CALIFORNIA
Marin Independent Journal
By Tracey Kaplan
tkaplan@mercurynews.com
mercurynews.com
Posted: 06/19/2012
Some are wracked by guilt, others fueled by frustration. But a close-knit group of supporters will be there for Will Lynch on Wednesday as his trial begins over charges he pummeled a Catholic priest he says molested him and his brother decades ago during a religious group’s camping trip.
More than a dozen parents and children who regularly joined the Lynches on those trips 35 years ago are streaming in from El Centro, Albany and as far away as Oregon to stand behind the man they knew as a vulnerable little boy.
“Certainly, we have some feelings of guilt,” said Paul Smith, 77, who helped found the Christian group with his wife, a former nun. “We invited a priest to say mass on Sundays, and, unfortunately, we chose Father Jerry.”
Prosecutors contend Lynch, now 44, took revenge on the priest, Jerold Lindner, whom the Jesuits have acknowledged is on a list of molesters living at the Sacred Heart retirement and medical center in Los Gatos. In a fit of rage on May 10, 2010, they say, Lynch allegedly pummeled Lindner, who was 65, while yelling, “Turn yourself in or I’ll (expletive) come back and kill you.”
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