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	TV Shows Planned on Murder of Nun Court TV, A&E Begin Work in Toledo By Mark Reiter Toledo Blade June 21, 2006 http://toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060621/NEWS02/606210405 Court TV and the A&E network are racing to get programs on the 26-year-old murder of Sister Margaret Ann Pahl into production so that the crime can be retold to television audiences this fall. Production companies under contract with the two television networks began working in Toledo yesterday on local interviews for prime-time shows that could be aired as early as August. The trial of Gerald Robinson, the Catholic priest who was convicted last month of killing the nun in the chapel of the former Mercy Hospital, attracted national attention. A film crew from Brainbox Productions of Silver Spring, Md., was in the Lucas County Courthouse conducting interviews and shooting locales for upcoming programming on the Court TV network. "Everyone wants to get the best possible show on the air as quickly as possible. We covered the trial extensively. We feel it is an interesting case," said Alex Carling of Court TV in New York. Lucas County Assistant Prosecutor Dean Mandros, who was on the team that convicted Robinson for the 1980 slaying of the nun, was among the first to be interviewed for Court TV programming. Also in the courthouse was the Chicago-based Kurtis Productions, which was working on an upcoming episode of Cold Case Files, a documentary forensic series on the A&E network. The episode of the award-winning program, hosted by Bill Kurtis, is scheduled to be aired Sept. 16, said Laura Fleury, executive producer for the network. "This is a detective drama where you see the dogged detective work and how the police and prosecutors solve it," she said. Michael T. Harvey, a supervising producer with Kurtis Productions, said the investigation into Sister Margaret Ann's homicide was chosen in part because of the forensic science that was used to reconstruct the crime and solve the case. "We will focus on the nuts and bolts and how the case was built, how the evidence was developed after so many years, and how a case was made to charge the defendant," he said. He said the investigation into the cold case will be reconstructed through the interviews of retired and current police detectives, forensic experts, coroners, and assistant prosecutors. A compelling aspect of the Robinson case, he said, was the investigative methods that Toledo police Detective Terry Cousino used to match the murder weapon - a dagger-shaped letter opener - to the wounds on the victim and blood stains on an altar cloth. "To take old evidence and look at it in a new way, and that is what happened here, is a great piece of detective work," said Mr. Harvey, who was a lawyer in Chicago before he became a television journalist. Court TV's plans regarding the murder investigation and trial were not as clear. But Anthony Horn, vice president of Court TV productions, said the network plans to profile the case in a 60-minute episode of The Investigators, with an airing date in August or September. "The series offers the broadest umbrella for true crime programming. There are a lot of interesting aspects to this case," he said. Court TV provided gavel-to-gavel coverage of the three-week trial in Lucas County Common Pleas Court. Mr. Horn said the Court TV episode will go beyond the network's trial coverage and out-of-courtroom interviews. "It looks like we will be breaking new developments in this case that some will know and others won't," he said. Contact Mark Reiter at: markreiter@theblade.com or 419-213-2134.
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