a catholic priest who murdered a nun escaped justice for more than 20 years

Sin, Shame and Secrets is a book that you will be unable to put down. David Yonke starts this story from its beginning in April 1980. In gripping and almost excruciating detail, he describes the choking and brutal stabbing of Sr. Margaret Ann Pahl. Yonke tells the emotional story of how the sisters from her religious community found Sr. Margaret's body in the chapel of the Mercy Hospital, as well as the vain attempts of emergency room physicians and nurses to revive her. He describes the early efforts of Toledo police detectives to identify and investigate Sr. Margaret's murder only to be thwarted by their police superior when leads point to catholic priest and hospital chaplain Fr. Gerald Robinson as the primary suspect. But perhaps what David Yonke describes best is the context in which the killer of a nun could escape justice for more than 20 years. Sin, Shame and Secrets discusses how catholic priests in northwestern Ohio's Toledo catholic diocese enjoyed protection from not only the catholic hierarchy, but also from local law enforcement. Yonke describes how those protections enabled crimes like sexual abuse and in this case even murder to escape punishment until courageous victims of their crimes and their advocates from the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) begin speaking and demanding justice. Sin, Shame and Secrets also provides a firsthand account of the trial of the State of Ohio v. Gerald Robinson. By attending the trial from it's first day until the verdict is read, Yonke gives a perspective that belongs to a juror with the pen of a journalist. Sin, Shame and Secrets also gives details that even jurors wouldn't know. Yonke discusses what was found in a search of Robinson's home, as well as what was discovered when police executed a 2004 search warrant on Toledo diocesan headquarters. The police officers' discovery of secret files on how law enforcement favoritism and even abortions covered up priestly crimes of sexual abuse of women and minors will leave your head spinning. Sin, Shame and Secrets is as good as it is troubling. I read it in three days and then read it again. You will not be able to put this book down.