BALTIMORE (MD)
Baltimore Sun [Baltimore MD]
October 20, 2023
By Frederick N. Rasmussen
Linda Malat Tiburzi, one of a dozen victims abused by Catholic Community Middle School teacher John Merzbacher in the 1970s who in the aftermath of her vicious assault and life of turbulence went on to become an advocate for victims of such abuse, was found dead Oct. 17 in her Glen Burnie home. She was 62.
“We think it was a heart attack,” Dianna C. Hughes, Ms. Tiburzi’s aunt who helped raise her, said.
“She was an amazing and a very talented and smart person and I don’t think people realized that the abuse took all of that away from her,” Mrs. Hughes, of Locust Point, said. “She was a very giving person and had a heart that wanted to help people.”
Linda Marie Malat was born in Baltimore and raised in Locust Point. After her mother left the family, she was reared by her grandparents and aunt.
“We have been childhood friends since we were 11,” said Elizabeth Ann ‘Liz’ Murphy, who attended Catholic Community Middle School in Locust Point with Ms. Tiburzi. In 1972, they would be confronted by their teacher, John Merzbacher, who would eventually molest them and others.
Mr. Merzbacher’s classroom was far from conventional, as he strode about puffing on a pipe while an authentic traffic signal flashed from green to red and records played loudly. He carried a gun, which he would occasionally discharge in the classroom.
What happened to both women resulted in a lifelong bond forged in shared abuse at the hands of Mr. Merzbacher.
Mr. Merzbacher raped his victims on his desk or in a storage room, next to his classroom. He was sentenced to four life sentences after his rape conviction in 1995 and died in prison earlier this year.
When complaints reached school principal Sister Eileen Weisman, a member of the Schools Sisters of Notre Dame, she did not intervene.
“Yes, when I come home for a rare visit I must pass by the windows of the classroom that John Merzbacher raped me in. The same room that the principal Sister Eileen Weisman had to unlock the doors one afternoon because she heard my screams,” Ms. Tiburzi said in her victim impact statement in 2012, when Mr. Merzbacher’s lawyer was seeking his early release from prison. Sister Weisman denied knowledge of the abuse in 1994.
“She walked in saw my breast exposed, he was on top of me, but she did nothing,” she wrote. “On this day he threatened to blow my f——g brains out, and to kill my family and even my dog. One would think the screams would lessen after all these years, but they have not. Often times my screams have grown even louder.”
Another time, during a rehearsal for the musical “Godspell,” Mr. Merzbacher ordered Ms. Tiburzi to go to the storage room, when he and a male student approached her from behind.
“[Mr. Merzbacher] began fondling me. He then instructed the male student to take my clothes off and get on top of me. Holding a long-bladed knife, he told me that he would kill me if I did not stop screaming,” she wrote.
He then stabbed a banjo that was next to her head and threatened that her face would be next if she did not cease screaming.
After graduating from Catholic Community Middle School, the two friends entered the old Archbishop Keough High School in Southwest Baltimore.
After two years, Ms. Tiburzi dropped out. She went to New England where she worked various jobs.
She had a son whom she raised as a single parent and returned to Baltimore in 2014, where she and Ms. Murphy, who had for a time contemplated a career as a nun, reunited.
In 1994, Mr. Merzbacher was arrested and charged with 120 counts of sexually abusing students. It was Ms. Murphy’s case that went to trial where her attacker was found guilty.
“Linda and I became advocates for the protection of children and she spent the entire remaining years of her life working to have the Archdiocese of Baltimore change on how they treat survivors,” she said.
Sister Eileen later became principal of the School of the Cathedral in Guilford where in 2010, the school had named a playground after her.
“Linda took pictures and sent them to Cardinal Edwin F. O’Brien who ordered the sign removed,” Ms. Murphy said. “She was a force to be reckoned with, but at no time did she lose her faith in God.”
Ms. Tiburzi eventually earned her GED and graduated in the highest percentile.
“Linda suffered such a severe trauma that people will never really know the extent of her life of abuse, but helping other survivors and showing her face,” Ms. Murphy said. “I don’t know what I’m going to do without her. She was a sister warrior with a heart of gold.”
“It’s been a longtime coming,” Ms. Tiburzi told The Baltimore Sun when the Attorney General’s Report on Child Sexual Abuse in the Archdiocese of Baltimore 463-page report was released this spring.
“I just want darkness, the crimes, the heinous things that were done to children to finally come to light,” she said.
A month after the report was released, Mr. Merzbacher, 81, died at the Eastern Correctional Institution in Westover, Somerset County.
“She was a gifted poet, artist and so much more and how those talents were never really able to come to fruition because of what had happened, but what she had, she used to help others,” Ms. Murphy said.
“Our names will never be engraved on church cornerstones, but we will continue to cry out from beneath those stones,” she said.
Ms. Tirbuzi wrote poetry and loved all types of flowers.
The last poem she wrote to Ms. Murphy in May was “Flowers. Part ll,” whose last line reads: “It’s me who watched over your garden. Now you have returned. I knew you would come. It’s me child. I am your forever loving God.”
There will be a viewing from 3 to 5 p.m. Sunday at the Charles L. Stevens Funeral Home at 1501 E. Fort Ave. in Locust Point, which will be followed by a 7 p.m. service.
In addition to her aunt, she is survived by her son, Christopher Tiburzi of Dundalk; and her companion of a decade, John Upperman, a surveyor, of Glen Burnie.
Baltimore Sun librarian Paul McCardell contributed research.