C0m1ngD0wn
05-17-2006, 08:01 AM
Catholic priest convicted over satanic ritual murder of nun
A U.S. jury yesterday found a Roman Catholic priest guilty of the satanic ritual-style murder of a 71-year-old nun which went unsolved for more than 25 years.
Father Gerald Robinson, above, was sentenced to a mandatory jail term of between 15 years and life.
There were gasps in the court after the verdict, but the 68-year-old priest remained impassive.
Sister Margaret Ann Pahl was found murdered on a chapel floor in April, 1980. She had been strangled, covered in an altar cloth and stabbed 31 times in the shape of an upturned holy cross.
She had been grabbed from behind and choked so violently that the blood vessels in her eyes burst and two bones in her neck broke. Prosecutor Dean Mantros said that Robinson pushed up the nun's robe and pulled down her underwear.
Robinson was an early suspect but was only arrested in 2004, after a woman came forward with claims that she had been sexually abused by a group of priests who performed satanic rituals and held sadomasochistic orgies.
A spot of blood on the priest's letter opener was found to match a bloodstain on the altar cloth that had covered
http://www.theadvertiser.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5936,19115810%255E912,00.html
A U.S. jury yesterday found a Roman Catholic priest guilty of the satanic ritual-style murder of a 71-year-old nun which went unsolved for more than 25 years.
Father Gerald Robinson, above, was sentenced to a mandatory jail term of between 15 years and life.
There were gasps in the court after the verdict, but the 68-year-old priest remained impassive.
Sister Margaret Ann Pahl was found murdered on a chapel floor in April, 1980. She had been strangled, covered in an altar cloth and stabbed 31 times in the shape of an upturned holy cross.
She had been grabbed from behind and choked so violently that the blood vessels in her eyes burst and two bones in her neck broke. Prosecutor Dean Mantros said that Robinson pushed up the nun's robe and pulled down her underwear.
Robinson was an early suspect but was only arrested in 2004, after a woman came forward with claims that she had been sexually abused by a group of priests who performed satanic rituals and held sadomasochistic orgies.
A spot of blood on the priest's letter opener was found to match a bloodstain on the altar cloth that had covered
http://www.theadvertiser.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5936,19115810%255E912,00.html