Many reports about priest preceded boy’s suicide, parents say

MISSOURI
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Local Catholic officials received numerous reports alleging inappropriate behavior by a priest before a 14-year-old boy took his life in 1983, a motion filed this week by the boy’s parents says.

But the Kansas City-St. Joseph Diocese failed to act on the reports about Monsignor Thomas O’Brien, the motion alleges, and Brian Teeman committed suicide after suffering repeated sexual abuse by the priest.

The motion, filed in Jackson County Circuit Court, is packed with excerpts from depositions of dozens of witnesses — including priests and nuns — and an affidavit from a former school board president at Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary School, who said she complained about O’Brien to a former bishop, then resigned and pulled her son from the school in the 1980s because nothing was done about it.

Brian died of a gunshot wound to the head…