{"id":4972,"date":"2006-02-01T15:40:36","date_gmt":"2006-02-01T15:40:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2006\/02\/on-the-matter-of-sister-margaret.html"},"modified":"2006-02-01T15:40:36","modified_gmt":"2006-02-01T15:40:36","slug":"on-the-matter-of-sister-margaret","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/02\/on-the-matter-of-sister-margaret.html","title":{"rendered":"On the matter of Sister Margaret"},"content":{"rendered":"

Long-haul Catholic news hounds will recall, a couple of years ago, the reopening of a decades-old murder case of a Toledo nun, whose body was discovered in a hospital chapel, mutilated and reportedly arranged in a way that gave reason to suspect Satanic-cult activity. The case came back into the spotlight when, in 2004, a Toledo priest was arrested and charged with the crime. <\/p>\n

The Toledo Free Press reports on recent developments, and one retired law enforcement officer’s reaction:<\/a><\/p>\n

\n
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Father Gerald Robinson was charged in 2004 with aggravated murder in the death of Pahl. His twice-delayed trial is scheduled for April 17 before Common Pleas Judge Thomas J. Osowik.<\/span><\/p>\n

Davison said the delays are part of a strategy to "fix" the case.<\/span><\/p>\n

"What they are doing is waiting for the interest to die until Robinson’s not the flavor of the month anymore," he said. "They are also hoping the guy dies before April so it saves everyone the embarrassment of a public trial."<\/span><\/p>\n

Davison has dedicated part of his life to the case, which he calls "one of those that you just can’t let go."<\/span><\/p>\n

"Sister Margaret could have been your mother or sister," he said. "Imagine that she was related to you; would you then agree to let this man off so easily?"<\/span><\/p>\n

Davison recently spoke to Toledo Free Press after hearing prosecutors amended the indictment against Robinson, removing the words "with prior calculation and design" from the original grand jury indictment.<\/span><\/p>\n

"The prosecutor’s office, by removing the premeditated murder stipulation, is leaving the door wide open for Robinson to take an Alford plea," he said. "He’s going to walk. Whatever sentence they do give him, they are going to put him on shock probation. They are not required to make this public, either."<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Also, Toledo Blade religion editor David Yonke, who is a good reporter, is writing a book on the case – and is keeping mum on its content.<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Long-haul Catholic news hounds will recall, a couple of years ago, the reopening of a decades-old murder case of a Toledo nun, whose body was discovered in a hospital chapel, mutilated and reportedly arranged in a way that gave reason to suspect Satanic-cult activity. The case came back into the spotlight when, in 2004, a…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4972","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nOn the matter of Sister Margaret - Via Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/02\/on-the-matter-of-sister-margaret.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"On the matter of Sister Margaret - Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Long-haul Catholic news hounds will recall, a couple of years ago, the reopening of a decades-old murder case of a Toledo nun, whose body was discovered in a hospital chapel, mutilated and reportedly arranged in a way that gave reason to suspect Satanic-cult activity. The case came back into the spotlight when, in 2004, a…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/02\/on-the-matter-of-sister-margaret.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2006-02-01T15:40:36+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"awelborn\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"On the matter of Sister Margaret - Via Media","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/02\/on-the-matter-of-sister-margaret.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"On the matter of Sister Margaret - Via Media","og_description":"Long-haul Catholic news hounds will recall, a couple of years ago, the reopening of a decades-old murder case of a Toledo nun, whose body was discovered in a hospital chapel, mutilated and reportedly arranged in a way that gave reason to suspect Satanic-cult activity. 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The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/author\/awelborn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4972","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4972"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4972\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4972"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4972"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4972"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}