Schmit Interfered with 1980 Probe of Nun's Murder, Group Claims
By David Yonke
Toledo Blade
May 12, 2007
http://toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070512/NEWS16/705120404/-1/NEWS
On the one-year anniversary of Toledo priest Gerald Robinson's murder conviction, a victim's advocacy group yesterday asked the City of Toledo to remove honorary street signs that pay tribute to a deceased church leader who allegedly interfered with the original 1980 murder investigation.
Claudia Vercellotti, co-coordinator of the Toledo chapter of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, asked that Mayor Carty Finkbeiner take down the signs designating a stretch of St. Clair Street "Monsignor Jerome Schmit Way."
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| Claudia Vercellotti, co-coordinator of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, speaks near Fifth Third Field. Photo by Dave Zapotosky |
Four members of SNAP stood on the downtown sidewalk beside Fifth Third Field, holding placards and photos of Robinson's murder victim, Sister Margaret Ann Pahl, as Ms. Vercellotti stated that Monsignor Schmit "used his power and influence as a Toledo Catholic Diocesan priest to end the investigation that could have removed a now-convicted murderer from the streets decades ago."
During Robinson's trial in Lucas County Common Pleas Court a year ago, retired Toledo police detectives Art Marx and William Kina testified that Monsignor Schmit interrupted their interrogation of Robinson less than two weeks after Sister Margaret Ann's body was found, strangled and stabbed, in the sacristy of Mercy Hospital on April 5, 1980.
The detectives said they were interrogating the priest when Monsignor Schmit, Deputy Police Chief Ray Vetter, and an attorney knocked on the door and then escorted Robinson out of the Safety Building, effectively ending the murder investigation in which the priest was the primary suspect.
Robinson was arrested 24 years later, on April 23, 2004, and convicted of murder on May 11, 2006.
The 69-year-old priest, now serving a 15-years-to-life sentence at Hocking Correctional Facility in southern Ohio, is appealing the conviction.
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| Schmit |
Sally Oberski, director of communications for the Toledo diocese, said in a statement yesterday that "for over 50 years, Msgr. Jerome Schmit served our community and the people of the Diocese of Toledo with an unblemished record, developing the Catholic Youth Organization and as a founding board member of the Toledo Mud Hens ... Responsible Toledo Police Department authorities have never claimed that Monsignor Schmit obstructed justice in the Sister Margaret Ann Pahl case, and no charges were ever brought against Monsignor Schmit."
Katerina Bekyarska, a spokesman for Mayor Finkbeiner, said the mayor had no comment because "those signs were requested by the Mud Hens organization and it really is up to them to take them down or do whatever they choose to do."
The signs honoring Monsignor Schmit, one of several individuals so honored for instrumental roles in the history of the Mud Hens, were erected near the ballpark on April 5, 2002 - the 22nd anniversary of Sister Margaret Ann's death.
SNAP officials said in a letter to Mayor Finkbeiner that the monsignor's good works in the community do not outweigh court testimony that he obstructed the Robinson murder investigation. They said SNAP was willing to pay any costs incurred in removing and replacing the signs.
A CYO field on Holland-Sylvania Road is named after Monsignor Schmit, who died April 10, 1997, at age 86.
Contact David Yonke at: dyonke@theblade.com or 419-724-6154.
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