BALTIMORE (MD)
Tyla [Manchester, UK]
August 19, 2024
By Rhiannon Ingle
Sister Catherine ‘Cathy’ Cesnik’s 1969 murder still remains unsolved to this day
Warning: This article contains discussion of sexual assault which some readers may find distressing.
A true crime documentary from 2017 has stood the test of time after leaving viewers ‘disgusted to the core’.
The ‘incredibly distressing’ Netflix doc in question follows a grim true story of a cold case that tore through Baltimore back in the late 1960s.
Sister Catherine ‘Cathy’ Cesnik was loved by her students at Baltimore’s Archbishop Keough High School.
She was last seen on the evening of November 7th 1969 after leaving her apartment, which she shared with her friend and fellow nun, Sister Russell Phillips, and never returned home.
Sister Russell then turned to Pete McKeon and Gerry Koob, two friends who were priests and lived nearby (Koob was in a romantic relationship with Cesnik) to call police in the early morning hours after Cesnik’s empty car was found near her apartment complex.
Then just two months later, Cesnik’s body was found at a garbage dump in a suburban area near Baltimore with a medical examination concluding she’d died from blunt force trauma – she was just 26 years old.
The documentary explores what events could have possibly led to Cesnik’s death, suggesting that what she was told in confidence by her students – specifically about the horrific sexual abuse they said they’d allegedly endured at the hands of the school’s chaplain and guidance counsellor Father Joseph Maskell – could be behind the young nun’s still-unsolved 1969 murder.
However, Maskell, who died in 2001, denied all the murder and abuse accusations made against him.
If you hadn’t already guessed it, the doc is The Keepers and you can watch the official trailer here: (see original article for trailer)
Last year, the case came back into the public conscious after Maryland Attorney General released a report from a four-year-long investigation detailing the ‘pervasive and persistent abuse’ from the clergy members and others in archdiocese, as per The New York Times.
The report includes 156 clergy members who had allegedly abused more than 600 children starting from the 1940s.
Following the report’s release, Baltimore Archbishop William Lori wrote to ‘offer his heartfelt apology to the victim-survivors and their families’, adding that ‘no one credibly accused of child abuse is in ministry in the archdiocese today’.
In response to this news, one X user penned: “As an abuse survivor, The Keepers 2017 documentary series on Netflix absolutely broke my brain open in a positive way.
“It made me realise how enablers/ignorers are at least equally a problem, if not more so, than the predators themselves.”
A second warned: “If you’re looking for something other than this administration to make you feel sick and disgusted to your core might I recommend The Keepers.”
“I just finished watching The Keepers on Netflix last night,” confessed a third. “I don’t often watch true crime shows, because there’s something exploitative about most of them that I can’t stomach.
“But (CW, more in subsequent tweets) The Keepers is amazing.”
Another echoed: “Currently watching The Keepers docu series on Netflix, which is one part incredibly distressing account of two nuns murdered to cover up a horrible predator at a catholic high school— and one part 2 extremely charming grandmas solving a cold case.”
And a final X user recommended: “If anyone wants a good true crime docuseries on Netflix, I recommend The Keepers.
“It came out a few years ago and I rewatch it once a year. It’s sad and intense.”
The Keepers is currently available to stream on Netflix.