BALTIMORE (MD)
WBAL-TV, NBC-11 [Baltimore MD]
March 17, 2021
By Lisa Robinson
Many people first met Gemma Hoskins through her appearance on “The Keepers,” a 2017 Emmy-nominated Netflix docuseries, that focused on the death of Sister Cathy Cesnik and cases of sexual abuse at Archbishop Keough High School.
Hoskins is out with a memoir that offers her theory of what happened to Cesnik. WBAL-TV 11 News spoke with Hoskins about why she wrote it.
Hoskins has made it her life’s work to find out what happened to Cesnik, a popular Archbishop Keough High School teacher. Hoskin’s efforts, along with other students, became the focus of “The Keepers.”
Cesnick was found dead in a Lansdowne dump in 1970, months after she disappeared.
In her book “Keeping On,” Hoskins talks about her own work as a teacher, experiences that shaped her and offers a theory of what happened to Cesnick.
“I believe that is was a police officer and I shared his picture with a number of the Keough women, and the four of them I showed it to all recognize him as their most abusive abuser. The most violent,” Hoskins said.
The Netflix series talks to women who say two school priests, Joseph Maskell and Neil Magnus, abused them. They said Cesnik disappeared as she was close to discovering who was responsible for the abuse. As a result of “The Keepers,” more women have come forward.
“I believe institutions were involved. The church was involved, the police department was involved and I know high-ranking politicians were involved,” Hoskins said.
Hoskins hopes to advocate for women who have been abused and hopes that someone will come forward with information about the unsolved murder.
“The police will not share anything in their records, so we started digging and I’ve been told by some retired detectives we got more information than anybody got,” she said.
And they told her to keep digging.
When asked how long she’s going to keep at it, Hoskins said: “Until I can’t do it anymore. I don’t want people to think this is trite or that I am a lonely old woman because I’m not. I can still kick butt, I’m getting up there, almost 70, but I’m going to do this until the day I die.”
The book is out now and can be found on Amazon, Barnes and Noble and Audible in her own voice. You can also learn more of what’s she’s found out in her podcast “It’s foul play.”