By Missy Diaz
South Florida Sun-Sentinel [Florida]
April 11, 2007
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/southflorida/sfl-pskehan11apr11,0,7344990.story?coll=sfla-home-headlines
In her journal entries, Colleen Head, a former employee of St. Vincent Ferrer Catholic Church, details how the Rev. John Skehan's drinking and antics ruined her trip to Ireland in 1999.
Head, now 29, began working at the Delray Beach church at age 15. She was born and raised in St. Vincent's and married there in 2001. Her mother, Terese Roehm Duffey, also worked at the church.
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| Rev. John Skehan |
Sworn testimony of both women has been taken as part of the criminal investigation into grand theft charges against former pastors Skehan and Francis Guinan. Mother and daughter have been granted use immunity by the state and are not being prosecuted, according to their attorney, Michael Salnick.
The priests are accused of misappropriating as much as $8.6 million from the church.
In 1999, Skehan paid for Head to visit him in his native Ireland, where he went each summer. She cut the three-week trip short when the 79-year-old Skehan, who she said drank himself into oblivion throughout the trip, became jealous of her relationship with his nephew, Sean Kennedy, according to court documents.
"He is the only problem on this trip," Head wrote of Skehan. "I feel like throwing my food when I am eating with him. He is obsessed with me, looks at me constantly, follows me around like a sick dog. I HATE HIM!!!"
She later wrote, "the road trip is horrible. [Skehan] drinks & drinks & drinks and then wonders why he can't ... drive."
In another entry she wrote: "He came to me last night and was crying over me and I was Repulsed. I had no sympathy for the pig, he can go kiss off. I was afraid for my life last night, prayed to God b/c I know he has some sick fantasy about me being in his cottage. He won't let me be around Sean. Sean is concerned about me. The whole ... family is."
Head said that she feared confronting Skehan because she worried her mother could lose her job.
Despite the apparent acrimony during the Ireland trip, Head showed immense loyalty to Skehan over the years, according to court documents. At his direction, she and other church employees hid money in the church's ceiling tiles, she said. She shredded documents and created fake account books, she said. She also said she frequently dined with Skehan and protected his secret financial dealings.
People saw her as his "damage control," she told investigators. Head in many ways acted as Skehan's personal assistant, putting drops in his ears, driving him to doctor visits and "she picked him out of the pub when he had too much to drink," according to her mother.
Skehan, in a grandfatherly tone, sent cards to Head for Christmas, Easter and her high school graduation, always thanking her for her hard work and showering her with compliments.
When the investigation into Skehan and Guinan got under way, Head said, Skehan instructed her to give the keys to his apartment to his nephew so the nephew could get rid of some documents. Skehan had a padlocked closet with papers dealing with some past pedophiles within the church, according to Head. It was "maybe some blackmail and stuff so he didn't want anybody to ever be able to get into there," she said.
"You know, he always made sure that I would never tell any of his secrets," she told investigators. "You know, like I'm doing right now."
Salnick, the defense lawyer, said Head has been extremely forthcoming during the investigation.
"It took a lot of courage for her to turn those [diaries] over and it certainly goes to the fact that she's telling the truth," he said. "That's just the kind of person she is. How many people turn over their personal diaries?"
Missy Diaz can be reached at mdiaz@sun-sentinel.com or 561-228-5505.
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