OHIO
MonstersandCritics.com
March 1, 2020
By Jerry Brown
This week, The Lake Erie Murders examines the death of a nun in a hospital chapel in Toledo, Ohio, in 1980. Sister Margaret Ann Pahl’s body was found on the floor of the vestibule of the former Mercy Hospital on Holy Saturday, a day before Easter. It was also a day before her 72nd birthday.
Her killer was a priest, Father Gerald Robinson, who was the chaplain at the hospital. Church historians have said this is the only recorded case of a priest murdering a nun.
A particularly gruesome murder
An autopsy revealed that Sister Margaret Ann had been choked to the edge of death before being stabbed in the head, neck, and face. She had been draped with an altar cloth, and nine of her stab wounds were in the shape of an upside-down cross. There was a smear of blood across her forehead as if she had been anointed in the last rites.
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