Criminology - The Priest Murders

Episode Date: May 10, 2026

In the summer of 1982, Father Reynaldo John Rivera was lured out to a location by a male caller who said they needed last rites performed. Father Rivera's body was found days later; he had been bound and strangled. Join Mike and Morf as they discuss the murders and disappearances of priests in the 1980s. There are some eerie connections between a number of priests who were either murdered or disappeared under suspicious circumstances. These connections have led many online to speculate about conspiracy theories involving a person or persons who wanted revenge.   You can help support the show through Patreon. We'd love to connect with listeners on social media. We are available on the following platforms: Facebook - Facebook Discussion group - Instagram - Threads - X Formerly Twitter - Blue Sky - Twitch - Tik Tok  Criminology is an Emash Digital production hosted by Mike Ferguson and Mike Morford. 

Criminology is a true crime podcast that may contain discussion about violent or disturbing topics. Listener discretion is advised. Hello everyone and welcome to episode 409 of the criminology podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson. And this is Mike Morford. Morf, how you doing this week, buddy? Doing pretty good. How you doing? I'm doing great. I got a lot of stuff coming up. I think we've talked about some of it. Obviously, you and I are getting ready to go to CrimeCon. And then about I have a week.

week at home. And then I had, uh, uh, across the pond, across some ponds down for my daughter's wedding, basically. She's getting, uh, she's having a destination wedding. So you're, you've got some travel miles coming up. Yeah, which is strange for a guy who, uh, you know, doesn't leave his basement all that often. Well, you got to get out every once in a while. I'm getting ready for summer our kids are getting off in about two, three weeks out of school and, you know, they're going to be home and playing sports and doing what it is that kids do. So getting ready to get a little louder in here. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you know, my oldest daughter and, obviously my wife, they're, they're both in the education profession. So they're almost done

for the year. And they're both coming to Vegas with me. So let's go ahead and give our Patreon shout outs. We had one new Patreon, and that was Brian A. But we really appreciate that support. Yeah, thank you so much, Brian. It really helps us out for anyone else that supports the show. Thank you. And if anyone wants to help and get started, head over to patreon.com slash criminology. All right, buddy, it's time to jump into this week's case, or should I say cases, because we're discussing the murders of multiple men. And it's a little reminiscent of our episode a couple of weeks ago about dead and missing scientists. But this time around, we're exploring the violent deaths of priests.

Some people theorized that there may have been someone out there targeting priests for murder in the 1980s, but whether or not that's the case, one thing is for sure. The attacks we're going to discuss in this episode are nothing short or brutal. In the summer of 1982, Father Rinaldo John Rivera, a Catholic Franciscan priest was one of the priests working at the Cathedral Bacilla of St. Francis in Santa Fe, New Mexico. On August 5th, a man called the cathedral looking for help. He said his name was Michael Carmelo, and that he was driving with his very sick grandfather who appeared close to death. He was pulled over a rest stop in Waldo, a ghost town about 45 minutes from Santa Fe. He was in desperate need of a priest to perform last rites before it was

too late. Since someone who has already passed away cannot receive these prayers, time was of the essence. At the time this call came in, it was already dark, and Father Patrick Gerard, the priest who answered Carmelo's car that night, couldn't drive in the dark due to his poor vision. So Father Gerard asked Carmelo to call back again shortly while he found someone else who could help him. Michael Carmelo called back that night at about 8.30. And this time, Father Reinaldo Rivera answered the phone. Father Rivera was more than happy to make the drive and perform last rights for the dying grandfather. Carmelo said they would be in their vehicle, a blue pickup truck waiting for him.

Father Rivera left the cathedral around 9 p.m. This would prove to be the last good deed that he would ever carry out. He didn't return back to the cathedral that night. Father Rivera's body was found days later, laying in a muddy field off the side of Interstate 25. Near the Waldo exit, he had been brutally murdered. There were signs that his hands had been bound at some point, and that he had been strangled with some kind of thick wire, like a metal wire hanger, before he was shot once in the stomach. There was no sign of the father's brown 1974 Chevrolet, Malibu. And like we said up front, Morp, I mean, we're going to be talking about some brutal murders, and this is one.

What struck me about this whole scenario, though, was, you know, Father Rivera getting this call, about traveling to a truck, right? Somebody is dying inside a truck, and the caller wants the father to perform last rights. I mean, there's a part of me that wants to be skeptical about that. But then at the same time, I think that, you know, this is probably a person who is very trusting, wants to believe the best in others and sees this as, you know, something he really needs to do.

Yeah, I think a lot of time people come into churches for help seeking counsel or guidance or prayers, whatever it may be. But I know there are times when priests go out to others, you know, whether it's to their home or wherever it might be to help them. So I think this was probably something that happened sometimes. And Father Rivera probably wasn't worried. But I also think it's a little bit odd if he had time to stop and wait for the father to come out there and then called back later on to talk to a different father. Maybe in that time he could have just driven to the church. So to me, that was a little bit strange.

Yeah, I think that's a great point, right? driven to a church, driven to a hospital somewhere other than just kind of staying in this truck. But again, my point is I don't know that Father Rivera or any priest would maybe be as skeptical as I would be. Those that knew Father Rivera were shocked and couldn't think of anyone that would want to harm him. That made the investigation harder for police, and they felt that if they could find Father Rivera's car, it might yield more clues. Over 100 miles west of where Father Rivera's body was found, his car was found. It was parked near Grants, New Mexico, at a rest stop off Interstate 40. The gas tank was completely empty.

Whoever had driven it had left it there and apparently had no choice but to find a different way to travel or call attention to themselves with the stolen vehicle of a murder victim. if they asked for help in getting gas. Since it was a rest stop, we can probably assume that the person hitched a ride out of the area. Father Rivera's last rights kit, which would have held holy water, a crucifix, candles, and other items was not found with his body, and it wasn't in his car.

Neither were his glasses or his wallet. To this day, none of his items have turned up. Investigators did examine the vehicle and collect fingerprints. And I think what's standing out to me most here, Morp, is that someone drove his car. And presumably you would think it would be the person who killed him. But what would be the reason? If the person really had a truck, as they claimed in the phone call,

why couldn't they just have driven away in the truck? Why the need to drive the father's car? So I don't know if that points to maybe there was no truck or if there was more than one person involved. Yeah, because it sounds like the spot where the father went out to where he was supposed to meet this Carmelo guy, it doesn't seem like a spot that was someplace you could get to without driving there. So perhaps this person had some other way they got to that spot, you know, dropped off by someone. or maybe they had hitched a ride there, killed the father, and then took his car to get out of the area. I mean, it opens up so many possibilities.

But one thing that jumped out to me was if you've just killed this priest and then taking his car, you're taking a chance driving 100 miles. That's quite a distance to be driving in a car of someone that you just murdered. Yeah, that's true because, you know, when the investigation starts, they're going to be driving. to try to figure out if anyone had seen that car because the car is known about. They're going to know what type of car that that he drove and ultimately they did find it. They would have seemingly no idea other than a truck, right? They don't know what color. They don't know what kind. So there's just a lot of strange things here so far. It wasn't long before Father Rivera's case cooled off. And police in New Mexico

turned to the FBI to help them. Apparently, the Federal Bureau of Investigation created a psychological profile of the suspect and determined that the most likely motive for Father Rivera's murder was revenge. But Father Rivera wasn't the one who initially answered the call that came in for help that evening.

And this mysterious caller, this Carmelo, which police came to believe wasn't his real name, never asked for help. from any specific priest. What if Father Gerard hadn't had such poor eyesight at night, would he have been killed? Or would he have performed last rites and made it back to the cathedral safely? Did the caller know the fathers and know that regardless of who answered the phone?

If something needed to be done at night, only Father Rivera could respond. Was this a way of luring the father without revealing that he was driving straight to his death. One interesting thing the police found was that they discovered that the pay phone at the rest of where this mystery man, Carmelo, said he was calling from, wasn't working. So the caller had to have been somewhere else, intentionally luring a priest, apparently any priest, to the remote location. So we definitely have a real mystery here, right? A person calls in and says that their grandfather's dying, they need a priest to perform last rites.

But then that priest ends up dead. They find out that the place where this person said they were calling from, the payphone wasn't working. There were no cell phones back then. So that takes that out of the equation. I think if you're the police, you got a real mystery on your hands as to, you know, number one,

who did this because that's the big question, but then also why? Did this person simply want revenge on the church, revenge against organized religion, and were they targeting Father Rivera specifically or was any priest suitable for their pent-up rage? I mean, these were all questions investigators had to consider. No matter the motive, people living in the area and those involved with the church were horrified. Later, when speaking with K.R. Q.E., Archbishop Michael Sheehan of the Archdiocese of Santa Fe, said that it was an evil thing to ask a priest to come and do his ministry and then at that moment to take him and kill him. With no clear suspects or motives, Father Rivera's case faded from the headlines and became cold.

But almost two years later, the disappearance and presumed murder of a different priest, a thousand miles away in Montana, would make headlines. Montana authorities in that case actually contacted investigators in New Mexico to compare notes and try to collaborate due to some similarities. This time, the victim would be Father John Patrick Carrigan. Father Carrigan was transferred to the Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Ronan, Montana on July 18, 1984. Just two days later, he vanished. He was last seen as he left a bakery on July 20th.

He had popped in on his way home from a jog. At 6.30 the next morning, there was no father for Mass. Father Kerrigan simply hadn't shown up, and this was alarming. No priest transferring to a new congregation would ever let this be his first impression. Still, he was given some grace. It was thought that maybe he was confused about the schedule or got lost in the area when he went out. But on July 23rd, after two days of nobody seeing or hearing from him, Kerrigan, he was officially reported missing. Also missing was Father Kerrigan's car.

Nearly a week after Father Kerrigan was declared a missing person. Bloody clothing, determined to belong to him, was found off of Montana Highway 35. The shirt found had a $100 bill in the pocket, potentially ruling out a robbery. Also found there on the shore of Flathead Lake was a metal wire hanger, covered in blood. These items were, were discovered just five miles from the town of Ronan. The next day, Father Kerrigan's car, which was, interestingly, a brown Chevrolet Malibu, just like Father Rivera's was found.

And also like Father Rivera's Malibu, Father Kerrigan's car had been abandoned. The keys had apparently been tossed. They were found in some brush, about 30 yards from the car. But there were items inside the trunk that were cause for concern. First, the father's wallet, full of cash, was still inside. That doesn't instill a lot of confidence that Father Kerrigan had just walked away from the church in his old life. It's unlikely that Father Kerrigan would have left behind $1,000.

And, you know, when you look at that with inflation, if that happened today, it would be like leaving behind nearly $4,000. If the money being left wasn't alarming enough, there was also a pillowproof. case and a shovel, both covered in blood. The car appeared to have been wiped down to remove fingerprints, but the interior was stained with blood. Searches for Father Kerrigan failed to turn up any sign of him, but based on everything we've mentioned, police believe that he was murdered, though to this day, his body is still missing.

And more if you and I talk a lot in certain cases about the possibility that, you know, someone decides to up and leave, right? Maybe they're not happy with their life. They want to start a new one. And so they leave, it does happen. Now, I think it's rare in a lot of the cases that we talk about. But when you look at the facts of this one, to me, it's even less likely. You think about there's blood inside the car.

There's a bloody pillowcase and a shovel with blood. blood on it in the trunk. And then you have what is really a large amount of money, right? A thousand dollars in the 1980s. To me, that says a couple of things. Number one, the motive for whatever happened to Father Kerrigan wasn't money. And number two, what person goes and, you know, starts a new life without this big chunk of money? Also, why is a priest carrying around $1,000?

You know, that kind of jumped out at me. To me, if someone is going to target someone for money, I would think a priest or a member of the clergy would be the last person you would think of as someone who would have a lot of money on them. Yeah, and I'm not familiar overly with how much, you know, priest get paid or got paid especially back in the 80s, but I can imagine that it wasn't a lot. It wasn't a lucrative career from what I understand. So, you know, some people might raise questions about, well, why does he have so much money?

Was there something shady going on with him to begin with to have that kind of money? And then to carry it around is obviously risky because you could lose it. You know, you could be robbed. Anything could happen. And I think leaving that kind of money behind the equivalent of $4,000 today, it just screams to me that he's met with foul play because I don't think there's any circumstance that he would willingly leave that kind of money there. Now, to be fair, I think in the 80s, a lot more people carried cash or more cash than what they do today. I can't remember the last time I went to an ATM. Yeah. I just don't carry that much cash in the world we live in today, you just really rarely even need it.

So I can see him carrying around some pocket change, maybe to buy lunch, get some gas, run an errand. But $1,000, there's a lot of money to be carrying around back in the 80s. Yeah, no doubt. And to your point, you know, I don't think priests made a lot of money. I don't think they make a lot of money now. Now, they may not have a lot of expenses, but it's still interesting that, you know, he had that much cash on him. Yeah, to me, that opens up, you know, a possibility at least that maybe he was being blackmailed. Maybe he was bringing that money to give someone and something happened. But if that's the case, widen the money exchange hands.

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They were both 58 years old at the time they were killed or disappeared. They both had a brown Chevy Malibu. Father Rivera may have been strangled with a metal hanger, and a bloody metal hanger was found in Father Kerrigan's trunk. But there was another possible connection. It turns out that Father Kerrigan had spent some time in New Mexico before ending up in Montana. In 1983, he was at the Congregation of the Servants of the Paraclete

in Hameses Springs, New Mexico for three months. Hamez Springs is about an hour and a half from Santa Fe, where Father Rivera was killed. Although there were some key similarities in both cases, there was one thing that was markedly different. In the two victims, Father Kerrigan had been accused of sexually molesting children. Apparently, the Hames Springs New Mexico congregation,

where he was at before going to Montana, was basically full of troubled priests. And the site was used as a place to get them back on track. after personal issues, addictions, mental health problems, or any kind of misconduct, including sexual abuse. This could certainly be a motive for abducting and killing the priest. By contrast, there were no such allegations against Father Rivera. So the sexual abuse allegations were one key difference between the victims, but for the

most part, the parallels in the cases of both priests were hard to ignore. And no doubt this is an angle that police would have to explore. If Father Kerrigan had been accused of sexually molesting children, that would definitely be a motive. You could see where maybe a parent of a child who had been molested by him would want to take their revenge. Or depending on when it happened, maybe somebody had grown up. but wanted to take their revenge against Father Kerrigan for something he had done to them in the past.

Yeah, that certainly opens up some avenues of investigation. But to me, the odd thing about that is why would that person wait until two days after he's transferred to another state, you know, from into Montana quite a distance away? Why do it then? It seems like it would be easier to do while he would. was back at the old congregation unless maybe they wanted some distance between themselves and didn't want to, you know, do it while he was there. That could be a reason for that. Yeah, that was my thought exactly. The timing seems strange, but is it? If you had this built up rage against someone, but you didn't want to be connected to the crime, maybe once you found out that this person was being

transferred to another state. Well, that puts some distance between what happened to you or your child and the abduction slash murder. So that makes me wonder if the police considered any of those sexual alleged sexual abuse victims or their families as suspects, because now that gives them an avenue to go down. We don't have all the details about that and who were suspects and how far they were investigated. but it seems like an avenue worth pursuing by the police. Well, and we said there were no allegations against Father Rivera.

But no allegations doesn't necessarily mean something couldn't have happened. Now, I don't want to smear this man's name. Obviously, I have no idea. But I think you'd have to say that. It doesn't absolutely mean something couldn't have happened that somebody wanted to get back at him for. At the time, Santa Fe Police Officer, Lieutenant Gilbert Iola Berry, wholeheartedly believe that the cases were related. He told the Alamogordo Daily News that he had a, quote, gut feeling that the cases were connected. However, he has since changed his mind and stated that he does not think there's any connection between the two cases.

This is important because if there was anything that could verify a real connection between these two cases, investigators likely would have found it. They initially believed the cases were linked, which means, were looking for things that would have backed their theory up, but they apparently couldn't find anything that conclusively did. So this wasn't a case of tunnel vision where investigators were so focused on something that they didn't think to look into any other connections, or where they just didn't investigate other theories. The cases were investigated as if they were connected, and only over time did the people working on both cases start to change your mind, as no

connection could be found. These cases are frequently discussed on websites like WebSloose and Reddit, and a lot of people there focus on the similarity, that both victims were priests, but two days after Father Kerrigan disappeared. A teacher from Missoula, Montana also vanished. 31-year-old Curtis Holman, who taught math at Target Range Elementary School, disappeared in his 1976 Toyota pickup truck was found on a logging road just 40 miles from the area where Kerrigan's carer was found. Curtis Holman's brother, not the authorities, felt that the cases of

his missing brother and the missing priest might somehow be connected. Some of Holman's belongings were still in the car, including his glasses, wallet, and a map of the forest, but the keys weren't there. A search of the area Revealed footprints that matched the size Holman wore, but they weren't the only prints. There were also paw prints from a grizzly bear. A female grizzly had been reported in the area leading to speculation that Holman had been killed in a bear attack.

It would otherwise seem odd for him to become lost in the woods. The map was spread open in the passenger seat, and Holman was a survivalist. He'd once hiked for an entire year throughout the United States and Canada, living off of stockpiled food. However, authorities believe that Holman may have taken his own life because the last time he saw his brother, he reportedly seemed depressed or distant. Most people who discuss the cases of the murdered or missing priests don't think either case is connected to the disappearance of Curtis Holman. One case that does get connected by some people to the cases of the two priests is one that preceded both of them. Just two months before Father Rivera was killed and a full two years

before Father Kerrigan vanished. The Reverend Father James Otis Anderson, an Episcopal priest, vanished from Townsend, Montana. He was last seen at around 8 o'clock in the morning on June 13, 1982, driving east on Highway 12. He was reported missing after he missed the evening service. The sermon he was supposed to give at that service was still sitting on his desk at home. Everything at the house looked normal. All of his personal belongings, even daily toiletry items like a razor and toothbrush, where they were supposed to be. The only thing besides Father Anderson that anyone could tell was missing was his car,

a silver 1975 Volkswagen, Seraco. Four months later, just days before Halloween, Father Anderson's car was found abandoned in the mountains, 25 miles east of Townsend, the car was nearly completely concealed. Tree branches hid the vehicle from view by air and thick brush and trees. It obscured the car from view of any hikers or anyone driving by on the road. It was a hunter who ultimately stumbled upon the car and called it in as suspicious. Inside the trunk, investigators found a shovel that appeared to be covered in blood with hair stuck to it.

This is eerily reminiscent of the bloody shovel found in the trunk of Father Kerrigan's abandoned car. A ground search, including sniffer dogs, began in the area of the car on a ridge about a half a mile from the vehicle. A prayer book, clerical collar, hat, and a pair of glasses were discovered. They were determined to belong to Father Anderson. Nothing else was found in the search, which was eventually called off. his handgun, address book, and his favorite blanket were never recovered. Father Anderson is still missing to this day. In 1990, Father Anderson was declared legally deceased.

Father Anderson and Father Kerrigan once worked together in White Sulphur Springs, Montana. They were also said to be friends. At the time of Father Anderson's disappearance, he and his wife Patricia were in the process of a divorce. The two were also battling over custody of their two children. he was also potentially facing trouble at work and might have even been on his way to getting fired. These facts, coupled with the fact that Father Anderson's handgun was never found, has caused many people to consider the possibility that he went out into the mountains to take his own life. If he did, the gun in his body would likely be found at the same time.

Since both are missing, there's a real possibility that they're likely in the same spot. And that could be, right? obviously he was going through some things in his personal life, but it also could open up the possibility more, as we've seen in so many cases, that he was killed over these things that, you know, he was going through in his personal life.

The one thing that I guess kind of stuck out to me was potentially facing trouble at work and maybe about, ready to be fired. The problem is we don't really know what that was about. But you have to ask the question. Could it be something along the lines of the allegations that were levied against Father Kerrigan? If so, then, you know, some of the same things we said about him would apply. There could potentially be people out there who wanted their revenge against Father Anderson. And I think it's easy to say, you know, he's going through stuff at work. He's having relationship problems.

Maybe he was just depressed and he was going out there to end his own life. But then what really jumps out to me that makes me say, well, hold on a second, he knew and worked with Father Carragan and they were said to be friends. So if that's the case, that's a connection that, you know, makes my ears perk up. Yeah, absolutely. And that's kind of what, you know, fuels conspiracy theories. At the very least, it deepens the mystery. There could be a very simple explanation for what happened to Father Anderson. He could have taken his own life.

But you add in these other elements and other possibilities, you know, it's hard to ignore them. In 2015, the Diocese of Helena released a list that contained the names of 80 people who had been accused of sexually abusing minors. Father Kerrigan was among the names on that list. If Father Rivera had any such allegations against him, this list would not have included his name because he was a Franciscan priest, not a diocesan priest. But as we mentioned, as far as we could find in the research, there were no such allegations against Father Rivera. Some people have considered the possibility that maybe Father Rivera was mistaken for Father Carrigan and inadvertently killed. And when the killer realized they made a mistake, they caught up to Father Carigan two years later. As we mentioned, they both drove a similar brown Chevrolet Malibu.

and both had been in New Mexico. There have been other cases in which a killer attacks the wrong victim. For example, a man named Daniel Ott was killed during a home invasion in an Ohio in 2006. It turned out that a different Daniel Ott had been cooperating with authorities in an organized crime case. In the hitman, apparently used the name to track down an address, not realizing there were multiple people with that name in the same area. We also previously covered the Mary Morris murders that have a similar. theme. In that case, in October 2000, two different women named Mary Morris were found dead in their

cars in Houston, Texas, just four days apart. Mary Lou Morris, the first to die, was so badly burned that the cause of death couldn't be determined. But Mary McGinnis Morris, who died just a few days later, was shot to death in her car. It's long been a popular theory that the second Mary Morris was the intended victim, and that the first one was killed by a mistake. So could there be a situation like this with Father's Rivera and Kerrigan. If there is a situation of mistaken identity and the wrong priest was killed, since Father Rivera was attacked first, this would likely make Father Kerrigan the intended target. Father Rivera would have been the one who was just unlucky enough to drive the same car as

the priest someone actually wanted dead. It would make sense for Father Kerrigan to be the target, because the suspects in that scenario would have apparently started looking in New Mexico where Father Kerrigan had been when the killer realized their mistake. They could have done more research and tracked down the right priest. And we talked about the time frame here more in the 1980s, early 80s. There's no internet. It's a little bit tougher to get information on people. Or it would have been back then than it is today, obviously.

You know, we can sit at our computer and search and now you have AI that helps you compile all that. In the early 80s, that was a much tougher proposition. Yeah, I think it's an interesting theory, too, that, you know, maybe Father Rivera was accidentally killed by someone thinking he was Father Kerrigan. but I also go back to the point that Father Rivera wound up going out to that truck stop sort of randomly. The person didn't ask for him specifically. He only went because the other priest couldn't see well enough to drive at night. So, you know, that to me kind of throws cold water on the theory that he was killed by someone wanting to kill Father Carrigan. Yeah, I'm kind of with you.

I understand why people look at it that way, discuss it that way, but that mere fact alone that the caller didn't ask for Father Rivera kind of points away from that scenario. We should point out that there are some people that don't even think Father Kerrigan ever met with any harm. Author Brian D. Ambrosio, who wrote a book about unsolved crimes of Montana, has put forth a theory that Father Kerrigan wasn't. murdered. This theory is purportedly developed from the notes of the lead investigator trying to solve Kerrigan's murder and tracked down his body. The theory is that Kerrigan wanted to

disappear, possibly because of the sex abuse allegations. He knew eventually would pop up, and that he had decided to fake his own death and had staged the scene to make it look as if he had been attacked. And it's one thing to leave some of your belongings behind or plant some clues to make it look like you met with foul play. But what Kerrigan really have left behind will be the equivalent of $4,000 in cash today. It seems unlikely. If he started a new life, he likely would have needed that money. Yeah, you know, in a lot of cases, we're talking about, okay, there's no activity on a person's

bank account. And you're kind of walking that line of thinking, well, if someone wanted to start a new life, they would need access to that money versus if you're trying to sell the fact that something happened to you because you're trying to sneak away, well, then you can access your bank accounts. But this is different because he already had the cash. To me, there's absolutely no reason to not have taken it if you were planning to start a new life. Or maybe just leave a little bit of the cash, you know, as, you know, 100 hours or something

just to say, okay, well, you know, that would throw off investigators because they'll think it wasn't a robbery because there's cash sitting here, but he could have taken the bulk with it and left a little bit behind as a decoy. So I think that's, to me, points to him really meeting with foul play. There is another case that people tend to discuss with the other priest cases, though it's not unsolved or open like the others. In January of 1989, Father Francis Craven was found dead in Tuscaloosa County, Alabama. His vehicle, a GMC van, was found burned and abandoned in a huge puddle of water nearly a week later, about 12 miles from the crime scene. Father Craven had obviously been murdered. His body was badly burned. There were signs that he had been beaten

before he was killed, likely in the very spot he was found. Judging by the blood and hair found deep in the dirt. His hands were still bound in front of his body. The heat from the fire had made his muscle stiffen, freezing his arms up in the air. His eyes and mouth were covered by the charred remains of something. Investigators believe it was ductated. Drag marks in the sand showed where the father had likely been pulled out of a vehicle. His head was resting on a prayer book. A metal chain, a dog leash, was still around his neck.

Neighbors were shocked by the discovery of Father Craven's body, and it definitely rocked their sense of safety. Harold O'Quin Jr., a Northport Police Department officer who lived in the area, told the patch.com, I still can't believe I was so close and never heard anything. They would have had to driven right by my house to get to that spot. A man named David Thomas Lightner was convicted of the murder of Father Francis Craven. He was the one who called authorities to inform them that the unidentified burned body was undoubtedly Father Craven. He even gave the name of Father Craven's dentist, which did lead to his identity being confirmed. In 1996, Lightner took his own life behind bars, hanging himself with a bed sheet after his final

appeal was rejected. He maintained his innocence. As far as we know, since the contents of his suicide note were never released to the public. According to the patch.com, Lightner once told a group of reporters, I'm guilty of being bisexual. I'm not guilty of killing my friend. There are a signs that Father Craven's murder was a sexual fantasy gone terribly, terribly wrong. In the rectory, inside of a closet with multiple locks, investigators found a journal that included some very graphic, very detailed fantasies. The writings describe the father being abducted, bound, and dragged from a vehicle, all things that seemed to have really happened to him. But at the end of his writings, he was still alive. If he was planned, he was playing. If he was

playing out a wanted fantasy. Something changed. Something went wrong. Priests still have personal lives and they still have interactions with other humans that they can make angry. They still do dangerous things. They have secrets. With Father Craven's murder, it's easy to take the priest's part out of the equation

and focus on risky secret sex and a panicked cover up of whatever went wrong. maybe there's something like that in the other priest cases that we just don't know about. In this case, to me, Morph is fascinating as well. You know, you often hear in cases that, you know, the person who finds the body or the person who calls the authorities about a body is often a suspect in the beginning, right? They have to be ruled out. Well, here you see what? The person who called in about the body turned out to be the killer.

At least they were convicted of being the killer. But this idea of a sexual fantasy gone wrong, it does kind of in some ways line up, right? Leitner once told a group of reporters that he was bisexual, but he didn't kill his friend. It, to me, kind of seems like the two had some type of sexual relationship. Now, were they playing out some fantasies and something went wrong? It's possible. We don't have all the details of the evidence, the trial. We don't have time to go into all that.

And we actually don't know at all. But there's no doubt that a jury found him guilty, Lightner. But obviously you can't discount, you know, this journal with the graphic details of a fantasy that later kind of turns into reality in some aspects. Yeah, in this last case, we have that journal. We know more. Obviously, the case was solved. There's a conviction. So there's answers that we don't have with some of the other cases we talked about.

and it opens the possibility maybe there's something like that going on in those cases as well, but they just don't have the pieces of the puzzle to solve it. We mentioned earlier that there was a list of 80 names of priests who had apparently been guilty of sexual abuse, and Father Kerrigan wasn't the only one on that list to vanish. There's at least one other priests that disappeared in the 1980s. Father George Ferguson, a member of the Helena Diocese, moved to Mexico in 1980. In June of 1986, he disappeared after leaving his home. His housekeeper was there when he received the phone call from someone who spoke English.

Father Ferguson wrote something down and then left the house. He never came back. Investigators believe he was murdered, although who may have done it and why remains unknown. On December 21, 1981, Father Patrick Ryan was found dead in a motel in Odessa, Texas. He had been driving from Denver City, Texas to New Mexico. For some reason, he checked into the motel using fake information, including a false name. The father was found naked on the floor, faced down with his hands behind his back, tied together with a sock. The room was covered in blood, and there were obvious signs of a struggle.

The air conditioning unit had been broken and was hanging off the wall. The TV screen was broken. The phone had been ripped from the wall. Furniture had been knocked over and broken. A man named James Harry Reus was convicted of Father Ryan's murder, Even the receipts and a speeding ticket could prove that he had been in New Mexico, not Texas, when Father Ryan was killed. The violent struggle would have been loud, but no one heard anything, leading investigators to believe that Father Ryan was killed just after he checked in at 8 p.m., but before the neighboring room was occupied at 9 p.m. James Harry Rios found himself connected to the murder because he confessed to it one night when he was drunk, despite an airtight alibi, proving that he hadn't killed Father Ryan.

Ryan. For a jury, the confession was enough. Rios was sent to prison where he served 40 years before officially being exonerated, while Father Ryan's real killer walked free. Another case worth mentioning is that of Father Benjamin J. Carrier. On November 10, 1982, police in Yuma, Arizona, responded to the El Rancho Motel and found Father Carrier dead on a bed inside one of the rooms. His hands were tied behind his back, and he had been strangled or smothered. His car was found three days later in Las Vegas. He had been seen at the hotel with two white men. These men have never been tracked down. So, I mean, there's not a lot of details or information about that case in particular, but it is another priest found dead. You know,

the last two that we talked about, there are some similarities. You know, the hotel. Hotel, room. It kind of lends one to think that possibly they were meeting someone at this hotel or at these hotels for some type of sexual encounter. Something went wrong. They were killed. Now, I don't know that for sure. I'm kind of speculating. But as we're wrapping up this episode more, I think we definitely have to look at the cases of Fathers, Rivera and Kerrigan once again, we touched on it, right? Similar cars, coat hangers possibly used in both cases, both of them with a New Mexico connection. But there's also a connection between Father Kerrigan and some of the other priests, these being fathers Ferguson and Anderson, they shared a Montana connection.

So that's an interesting aspect as well. But, you know, when you start digging into these cases, you quickly realize just how many priests have met an unfortunate fate over the years, especially in the 1980s. And this goes back a bit to what we touched on a couple of episodes back in our coverage of the missing and dead scientists. If you look closely enough at any profession, could you find a pattern of suspicious cases. Well, if you do that, there were many murders of priests than worth considering in the 1980s. I think with, you know, fathers, Rivera, and Kerrigan, there are enough

similarities that are hard to just simply brush off without considering a connection. You also have the connections with Kerrigan and fathers, Ferguson. and Anderson, you know, one thing that I keep thinking about as we've gone through these cases more is the sexual component. There seems to be allegations against some of these men, some were killed in what appear to be sexual situations. Was there something bigger, and much broader at play here. And this is where I think some people point to the conspiracy angle, which would be sexual abuse by some of these priests who had connections.

And could that have led to one or more individuals wanting revenge against them? I think it's one scenario that you have to. at least consider. I also think there's the possibility that none of these are connected, right? You would have to say that's something to consider as well, but there are some things jumping out at me that I think at least some of these could possibly be connected. I think for police, when they can find the motive,

they can often find a suspect. but when they don't have a motive, that makes it tougher. And it's easy to say in Father Kerrigan's case, you know, there's a motive there, the sexual abuse. But in Father Rivera's case, there's no known sexual abuse claims against him. And as we mentioned a couple times, he wound up going to that rest stop because he was the only one that could see at night to drive. So it seems like he could have gone there randomly.

Of course, maybe the person that lured him out there. knew he was the only one that could drive at night, so he'd ultimately be coming there. So unfortunately, it just doesn't answer any questions. It just leads to more questions. Yeah, and I'd be remiss if I didn't kind of circle back to another possibility, which is someone just upset with either the church, religion in general, just wanting to take revenge against people.

with whom they really had no real connection. I think that's a possibility that you have to keep on the table as well. Yeah, the one thing that really does seem like an interesting connection to me is that both Father Rivera and Father Kerrigan were the same age, they both drove the same kind of car. They had both been in New Mexico. So those three things there really jump out as, you know, if they're coincidences, they're huge coincidences.

Yeah, I do think you can make the argument that those two cases probably have the most probability of having a connection. But then you factor in the fact that Father Kerrigan, you know, knew these two other priests. Maybe it's all connected. But like we said, Father Rivera was a case of mistaken identity. You can see more if why this is a case that people like to talk about online. They like to dissect it, cover different theories because there's a lot of angles and paths to go down. One thing we don't know for sure is how much physical evidence the police have in both Father Rivera's and Kerrigan's cases.

maybe they have something that might yield DNA from the killer. And it'd be interesting to see if they've been looking to test that with more recent advances in science. Might there be something there that they couldn't test back in the 80s that now might yield answers? And it would be interesting to see if they can solve one or both cases and if they are ultimately connected. Yeah, that is an interesting point that you bring up. I mean, both of those murders occurred before DNA was being used. We talked about coat hangers or metal hangers and things like that. It would be interesting to know what, if any, types of evidence they have that could provide a DNA profile.

And maybe because this case is so old, they just haven't gone back and either swabbed it, tested it, we just don't know. But that's it for our episode on the priest murders. As always, if you love the show, but haven't done so yet, take a minute, go out, leave us a review, a rating. Also, keep telling your friends, word of mouth about the podcast really helps us up. If you want to find us on social media, we're on every major platform. Just search for criminology podcast on your favorites. And for news about the show, old episodes, and more, head over to our website, criminologypodcast.com. And finally, if you want to join a discussion about the podcast and the cases we discuss,

head to order to Facebook and search for Criminology Podcasts, discussion on fans. So that's it for another episode of Criminology, but Morp and I will be back with all of you next Saturday night with a brand new episode. So until then, for Mike. And Morph. We'll talk to you next week. Take care, everyone.