Body of woman murdered in 1969 exhumed; FBI probe links to cold case

Body of woman murdered in 1969 is set to be exhumed as FBI probe links to cold case murder of 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. She had been stabbed in the throat and strangled to death
• Sister Catherine Ann Cesnik, a nun and Catholic high school teacher in Baltimore, was found dead two months after Malecki’s death 
• Kurt Wolfgang, executive director of Maryland Crime Victims’ Resource Center told DailyMail.com Malecki’s body will be exhumed sometime in Aug. or Sept. 

The body of a woman who was murdered in 1969 is set to be exhumed as the FBI probe links to cold case murder 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 soldier 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 choked and had a fatal head wound.

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

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

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

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 had gone missing. Cesnik had been choked and had a fatal head wound

 ‘The FBI gave us no indication other than to say 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 they found a hair on Malecki’s body that wasn’t hers so I am assuming that is what they are looking for.’

Cesnik’s unsolved murder became the subject of the true-crime documentary after a former student named Jean Hargadon Wehner went to her teacher, Sister Cesniak to share that she was being sexually abused by the high school chaplain. 

 When the chaplain discovered that Wehner had said something he took her to Cesnik’s dead body and threatened it would be her if she doesn’t keep quiet.

Wolfgang, who represents Whener and about 50 sex abuse survivors from Archbishop Keough High School, said his client never went to the authorities terrified that she and her family would be murdered.

‘She was petrified with fear,’ Wolfgang said, who represents Wehner. 

Wehner, who is featured in ‘The Keepers first came forward with her allegations in 1992 that the school’s former chaplain, Rev. A. Joseph Maskell, had repeatedly raped her when she was a student at her alma mater, Archbishop Keough High School. 

She spoke out 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 reported. 

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

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

After the deaths of Malecki and the beloved nun, detectives from Baltimore County questioned dozens of people, but the killer was never found and the case went cold for decades. 

Since the Netflix true-crime series put a spotlight on the unsolved murder of Cesnik detectives are now exploring a potential connection in both slayings.

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

‘I think the family is really at a loss of what happened here and really yearning for answers and justice,’ he said.

The Netflix true-crime series ‘The Keepers’ 

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

‘Both were young pretty girls, their cars were found with the keys still in the ignition and they were both murdered in a similar way,’ he said. 

‘In both instances, their cars were moved after the abduction and parked somewhere.’

He said many of the victims were drugged and hypnotized by Maskell and others. 

‘There is alot more to the story and many more revelations that will came out regarding the sex abuse scandal of the Archibishop of Baltimore and Archbishop Keough High School and Father Maskell as an integral part of it.’

‘There were many many teenage girl victims in this sex abuse scandal and many of these women are heroes to me,’ he said. 

Gemma Hoskins, 70, a former student at Archbishop Keough High School was the person who inspired the 2017 Netflix true crime docuseries.  

During an interview with a local publication, Hoskins’s called sister Catherine her favorite teacher, and that she and former student Abbie Fitzgerald Schaub have spent their lives investigating her death.

Though Hoskins wasn’t targeted by Maskell’s abuse, she said that the death of her former teacher always had a impact on her.    

She told WBAL she always felt the two cold cases were connected and believes that they willl lead back to Father Maskell in some way.

‘The family has been through an awful lot,’ she said. ‘This is not a pleasant experience for anybody, but they are looking forward to what the FBI finds and hopefully shares with them.’

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