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On April 5, 1980, the day before Easter, Sister Margaret Ann Pahl was strangled to death in a chapel at Mercy Hospital in Toledo, Ohio. Her body, stabbed at least 27 times, was covered with an alter cloth and she was posed as if she'd been raped. Was it a ritual killing? For 24 years there was no answer.

But on April 23, 2004, cold-case detectives arrested the Rev. Gerald Robinson, a Catholic priest. Father Robinson, a chaplain at the hospital, and one of two priests who presided at Sr. Margaret Ann's funeral Mass, was charged with her murder. It's believed to be the first time a priest has faced a murder trial for the death of a nun.

The case was reopened in 2003 after a woman told a church panel investigating sexual abuse allegations in the Toledo diocese that she was raped and tortured at the hands of a parish priest and others connected to the church.

The medical examiner determined she had died by strangulation and that the 27 to 32 stab wounds were likely inflicted after she died and was covered with the altar cloth. The coroner also said that despite the posing of her body, she had not been sexually assaulted.

After three weeks of courtroom testimony by 41 witnesses, with more than 200 items of evidence, the jury deliberated for only six hours before finding Robinson guilty.

He was sentenced to 15 years to life in prison and could be eligible for parole in 10 1/2 years. Currently he resides in a single cell in the Warren Correctional Institution in Lebanon, Ohio.

This story made national and international news. I was the pool photographer for the duration of the three week trial. In addition to the two cameras I used from my shooting position, I used up to three remote cameras at a time, providing images from angles that never would have been possible. I also at times transmitted directly from the courtroom in order to make wire service deadlines.

 

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