The body of a woman murdered in 1969 is exhumed as an FBI investigation links the unsolved case of the murder of a Baltimore nun

The body of a woman who was murdered in 1969 will be exhumed as an FBI investigation ties into the unsolved murder case of a Baltimore nun whose story was featured on Netflix’s ‘The Keepers.’

Joyce Helen Malecki, 20, disappeared on November 11, 1969. Her body was found two days later in a body of water at the soldiers’ park training area at Fort Meade. She had been stabbed in the throat and strangled to death.

Catherine Ann Cesnik, a nun and Catholic high school teacher in Baltimore, was reported missing on November 7, 1969. Her body was discovered on January 3, 1970, nearly two months after she went missing. She had been suffocated and she had a fatal head injury.

Malecki’s body will be exhumed from Baltimore’s Loudon Park Cemetery after more than five decades, while the FBI explores an unspecified lead possibly connecting the two cases. Kurt Wolfgang, an attorney and executive director of the Maryland Crime Victims Resource Center, told DailyMail.com.

Wolfgang said the dig will take place sometime in August or September and DNA evidence will be collected. Although he said the FBI gave them limited information, he said that in January 1970, during Malecki’s autopsy, a hair was discovered on her body that was not hers and he believes that is what investigators will be looking for.

Sister Catherine Ann Cesnik, a nun and Catholic high school teacher in Baltimore, was reported missing on November 7, 1969. Her body was discovered on January 3, 1970, nearly two months after she went missing. Cesnik had been suffocated and had a fatal head injury.

“The FBI gave us no indication other than to say that the purpose of the exhumation is to collect evidence,” he said.

‘Someone asked him how can that be after 54 years. Then they did the autopsy in January 1970 and found a hair on Malecki’s body that wasn’t hers, so I assume that’s what they’re looking for.

The unsolved murder of Cesnik became the subject of the true crime documentary after a Former student Jean Hargadon Wehner went to see her teacher, Sister Cesniak, to tell her that the high school chaplain was sexually abusing her.

When the chaplain discovered that Wehner had said something, he took her to Cesnik’s corpse and threatened that it would be her if she didn’t shut up.

Wolfgang, who represents Whener and about 50 Archbishop Keough High School sexual assault survivors, said his client never went to authorities terrified that she and her family would be killed.

“I was petrified with fear,” said Wolfgang, who represents Wehner.

Wehner, who appears on ‘The Keepers, first came forward with her allegations in 1992 that the former school chaplain, the Rev. A. Joseph Maskell, had repeatedly raped her as a student at his alma mater, Archbishop Keough High School. .

She spoke after the release of the redacted report on child sexual abuse in the Catholic Archdiocese of Baltimore by the Maryland Attorney General’s Office earlier this year, the baltimore sun informed.

Father Joseph Maskell was accused of being a serial abuser. He died in 2001

Malecki’s body will be exhumed from Baltimore’s Loudon Park Cemetery after more than five decades, according to Kurt Wolfgang, an attorney and executive director of the Maryland Crime Victims Resource Center. He told DailyMail.com that the excavation will take place sometime in August or September.

After the death of Malecki and the beloved nun, Baltimore County detectives questioned dozens of people, but never found the killer and the case went unsolved for decades.

With the Netflix true crime series spotlighting Cesnik’s unsolved murder, detectives are now exploring a potential connection in both murders.

Wolfgang said he represents the Malecki family and is in daily contact with Darryl Malecki, Joyce Malecki’s brother.

“I think the family really doesn’t know what happened here and really longs for answers and justice,” he said.

He told DailyMail.com that the reason Malecki’s murder was covered on the Netflix show ‘The Keepers’ is because of Sister Catherine’s disappearance four days later.

“They were both pretty young girls, their cars were found with the keys still in it and they were both murdered in a similar way,” he said.

“In both cases, their cars were moved after the kidnapping and parked somewhere.”

Netflix’s true crime series ‘The Keepers’ centers on the unsolved murder of a Baltimore nun, Sister Cathy.

Survivors detail allegations of sexual abuse against Father Maskell and allegations of institutional cover-up, in the Netflix series.

Maskell was transferred to different parishes in the 1960s due to “disruptive behavior with children,” according to a 2023 report from the Maryland Attorney General’s Office, the new york post office informed.

According to the report, he allegedly had a “fascination with sexual fantasies and Boy Scout behavior and having girls at the rectory under suspicious circumstances,” the news outlet reported.

Maskell was never criminally charged and denied all accusations. In 1994, he was removed from his priestly ministry in Baltimore and died in 2021.

Wolfgang said that many of the victims who suffered abuse were drugged and hypnotized by Maskell and others.

“There were a lot of teenage victims,” ​​he said.

He added: “There’s a lot more to the story and a lot more revelations to come out regarding the Archbishop of Baltimore sexual abuse scandal and Archbishop Keough High School and Father Maskell being an integral part of that.”

He called many of the surviving victims “heroes”.

Gemma Hoskins, 70, a former student at Archbishop Keough High School, she was a student of Sister Catalina and called the nun ‘her favorite teacher’.

Hoskin was one of the people who inspired Netflix’s popular 2017 true crime documentary series and shand former student Abbie Fitzgerald Schaub have spent their lives investigating the death of Sister Catherine.

Although Hoskins said Maskell’s abuse didn’t hit her, she said the death of her former teacher always had a profound impact on her.

She told WBAL that she always felt the two cold cases were connected and believes they will somehow lead back to Father Maskell.

“The family has been through a lot,” he said. “This is not a pleasant experience for anyone, but they look forward to what the FBI finds and hopefully shares it with them.”

About his website She talks about the Netflix series and the Cathy Cesnik Survivors Fund, a non-profit registered charity, whose mission is to Collect and distribute financial assistance for the treatment of adult survivors of child sexual abuse.