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'The Keepers' continues to shine light on alleged abuse at Baltimore school
More victims reaching out to attorneys, police
BALTIMORE —
The Netflix documentary series “The Keepers” focuses on a murder mystery and years of molestation at a Baltimore high school.
The series has helped to bring more victims to light. “The Keepers” is giving people the courage to speak up after suffering in silence. People who once thought they were the only one now know they are not alone.
“The Keepers” focuses on the unsolved death of popular Archbishop Keough High School teacher Sister Cathy Cesnick. She was found dead in a Landsowne dump in 1970, months after she disappeared.
The Netflix series talks to women who say two school priests, Jospeh Maskell and Neil Magnus, abused them. They said Cesnik disappeared as she was close to discovering who was responsible for the abuse.
Joanne Suder is an attorney representing the Keough students who allegedly were abused by the two men. She said 12 more Keough victims have reached out to her since the series hit the air, and they tell a similar story.
“They said they were sexually abused by Maskell and Magnus. Magnus was a pretty bad guy at that school, too,” Suder, who is not featured on the series, said. “There's no question about that. Many they abused together in the school in Maskell's office.”
For every person who comes forward, there are nine others who don't, Suder said.
Suder said the series has given people the courage to talk about what happened to them.
“Because of the airing of ‘The Keepers,’ we found that many more young ladies have come forward and called The Suder Law Firm, believing, before the airing of ‘The Keepers,’ that they were the only victim,” Suder said.
Suder estimates more than 100 girls may have been abused by Maskell and Magnus between the mid-1960s and 1975. And they are hearing from more. She encourages people who know something to come forward. Maskell appears on the archdiocese list of clergy accused of sex abuse.
“We will help them,” Suder said. “Some people, we need to put them in touch with the police. Anybody who has some information might not think it is important, but we do.”
Baltimore police said eight people have reached out to them about possible abuse.
Suder said the statute of limitations has passed for most of the alleged victims to prosecute, but there is a legal process of mediation that can take place between lawyers and the church before a non-Catholic retired judge.
AhabsOtherLeg » 08 Jun 2017 19:47 wrote:I hope it isn't a hurtful thing to say, but watching the documentary (up past episode 5 so far) left me slightly less convinced of the case against Maskell than reading a longform article on these events did several years ago. It might just be because people like Billy and Edgar were footnotes as suspects in the article, but assumed centre stage in the doc.
I don't know how to put it. When reading the article, the mentions (albeit brief) of hypnosis, amnesia, psychology degrees, institutional abuse, and institutional cover-up, stood out like beacons. It seemed to just vibrate with MK implications, given the era and the scene and the character of Maskell, no doubt without the author intending any such thing.
The documentary didn't have that same informational impact for me, probably just because it was all a lot more diffused.
But purely as a vindication of the reality of recovered memory, I can see it's power.
I have seen a lot of people (on Reddit, god help me) saying that they felt Jeanie's testimony was true - Maskell did abuse her, repeatedly and severely - but also saying that they still didn't find her accounts entirely convincing overall, especially when it came to the recalled speech of others. I have to admit I felt the same way. This is despite the fact that I know from the EAR/ONS case (and others) that the recalled speech of a verified offender in a verified event of sexual offending can sound extremely stilted, unnatural, or unlikely when recalled by a victim.
I had trouble believing some of it. But I believe that it is all true. I guess, in that sense, I am close to being the mainstream audience for this doc, and it is doing it's job.
I also wondered, with Edgar telling his wife that he could murder her and then easily convince himself that he hadn't done it, if he maybe had some accquaintance already with hypnosis and disossciative states. I could easily see someone like Maskell selling his superpowers to the guys as an empowering thing in some kind of social club setting - "you can do whatever you want, and never regret it, just let me teach you the tricks" - while simultaneously using it with the girls as a blatant tool of control and coercion. He knew psychology.
Project Willow » Fri Jun 09, 2017 10:44 am wrote:Hi! Hope all is well with you.
Yes, the FMS trolls have been out in force on reddit.
The records he buried in the cemetery are key.
Was he ordered to destroy them and then did a sloppy job of it?
Edgar appears dissociative himself, which would explain a great deal of his behavior, in the interview and as described by his wife. By the time Sister Cathy was murdered, we'd already had two, perhaps three, hypno-killer/patsy assassinations of major public figures, so there's no stretch there at all. Perhaps the doc who worked with William Pepper on the Sirhan case could interview Edgar.
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