TOLEDO (OH)
Cleveland Plain Dealer
Wednesday, April 12, 2006
James Ewinger
Plain Dealer Reporter
Toledo- There are no little murders. But Gerald Robinson is about to go on trial in Toledo for one that is unusually large, judging by the interest.
He is a Roman Catholic priest. The victim, Sister Margaret Ann Pahl, was a nun, and the slaying occurred more than 20 years ago, in the chapel of a hospital where they worked.
The crime is anchored to Easter Sunday - the most sacred, defining day in Christendom. It occurred on Holy Saturday 1980, the day before Easter and what would have been the nun's 72nd birthday.
Robinson's murder trial begins Monday, the day after Easter 2006, when a Lucas County Common Pleas judge begins empaneling a jury under the glare of national - and quite possibly international - media attention.
And why wouldn't the media descend?
There are intimations of a ritual killing, satanic cults, organized sexual abuse and an institutional cover-up.
Someone strangled and stabbed Pahl at least 30 times - the wounds defining an inverted cross. Some of her clothes were pulled off, suggesting a sexual assault.