TOLEDO (OH)
Toledo Blade
BY DAVID YONKE
BLADE RELIGION EDITOR
Toledo priest Gerald Robinson has again asked the Ohio 6th District Court of Appeals to toss out his 2006 conviction for the 1980 murder of a nun, saying the state withheld key documents and his trial attorneys failed to adequately pursue “the most obvious” suspect, serial killer Coral Eugene Watts.
The latest filing states that Robinson’s trial attorneys mistakenly thought Watts was in prison on April 5, 1980, when Sister Margaret Ann Pahl was found brutally slain in the sacristy of the former Mercy Hospital near downtown Toledo. But Watts was a free man “in his killing spree or ‘on a rampage’ at the time,” living in Michigan about 40 miles from Toledo, the appeal states.
The appeals court in January, 2008, rejected Robinson’s direct appeal, and, 11 months later, the Ohio Supreme Court declined to hear the case. Robinson then began pursuing an amended petition for postconviction relief, which, unlike a direct appeal, allows the court to consider information other than what was included in the trial.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.