Dallas" Trish Mclelland, Who Built Database of Abusive Priests, Dies
By Joe Simnacher
Patricia Ruth Hall “Trish” McLelland of Dallas devoted the last 21 years of her life to preventing predators from harming children. The legal assistant started with a 1993 research assignment to build a database for a lawsuit against the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. After that case was won, she continued to expand the list of church perpetrators, working evenings and weekends. In 2004, the database was donated to BishopAccountability.org, making it available to the public. It has since grown to include data on priests around the world. McLelland, 68, died Jan. 1 of natural causes at Grace Presbyterian Village. A memorial will be at 2 p.m. Thursday at Laurel Land Funeral Home, 6000 S. R.L. Thornton Freeway in Dallas. “I don’t think it’s any exaggeration that the work she did certainly saved lives — it saved kids from being abused,” said Terry McKiernan, founder and president of BishopAccountability.org. “People use that database and find out that priest is now a counselor in a public school or something like that.” McLelland was gentle and nice to everyone, but had a “steely determination to do the work she did,” McKiernan said. “She was very, very focused on making sure that this terrible story that she had devoted her life to working on got told,” he said. Dallas lawyer Sylvia Demarest was representing victims of a sexual predator priest when she hired McLelland in 1993. “I didn’t think enough effort had been put into fleshing out and putting together the information to give a better picture of the crisis,” Demarest said. McLelland called courthouses across the nation and monitored newspapers to compile the data. “She got to be very, very good at it,” Demarest said. The 1997 case against U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops resulted in the largest verdict against the Catholic Church in the history of the crisis, Demarest said. McLelland worked for Demarest for about 10 years. She most recently worked for Dallas lawyer Tahira Khan Merritt. She was also a Dallas-based employee of BishopAccountability.org. “People like her are the ones who really do the work and get things accomplished, but they are very rarely the ones who get recognized,” Demarest said. “It’s important … for her to get recognized for the important work that she did.” McLelland worked evenings and weekends in addition to her full-time job as a legal assistant. Born in Bonham, McLelland graduated from Sherman High School. She received her bachelor’s degree from what is now the University of North Texas and went to work for the Dallas Public Library. She later returned to North Texas and earned a master’s degree in library science. McLelland had been hospitalized several times since fall, but her medical problems were not considered fatal, friends said. “She took care of others first,” said her brother and immediate survivor, Eugene Hall of Dallas. Memorials may be made to BishopAccountability.org or the Alzheimer’s Association. Contact: îsimnacher@dallasnews.ñom
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