Victim in Netflix's 'The Keepers' speaks out

By Lisa Robinson
WBAL
June 6, 2017

http://www.wbaltv.com/article/victim-in-netflixs-the-keepers-speaks-out/9985199

BALTIMORE —

The story of young women who say they were abused at Archbishop Keough High School in the late '60s through the early '70s is highlighted in a Netflix docudrama called "The Keepers."

One of the victims featured in the show spoke to WBAL-TV 11 News about coming forward after all these years. It's taken almost 50 years for Teresa Lancaster to come out of the shadows and talk about the abuse that she said has plagued her life. She said she's not hiding anymore.

"It was very exciting to go to Keough. It was a new school. It was really an honor to be accepted there," Lancaster said.

Lancaster started the school in 1968. She said her excitement would eventually turn into pure hell.

"I sought out the help of Father Maskell to help patch things up between myself and my parents, and that's when the abuse started in the fall of 1970," Lancaster said.

Maskell was the school's chaplain.

"He took myself and my friend, Linda, to a wooded area, where there was a lot of police cars and flashlights and stuff, and I was raped by two policemen there," Lancaster said.

Lancaster said she warned other girls at school to stay away from Maskell but could not bring herself to tell anyone in authority about the abuse.

"He told me, if I told anybody he would shoot me, and he would destroy the family, and it was just so scary, that I didn't know where to go," Lancaster said.

Lancaster filed a lawsuit against Maskell and others in 1994 over the alleged abuse and used the name Jane Roe. The case did not go forward because of the statute of limitations. She later revealed her identity in "The Keepers."

"I had received threats, actually, and now I'm at the point in my life when I'm not afraid anymore, and think it's so important to get this story out there that I'm not going to hide," Lancaster said.

She plans to share her story as much as she can.

"It's like having a dark shadow over your head, and now, though, that it's out in the open, I feel like everybody is supporting me. I feel better about it now than I ever have. I just want people know, that's why I am talking about it," Lancaster said.

Twenty years after filing her lawsuit, in 2011, Lancaster went to mediation with the archdiocese. They listened to her story, apologized and gave her $40,000.