By John Seewer
Associated Press, carried in Island Packet
April 21, 2006
http://www.islandpacket.com/24hour/nation/story/3267343p-12060503c.html
TOLEDO, Ohio (AP) - Stab wounds in the chest of a nun killed 26 years ago match exactly with the diamond-shaped blade of a letter opener found in the room of a priest accused in the slaying, a prosecutor said Friday.
The tip fits exactly with a small hole in the jaw of Sister Margaret Ann Pahl, who was strangled and stabbed a day before Easter in 1980, prosecutor Dean Mandros said in opening statements of the priest's trial.
The Rev. Gerald Robinson, 68, is accused of strangling and stabbing Pahl, 71, on the day before Easter in 1980 in the chapel at the hospital where they worked together. The priest presided at her funeral Mass four days later.
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| Photo: Assistant Lucas County Prosecutor Dean Mandros addresses the jury during opening arguments Friday, April 21, 2006, in Toledo, Ohio. Robinson, a 68-year-old Roman Catholic priest, is accused of killing a nun in a hospital chapel over Easter weekend 26 years ago. AP Photo/ANDY MORRISON |
Defense attorney Alan Konop said inconsistencies in statements made by witnesses over the past two decades will leave doubt in the minds of the jurors about who committed the crime.
"Pieces of the prosecutor's puzzle do not fit," he said.
Jurors on Friday walked through the hospital chapel and the sacristy, where the priest's robes are kept and where the nun's body was found. They also saw Robinson's old room.
Pahl was stabbed 31 times, including nine times in the shape of an upside down cross, Mandros said. Prosecutors said they will not try to prove a motive in the killing.
Investigators reopened the murder case in December 2003 after the prosecutor's office received a letter about a woman's claims that she was molested by priests for years as a child. Among the names she mentioned was Robinson. Police were unable to substantiate her allegations of sexual abuse.
Robinson was a suspect early on because he was near the chapel at the time of the killing. He was arrested in 2004 after investigators found that bloodstains on an altar cloth matched those from the letter opener.
Robinson, who is free on bail, could get life in prison if convicted of murder.
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