TOLEDO (OH)
MLive.com
4/14/2006, 9:03 p.m. ET
By JOHN SEEWER
The Associated Press
TOLEDO, Ohio (AP) — A day before Easter in 1980, Sister Margaret Ann Pahl was found strangled and stabbed in a hospital chapel, the wounds on the nun's chest and neck forming what investigators say resembled a cross. An altar cloth covered part of her body.
The trail soon went cold and stayed that way for more than 20 years — until investigators circled back to the priest who presided at her funeral Mass.
On Monday, the Rev. Gerald Robinson, 68, goes on trial on murder charges in a case swirling with allegations of an official cover-up, rumors of sexual abuse rites among priests, and suspicions that the killing was some kind of ritual slaying. Robinson could get life in prison if convicted.