Murder: True Crime Stories - UNSOLVED: Cathy Cesnik 1

Episode Date: December 17, 2024

In the late 1960s, Sister Cathy Cesnik was a force of good for the communities around Baltimore. The young nun was excited to educate a new generation of women and modernize her religious order. But not everyone appreciated what Cathy was doing. In late 1969, she was murdered -- and there were plenty of suspects. Murder: True Crime Stories is a Crime House Original. For more, follow us on Tiktok and Instagram @crimehouse To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This is Crime House. The 1960s saw sweeping societal changes throughout the world. In America, as young people abandoned the stuffy ideals of the 50s, social norms started to shift. Suddenly clothing was more colorful and revealing. Especially in the big cities, it seemed like the sounds of funk and soul were everywhere. Even the Catholic Church tried to get with the times. Starting in 1962, the Pope set out to modernize Catholic doctrine and make the religion more

relevant. In Baltimore, Maryland, a young nun named Catherine Seznick was thrilled to see the Church evolving. Cathy worked as a Catholic schoolteacher, and she leaned into the new, looser guidelines put forth by the Church. She encouraged students to think outside the box and even assigned them the scarlet letter to read. But not everyone at Kathy's school was happy about the changes taking place.

There were some powerful forces who did not want anyone meddling with the status quo. And when Kathy was found murdered in 1970, some wondered if she'd been killed in order to keep extremely dark truths concealed. People's lives are like a story. There's a beginning, a middle, and an end. But you don't always know which part you're on. Sometimes the final chapter arrives far too soon, and we don't always get to know the real ending.

I'm Carter Roy, and this is Murder True Crime Stories, a Crime House Original. Every Tuesday, I'll explore the story of a notorious murder or murders. I'll be bringing awareness to stories that need to be heard with a focus on those who are impacted. At Crime House, we want to express our gratitude to you, our community, for making this possible. Please support us by rating, reviewing, and following Murder True Crime Stories wherever you get your podcasts. Your feedback truly matters. And to enhance your Murder True Crime Stories listening experience,

subscribe to Crime House Plus on Apple podcasts. You'll get every episode ad free and instead of having to wait for each episode of a two-part series you'll get access to both at once, plus exciting bonus content. This is the first of two episodes on the murder of a 27 year old nun named Catherine Seznick. In late 1969, Cathy went out for an errand and never came back. Two months later, in January 1970, she was found dead at a Baltimore landfill. Today I'll fill you in on Kathy's early life and her journey to becoming a nun.

I'll also discuss the moments leading up to her disappearance and the ensuing investigation. Next time, I'll dive into the scandal that some believe is connected to Kathy's death. I'll tell you about the suspects who may have murdered her and update you on where the case stands now. All that and more, coming up. Hey everyone, Carter here. If you're enjoying the stories of murder true crime stories, the team here at Crime House has another show I think you'll love. It's called Money Crimes with Nicole Lapin.

Each episode dives into the darkest corners of financial crime and sometimes ends in murder. Check it out wherever you get your podcasts. With Uber Reserve, you can book your Uber ride in advance. 90 days in advance. Perfect for all you forward thinkers and planning gurus. Reserve your Uber ride up to 90 days in advance. Uber Reserve. See Uber app for details.

Get groceries delivered across the GTA from real Canadian Superstore with PC Express. Shop online for super prices and super savings. Try it today and get up to $75 in PC optimum points. Visit superstore.ca to get started. Catherine Seznick, known as Cathy to family and friends, was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on November 17, 1942. She was the oldest of three girls and raised in Lawrenceville, an historic middle-class neighborhood in the city.

Her parents, Anna and Joseph, were first-generation Americans who immigrated to the United States from Slovenia. Anna and Joseph worked constantly to support their daughters, which left Kathy to care for her younger sisters in the evenings. While some children might have rebelled against that kind of responsibility, Kathy embraced it, and she quickly discovered that she loved looking after her siblings. Kathy carried that passion into her own schooling. She was an excellent student, earning top grades and the admiration of her teachers

and peers. And with Kathy's blonde hair and striking green eyes, people seemed to gravitate towards her. In high school, Kathy was crowned May Queen, elected president of her senior class, and named a valedictorian. When she graduated in 1960, Kathy could have chosen almost any profession and succeeded, but she already had plans for her future. Growing up, Cathy's family was devoutly religious.

One of her younger sisters said Cathy felt called by God to be a nun from an early age. And shortly after graduating high school, Cathy decided to follow through on her dreams. At 18 years old, she headed to Baltimore, Maryland to join the School Sisters of Notre Dame, a teaching order devoted to educating children. It felt like the perfect next step for Kathy. Not only was she able to devote her life to God, but she could also fulfill her passion of teaching and working with children.

Cathy spent the next few years studying at the convent and training to become a nun. When the Archbishop Keough Catholic High School was opened in 1965, 23-year-old Cathy was deemed ready to take a position at the All Girls School teaching English and drama. After two years as a teacher and seven years of training to become a nun, Kathy was ready to officially take her vows in 1967. It's custom for new nuns to take on an additional name, honoring a saint in their order. 25 year old Cathy chose the name Sister Joanita in honor of Saint Joan of Arc. Joan of Arc is famously known for transcending gender roles to lead the French to victory over English invaders.

And although most people continued calling her Sister Cathy, she certainly had a lot in common with Joan of Arc. Much like Joan of Arc transcended gender norms in her era, Kathy leaned into the progressive ideals that were taking form in her era. Around this time, the Catholic Church encouraged nuns to re-examine their mission, their rules, even their style. The Church no longer required nuns to wear traditional religious garments or even live in convents.

Many took advantage of the opportunity and moved to underserved and marginalized communities where they felt they could make the biggest impact. Often they took jobs as nurses, community organizers, and teachers. Kathy was eager to follow suit. After working at Archbishop Kehoe for several years, she felt stifled by the confines of her religious order and the school itself. While most of the nuns working at Archbishop Kehoe favored a more traditional version of Catholicism, Kathy wasn't afraid to touch contentious topics. One year she even had her English class read the Scarlet Letter, which tells the story of an adulterous woman who is wrongly shunned by her community. At the time, it was banned at many schools and would

have definitely been a controversial choice at Archbishop Keough. But by 1969, Cathy felt like she'd taught her students everything she could. And on a personal level, she was ready for a change. On June 1, 1969, 27-year-old Kathy wrote a letter to her superiors. She petitioned to leave the convent and her post at Archbishop Keough temporarily. The church granted her request, and Kathy took a one-year leave of absence. That fall, Kathy took a position as a teacher at Western High School in Baltimore, a public all-girls school with a racially and economically diverse student body. She moved into a modest two-bedroom ground-floor apartment in the Catonsville neighborhood,

which she shared with sister Russell Phillips, a fellow nun and close friend. Over the next few months, Kathy settled into her new routine. She was loving her job and all the friends she was making. Things only got more exciting when Kathy learned that her sister Marilyn had gotten engaged. On the evening of November 7, 1969, a Friday, Kathy told her roommate she was heading out to buy Marilyn an engagement gift at a nearby shopping mall. She would be back in a couple hours. But Kathy had no idea that someone was watching her, and they would make sure she never returned. the planners, now you can reserve your Uber ride up to 90 days in advance. See Uber app for details.

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Baltimore and move to another part of the city. She got a new teaching job and was enjoying the challenge of working at an inner-city school. To top it off, her sister Marilyn had just gotten engaged and Kathy couldn't wait to celebrate. At 7.30 pm on November 7, 1969, Kathy dashed out of the apartment she shared with her roommate, a nun named Russell Phillips. Kathy was headed to the nearby Edmondson Village shopping center to buy an engagement gift for her sister.

The mall wasn't far from their apartment, so Russell expected Kathy to be gone for just a couple of hours, until 9 p.m. at the latest. But 9 o'clock came and went, and there was no sign of Kathy. As the minutes ticked by, Russell started to worry. When Kathy still wasn't home by midnight, she knew something was wrong. Russell called Pete McKeon and Jerry Koob, priests who were friendly with both women. After Sister Russell explained what was going on, Pete and Jerry hopped in the car and rushed over to the nun's apartment. The two men agreed it was concerning and by one in the morning, the group decided it was

time to get the authorities involved. It didn't take long for a policeman to arrive. He took down everyone's statements and promised he would call if there was any news about Kathy. The next few hours passed slowly. Russell and the priests spent that time praying for Kathy's safe return. Jerry performed mass, asking God to bring Kathy home safe. They even saved her some communion bread as a show of good faith. By 4 a.m., they still hadn't heard anything from the police.

good faith. By 4am they still hadn't heard anything from the police. They were surely exhausted by this point, but the idea of going to bed only made them more anxious. They didn't want to miss a call from the authorities. Instead, they decided to go for a walk to pass the time. As the group ambled down the street, they spotted the green Ford Maverick that Kathy and Russell shared. Russell was shocked to see it. Kathy had told her she was driving to the shopping center, so why was the car here when Kathy wasn't?

Even stranger, the car was parked a block away from the reserved parking space that Kathy and Russell always used, and whoever had left it here was clearly in a rush. The vehicle was in a no-parking zone on a street corner marked with yellow paint, and its rear bumper was sticking out into the intersection. The group slowly approached the car and immediately noticed the tires were caked with mud and there were branches caught in the radio antenna. It looked as if the car had gone off-road into a forested area. Russell went around to the driver's side door and was surprised to find it unlocked.

Cathy was one of the most responsible people she knew. She would never do something so reckless. Russell peered inside the vehicle. She noticed a box of dinner rolls sitting on the passenger seat. Russell recognized the name of the bakery stamped on the box. It was located in the same department store Cathy said she was going to, which meant she had made it to the shopping center after all. Sister Russell was just about to tell Pete and Jerry what she'd discovered when she

realized the car was filled with leaves and brush. Not only that, there was a forked twig attached to the car's turn signal lever, and it was hanging on by a single yellow thread, the same color as the sweater Cathy had been wearing when she left the apartment. The group rushed back to Sister Russell's apartment and immediately called the police. Authorities had already begun investigating Cathy's disappearance, and it turned out Sister Russell and the two priests weren't the first people to notice the suspicious

looking car. Neighbors told detectives that they had seen the vehicle pull into its reserve parking space at around 8.30 pm on November 7th, the night Kathy disappeared, about an hour after she left for her errand. The witnesses were too far away to see if Kathy was driving or if someone else was behind the wheel. They also couldn't tell if there were any passengers, but no one saw the car pull out again and make its way down the block.

But at 10 p.m., someone reported the car parked illegally out the intersection where Sister Russell and the priests first saw it. That hour and a half gap between the car pulling into the reserve spot and the 10pm report in the yellow zone would become a major focus in the investigation. After the car was discovered, dozens of officers and multiple canine teams scoured the 14-block radius around the apartment. They went to the shopping center where Cathy had gone, combed through parks, nearby creeks,

policemen knocked on doors, searched alleys, and deserted buildings. But despite their best efforts, authorities came up empty-handed. A few days after Cathy disappeared, Captain John Barnald Jr., head of the Baltimore Police Department's Homicide Squad, released a statement. The department would continue to classify the incident as a missing persons case. Although the circumstances around Cathy's disappearance were suspicious, Captain Barnald's investigation hadn't turned up any evidence of foul play. In fact, the only evidence they did have was the yellow thread that was discovered in Kathy's car. And even though it appeared as though

someone had driven the vehicle through the woods, there wasn't anything to indicate a kidnapping had taken place. It was bittersweet for Kathy's friends and family. They wanted to believe she would return unharmed. Captain Barnald's insistence that there wasn't foul play involved gave them a small shred of hope they would see Kathy again. But then, just days after Kathy's disappearance, another tragedy took place, and it made it much more difficult to believe Kathy would ever come back.

On the night of November 11, 1969, four days after Kathy went missing, 20-year-old Joyce Malachy was getting ready to visit her friend, Private James Gault. James was stationed at the Fort Meade Army Base, a 20-minute drive from Joyce's home in South Baltimore. Joyce called James around 9.45 p.m., just as she was about to leave. She told him she'd be there within the hour. But that hour came and went. By midnight, over two hours later, Joyce still hadn't shown up. Joyce's brothers knew she had planned to go visit James, then returned to her apartment. They waited for her into the early

morning hours, but she never came back. They called the police and let them know Joyce was missing. The following evening one of Joyce's brothers found her car at a nearby gas station. It was empty and unlocked. The keys were still in the ignition. Joyce's glasses were on the dashboard and the groceries she'd purchased on her way to the army base sat undisturbed on the passenger seat. Joyce's family didn't have to wait long to learn what happened to her. On the morning of Thursday, November 13th, two days after Joyce disappeared, a pair of

hunters walked along the Patuxent Research Refuge outside Fort Meade in Maryland. They were searching for an area to set up their deer hunting equipment when they stopped in their tracks. There was a half-submerged body on the shore of the little Patuxent River. The hunters reported their discovery to the police, who sent the body to a medical examiner. The body was identified as Joyce Maliki. An autopsy revealed she had been choked and stabbed, then thrown into the river, her hands

bound behind her back. Small cuts covered her neck, forehead, nose and chin, indicating that Joyce had fought back before she was murdered. In the days that followed, local papers noticed the similarities between Joyce's murder and Kathy's missing persons case. Both women went shopping the night they disappeared. Kathy for a gift and Joyce for groceries.

Each of their cars was found unlocked in a strange location. But most of all, the fact that they went missing just days apart seemed to indicate a connection. Newspapers suggested that Joyce's killer might have had something to do with Kathy's disappearance. However, the authorities weren't convinced. They maintained the two cases were isolated incidents and continued to investigate them separately. Ultimately, Joyce's case went cold and remains unsolved as of this recording, and the authorities weren't having much more luck finding out what happened to Kathy. Over the next two months, the leads dried up and Cathy's loved ones began to lose hope.

But by January 1970, two months after Cathy went missing, an unexpected discovery would blow the case wide open. As a Fizz member, you can look forward to free data, big savings on plans, and having your unused data roll over to the following month, every month. At FIZ, you always get more for your money. Terms and conditions for our different programs and policies apply. Details at FIZ.ca. Sure, I could tell you winter's coming or that it brings cold, dry air, but you already

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Captain Bud Romer led homicide investigations for the Baltimore County Police Department and was actively working on the case. He knew that the more time passed, the less likely they were to find Kathy, but the investigation was slow going. There wasn't much evidence, and while the yellow thread in Kathy's car appeared to have come from her sweater, the discovery hadn't brought them any closer to finding her. Still, Captain Romer was determined to do everything in his power to bring the young nun home.

On the morning of January 3, Captain Romer received a call from an officer at the Halethorpe Precinct, the station located just a couple miles south of Kathy's apartment. The officer explained that two hunters had been scouting an isolated wooded area near Monumental Avenue. He said they were passing by the Lansdowne landfill when they saw what looked like a woman's body lying amid the trash and snow. Captain Romer thanked the officer for his report, then rounded up his unit. The group jumped into an unmarked squad car and sped off toward the landfill. When they arrived, Captain Romer approached the body. It was partially naked and covered with snow.

A single shoe and the victim's purse lay several feet away. Captain Romer carefully looked inside the purse. There was a prescription bottle inside. The name on the label read, Catherine Seznick. Captain Romer and his team spent hours combing the area for any additional evidence, but beyond Kathy's purse and footwear, there were no other clues about what had happened to her or who her killer was. As the sun set, Captain Romer sent Kathy's body to the medical examiner.

But it had been nearly two months since Kathy went missing. In that time, her body had been exposed to the elements and wild animals, causing it to deteriorate. Because of that, the examiner couldn't determine if Kathy had been sexually assaulted before her death. However, one thing was clear. There was a small round hole about the size of a quarter in the back of Kathy's skull. The examiner didn't recover a bullet which led him to believe Kathy died from blunt force trauma. It seemed like the weapon was a hammer, tire iron, or some other heavy metal object. Which meant Kathy's missing persons case was now officially a

homicide investigation. The following morning, January 4, 1970, Captain Romer began to look for Kathy's murderer. The first thing he needed to figure out was Kathy's connection to her unidentified assailant. If Kathy's killer was a stranger, it was possible they abducted her from the Edmondson Village shopping center. From there, the killer could have driven Kathy into the woods, murdered her, then dumped her at the landfill, about five miles away from the shopping mall. But that didn't explain how Kathy's car ended up back at her apartment complex. explain how Kathy's car ended up back at her apartment complex. Her neighbors reported seeing the green maverick at 8.30 pm.

If Kathy was already dead by then, why would the killer bring her car back rather than leaving it abandoned somewhere? And if it was a random attack, how would they have known where Kathy lived? Unless Kathy knew her killer. Answers weren't immediately forthcoming, but in the years after Kathy's murder, detectives identified multiple potential suspects. One of them was her friend, brother Jerry Koob, who helped Kathy's roommate sister Russell search for her the night she went missing. During their investigation, detectives learned that Kathy and Jerry were more than just friends.

They uncovered letters that Kathy and Jerry had written to each other, suggesting they were romantically involved. But Jerry, who had since left the Catholic church, insisted they were never physically intimate. According to him, he asked Cathy for her hand in marriage before either of them had made their final vows to the Church. He said Cathy turned him down, but the two remained close and continued to exchange love letters for years.

Just three days before Cathy went missing, Jerry said he'd called her. He told Kathy he still loved her and was even prepared to leave the priesthood to be with her. But even then, she refused to abandon her vows. In the end, Jerry was ruled out as a suspect. He had a strong alibi. At the time of Kathy's disappearance, he was at the movies with his fellow priest, Peter McKeon. Jerry had the tickets and receipt

to prove it. None of the other leads led anywhere either. Kathy's case went cold. For over 20 years, her file sat untouched in a back room of the County Police Headquarters. To Kathy's family and friends, it looked like they would never learn who was responsible for her death and never get closure. But then, in 1994, 23 years after Kathy's murder, Three years after Kathy's murder, an unnamed woman came forward. She attended Archbishop Keough High School in the late 1960s and early 70s while Kathy taught there. She told the authorities that while she was a student, two priests who taught at the school

had sexually abused her. At the time, she didn't know what to do or who to confide in. But there was one teacher she had the previous year who she trusted. It was Kathy Seznick. The woman told investigators Kathy was livid when she found out what had happened. She wanted to go to the police with the allegations. But before she got the chance, Kathy was murdered. Thanks so much for listening. I'm Carter Roy and this is Murder True Crime Stories. Come back next time for part two of our series on the murder of Kathy Saznik.

Murder True Crime Stories is a Crime House original powered by Pave Studios. Here at Crime House, we want to thank each and every one of you for your support. If you like what you heard today, reach out on social media at CrimeHouse on TikTok and Instagram. Don't forget to rate, review, and follow Murder True Crime Stories wherever you get your podcasts. Your feedback truly makes a difference. And to enhance your Murder True Crime Stories listening experience, subscribe to CrimeHouse Plus on Apple Podcasts. You'll get every episode ad-free, and instead of having to wait for each episode of a two-part series, you'll get access to both at once, plus exciting bonus content.

We'll be back next Tuesday. Murder True Crime Stories, a Crime House original podcast powered by Pave Studios, is executive produced by Max Cutler. This episode of Murder True Crime Stories was directed and produced by Ron Shapiro, written by Morgan O'Hanlon, edited by Natalie Pertsotsky, fact-checked by Hania Saeed, sound designed by Russell Nash, and included production assistance from Sarah Carroll. Murder, True Crime Stories is hosted by Carter Roy.