On March 25, 2001, the nude body of Michelle Lewis, a 39-year-old nun, was discovered in her sleeping quarters at South Florida’s Holy Cross Academy. She had been stabbed 92 times. It wasn’t long before homicide detectives zeroed in on her killer: a young apprentice monk and former Holy Cross student, Mykhaylo Kofel. Under questioning, he confessed to the crime. But Kofel’s disturbing defense would not only rock the future of the upscale Dade County academy, it would also sound an alarm that would resonate all the way to the Vatican, making it one of the most sensational and controversial crimes in Florida history. What happened on that dark night in Holy Cross was unspeakable enough. The deeper the investigation got, the more sordid and disturbing the story became.

This “clever” sixteenth-century Irish mystery featuring Mara the Brehon offers “a tantalizing glimpse into the legal system of another time and place” (Publishers Weekly). When Mara attends the Feast of the Holy Cross at Kilnaboy Church, it is just another duty in her busy life as Brehon of the Burren, responsible for upholding the kingdom’s ancient laws. But this special day has drawn the faithful of Ireland and pilgrims from across Europe, for Kilnaboy Church holds a prized relic—a piece of the true cross—inside its tower. When the tower catches fire and the relic is destroyed, chaos breaks out, and Mara begins her investigation. But before she can round up the many suspects among the frantic crowd—including a follower of Martin Luther, who despises such relics as false idols—another crime is committed. A naked body is found dead, spread-eagled in the shape of a cross, in the graveyard behind the church. Sensing a connection between the crimes, it is Mara’s task, along with her law-school pupils, to find the guilty parties and uphold the power of the law.

Early on the morning of the first day of the new year and new decade 1960, Father Vincent L. Belle, a popular young assistant pastor at the solidly Italian Holy Cross parish on the lower west side of Buffalo was shot dead as he set out to take Communion to shut-ins on the Catholic Church holy day. It remains to this day an unsolved murder. A few weeks before the incident, a crudely lettered sign in pidgin Italian was posted anonymously in the back of the church accusing one of the priests-apparently Father Belle-of unspecified wrongdoing. The church pastor later said he had talked to Father Belle about the accusation and was convinced there was nothing to it The sign turned out to be the work of an illiterate old man who was said to have conceived animosity toward Father Belle because he imagined the priest was interfering in his-the old man's-illicit endeavor to woo a married woman parishioner and mother of eight. The old man was said to have imagined Father Belle was having an affair with the woman. Based on the somewhat bizarre blend of accounts and allegations, the old man was formally accused of the homicide. Lower West Side Story recounts an intellectual adventure personal quest investigation of a cold case murder that amid persistent factors of enigma and stonewall ultimately veers off in a new direction-or directions-to discover more cogent answers to more pertinent questions about this more than half a century old unsolved crime.

"Based on an historical incident in the life of St. John of the Cross, this tale follows the young priest as he investigates abuse and murder in a monastery in 1572"--P. [4] of cover.

In 1980 in Toledo, Ohio—on one of the holiest days of the church calendar—the body of a nun was discovered in the sacristy of a hospital chapel. Seventy-one-year-old Sister Margaret Ann had been strangled and stabbed, her corpse arranged in a shameful and stomach-churning pose. But the police's most likely suspect was inexplicably released and the investigation was quietly buried. Despite damning evidence, Father Gerald Robinson went free. Twenty-three years later the priest's name resurfaced in connection with a bizarre case of satanic ritual and abuse. It prompted investigators to exhume the remains of the slain nun in search of the proof left behind that would indelibly mark Father Robinson as Sister Margaret Ann's killer: the sign of the Devil. When Satan Wore a Cross is a shocking true story of official cover-ups, madness, murder and lies—and of an unholy human monster who disguised himself in holy garb.

In this unique and compelling true-crime story, journalist and author David Yonke presents and analyzes the only case in U.S. history in which a Roman Catholic priest was arrested for the murder of a nun. Father Gerald Robinson of Toledo, whom friends and associates described as a timid and mild-mannered man, was arrested by cold-case detectives in April, 2004, and charged in the brutal slaying of Sister Margaret Ann Pahl 24 years earlier. The 71-year-old nun had been choked to the edge of death, covered with an altar cloth, and stabbed 31 times in the face, neck and chest. Her body was found in the sacristy of a Catholic hospital, her habit pulled up to her chest and her undergarments around her ankles. It was Holy Saturday morning, 1980, the day before Easter and the day before the victim’s 72nd birthday. Cold-case investigators said the first nine stab wounds, made over the nun’s heart, were in the shape of an upside down cross, one of many signs that Sister Margaret Ann was the victim of a ritual killing. "Sin, Shame & Secrets" unveils how cold-case investigators decided to reopen the case in 2003 after a Toledo nun testified that Father Robinson abused her in satanic rituals when she was a child. The nun's testimony before the Toledo Catholic Diocese's Review Board also alleged that a number of children had been killed by the cult. A lengthy police investigation followed, resulting in Robinson's arrest at age 66 on April 23, 2004. After a three-week trial, covered gavel-to-gavel by Court TV (now truTV), the priest was convicted of murder on May 11, 2006 and sentenced to 15 years to life in prison. * * * Yonke, the award-winning former Religion Editor and reporter at The Toledo Blade, reviewed hundreds of police files, interviewed dozens of principles, and covered every minute of the trial to give readers a thorough and examined look at events as they unfolded, as well as providing background information for the story and the people involved. * * * In Robinson’s legal appeals, the killer priest claimed that his trial attorneys failed to examine the possibility that another hospital chaplain — one with a drinking problem, a bad temper, and a knife collection — may have been the real murderer. Robinson also alleged that Coral Eugene Watts, a confessed serial killer who strangled and stabbed up to 80 women, was living an hour north of Toledo in 1980 and may have been the perpetrator. The story has been covered by news media around the world and featured on many nationally broadcast television programs. Although Robinson's appeals were denied by the Ohio Supreme Court and the U.S. Supreme Court, public debate and controversy continue to swirl in this timeless and shocking case. * * * Nancy Grace, talk show host former prosecutor: "Carefully detailing her murder, Yonke describes not only the search for a killer, but the struggle for all of us including both the Toledo police and the Catholic Church, to accept that evil exists everywhere around us, even within the house of God." Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Michael Sallah called it "a murder case for the ages," adding that "Yonke deftly shows how an American Catholic diocese kept one of its own from being charged for more than a quarter century." Father Thomas Doyle, JCD, CADC, commented: "This is not just another murder mystery. It is a true story that enrages, mystifies and terrifies any reader with even a modicum of moral awareness." Barbara Blaine, founder of SNAP, said: "Through painstaking research and gripping narrative, David Yonke presents and analyzes a stunning case of physical, emotional, and sexual pain and the political corruption that kept a horrific crime unsolved for years." Pulitzer Prize-winner Mitch Weiss called it "an explosive piece of investigative journalism."