Toledo priest charged with murder of nun 24 years ago

Published: 2004-04-27

TOLEDO, Ohio (CNS) -- The arrest of a Toledo priest on charges he murdered a Mercy sister 24 years ago has brought back the horror of her death to Mercy Sister Phyllis Ann Gerold. "Going through this once was devastating. In a sense we're reliving it again," said Sister Phyllis Ann, who was president of Toledo Mercy Hospital in 1980 when Sister Margaret Ann Pahl was murdered on Holy Saturday, April 5. Father Gerald Robinson, a priest of the Diocese of Toledo, was arrested at his home April 23, arraigned April 26 and charged with the murder. The case will move to the grand jury sometime soon. Sister Phyllis Ann said Toledo police had called her "about once a year" about the case. "They'd go over some detail with me," she said. "They never really closed it." Sister Pahl was killed one day before her 72nd birthday. She was strangled and then stabbed 27 times. Her body was found in the chapel of Mercy Hospital, where she and Father Robinson had worked for a number of years.

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