UNITED STATES/IRELAND
The Anglo-Celt
Paul Neilan
A woman sexually abused by Fr Brendan Smyth believes that the paedophile priest killed a child in America in the 1960s.
The notorious Norbertine priest abused Helen McGonigle in the town of East Greenwich, Rhode Island, starting when she was six years-old, in late 1967.
Smyth had been assigned to the local parish, Our Lady of Mercy, in the Diocese of Providence, in 1965. A chilling warning made by Smyth after abusing Helen – that she would “end up like the body in the woods” – made her link the paedophile to the discovery of the remains of a child in woodland near her school.
That discovery, however, Helen says, took place after Smyth’s threat.
Helen, who is now a US attorney, was so convinced that he was responsible for the death that she notified the Police at East Greenwich in Rhode Island in March 2007.
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