By David Yonke
Toledo Blade
May 5, 2006
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Two times more than 20 years apart, the Rev. Gerald Robinson told investigators that he never left his apartment at Mercy Hospital the morning a nun was found slain in 1980 until he was called about the killing.
But Lucas County prosecutors wrapped up their murder case against the priest yesterday by calling two witnesses who testified they saw Father Robinson in a hallway near Mercy Hospital's chapel shortly before — and soon after — Sister Margaret Ann Pahl was found dead in the adjacent sacristy.
A third witness testified he did not know Father Robinson at the time but added that the defendant fit the description of the priest he saw while racing to respond medically to the fatally wounded nun.
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Dr. Jack Baron, who was a resident at Mercy Hospital in 1980, testifies that he saw a priest in the hallway while he was running to the chapel. Photo by The Blade/Andy Morrison |
Leslie Kerner, a former EKG technician at Mercy, said she arrived for work about 6:50 a.m. on April 5, 1980 — Holy Saturday. After punching the time clock, she said she looked down a hallway and saw Father Robinson standing near the open doors of the chapel.
Grace Jones, who worked from 4 to 11:30 a.m. sterilizing laboratory equipment, said she went to get a copy of The Blade from a newsstand outside the hospital between 7 and 7:30 a.m. While waiting for an elevator, the priest left the chapel carrying a duffel bag and walked right past her, she testified.
"I nodded at him, and he nodded at me," Ms. Jones said.
Both witnesses testified they were certain the man they saw that morning was Father Robinson, who is now 68 and on trial in Lucas County Common Pleas Court for the murder of 71-year-old Sister Margaret Ann.
Prosecutors called 30 witnesses since the trial began April 21, including renowned forensic investigator Henry Lee of Meriden, Conn., and blood-pattern transfer expert Paulette Sutton of Memphis.
The expert witnesses have sought to convince the 12 jurors and four alternates that a saber-shaped letter opener belonging to Father Robinson was used in the killing.
Prosecutors linked the letter opener to bloody prints found on an altar cloth and said the blade fit a wound in the victim's jawbone "like a key fits a lock."
Police believe Sister Margaret Ann was killed between 7 and 7:30 a.m. in the hospital's sacristy, where she had gone to prepare the chapel for Holy Saturday services.
The killer first choked the nun nearly to death, then laid her on the sacristy floor, covered her body with an altar cloth, and stabbed her nine times over the heart in the shape of an upside down cross.
The killer then removed the altar cloth, stabbed her 22 more times in the face, neck, and chest, and then pulled her dress up and undergarments down to leave her exposed below the waist.
Father Robinson has maintained his innocence. His team of four defense attorneys has challenged the reliability of prosecution witnesses' memories from 26 years ago and has sought to point out inconsistencies and discrepancies in the state's case to raise reasonable doubt among jurors.
The defense will begin calling witnesses today and has said it plans to interview between 8 and 10 witnesses.
Kathleen Reichs, a forensic anthropologist from Charlotte, N.C., whose writings inspired the FOX-TV show Bones, is scheduled to testify Monday.
Ms. Jones said yesterday that she told investigators in 1980 about seeing the priest in the hallway, but because she has a speech impediment, she felt they did not take her seriously.
When she heard that Father Robinson had been arrested in 2004, "I said, 'Thank you, Jesus,'" Ms. Jones testified.
The third witness to take the stand yesterday was Dr. Jack Baron, then a resident doctor at Mercy.
The doctor said he was meeting with other physicians for a briefing when a code came over the hospital's public-address system calling for urgent medical help in the chapel. He said he raced down two flights of stairs, then made a wrong turn away from the chapel and passed a priest heading in the opposite direction.
"I'll never forget it. He gave me a stare that went right through me," Dr. Baron said. "He didn't say a word."
The doctor said he did not know Father Robinson at the time and could not identify the priest he saw in the hallway. But he said Father Robinson fit the general description of the cleric he passed that morning.
Father Robinson, who according to court testimony is about 5-foot-7 and 160 pounds, was one of two Catholic priests serving as chaplain at Mercy Hospital in April, 1980. The other, the Rev. Jerome Swiatecki, was described in court as approximately 6-feet-tall and 250 pounds. He died in 1996.
Dr. Baron said he hurried into the chapel and then into the adjoining sacristy, where he saw another doctor kneeling beside Sister Margaret Ann's lifeless body. Dr. Baron said he met with police a few days after the killing, but they did not appear interested in his statement about seeing a priest in the hallway.
"They seemed to jump right to the next question," Dr. Baron said. "I figured they already knew about it. ... But it always kind of bothered me."
He contacted the Lucas County prosecutor's office in 2004 after reading about Father Robinson's arrest on April 23, 2004.
In a videotape of a 2004 police interrogation that was shown in court Monday, Father Robinson told cold-case investigator Tom Ross that he had been in his room the entire morning of April 5. He said he left his room only after Sister Phyllis Ann Gerold, Mercy Hospital's administrator, called to tell him about the slaying.
Ms. Kerner, under cross examination by defense attorney Alan Konop, acknowledged that she did not tell police in 1980 about seeing Father Robinson in the chapel doorway. She said police only asked her if she had seen anyone "unusual or out of the ordinary," which she did not think applied to Father Robinson.
Her ex-husband, Richard Kerner, testified that Ms. Kerner told him after the killing that she had seen a priest by the chapel. But he said his ex-wife did not tell him the priest's name.
Also testifying yesterday was James Wiegand, a 29-year Toledo police officer now working as director of public safety at Bowling Green State University. He administered a polygraph test to Father Robinson on April 19,1980.
"Father Robinson indicated to me that he had arisen at approximately 7:30 and was in the process of getting dressed ... when he got the phone call indicating that Sister Pahl had been found in the chapel," Mr. Wiegand said.
The officer said he asked Father Robinson why he thought anyone would have killed Sister Margaret Ann. "He indicated he did not know, but that Sister Pahl had a dominant personality," Mr. Wiegand said.
Mr. Ross testified yesterday that when the Lucas County cold-case squad reopened the investigation into the nun's death in late 2003, investigators first reviewed 1980 police reports and examined physical evidence.
He said the altar cloth containing the bloodstains had been checked into the police property room on April 7, 1980 — two days after the murder — and had not been looked at until the cold-case team examined it.
Mr. Ross also said he noted several "internal inconsistencies" when he interrogated Father Robinson on the night of his arrest, April 23, 2004.
Contact David Yonke at: dyonke@theblade.com or 419-724-6154.
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• Catholic Expert on Rituals Set to Testify
• Cold-Case Detective Tells Why Priest Was Suspect
• Priest's Decision to Shorten Mass Upset Slain Nun, Woman Testifies
• Victim's Nephew Watches Testimony 'Hoping for Justice'
• Forensic Expert Says Letter Opener Could Have Been Used to Stab Nun
• Experts Testify on Bloodstain Patterns, DNA
• Weapon Linked to Nun's Death; Coroner Says Letter Opener Fit Jaw Wound
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