PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer
JOSEPH A. SLOBODZIAN, INQUIRER STAFF WRITER
LAST UPDATED: Wednesday, October 23, 2013
Sean Patrick McIlmail kept his secret for 12 years as it chewed away at him and his close-knit family watched him descend into mental illness and drug abuse.
On Wednesday – four days after they buried the 26-year-old – his parents, brother and sister decided the time for secrets was over.
In an interview at the home of their lawyer, McIlmail’s parents, older brother and younger sister publicly confirmed that Sean was the person who accused former Philadelphia Catholic priest Robert L. Brennan of sexually molesting him over a four-year period beginning when he was 11 years old.
That prosecution by the Philadelphia District Attorney’s office was called off Wednesday following McIlmail’s accidental death on Oct. 13 from a drug overdose.
District Attorney Seth Williams has set an afternoon news conference and is expected to announce that prosecutors were wiithdrawing charges against Brennan, 75, of Perrysville, Md.
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