Gerald Robinson: Defense probes police testimony for inconsistencies

The Rev. Gerald Robinson’s defense team opened its case today by calling three police officers and grilling them about inconsistencies in their reports about the 1980 murder of Sister Margaret Ann Pahl.

Father Robinson, 68, is on trial for murder in the slaying of the 71-year-old nun on April 5, 1980 — Holy Saturday — in the sacristy next door to Mercy Hospital’s chapel.

Alan Konop, one of the priest’s four defense attorneys, raised a number of questions today over statements in police reports from the original investigation in 1980 and after the case was reopened in December, 2003.

One of the defense questions referred to differences between courtroom testimony yesterday by Leslie Kerner, a prosecution witness, and a report filed by Toledo police Sgt. Steve Forrester of the Lucas County cold-case team.

Mrs. Kerner said on the witness stand that she saw Father Robinson outside the chapel doors about 6:50 a.m. the day of the murder. In his report, Sergeant Forrester said Mrs. Kerner told him she saw the priest walking out of the chapel, not standing by the doors.

Father Robinson told police in 1980 and again when he was arrested in April, 2004, that he had been in his hospital apartment the entire morning until receiving a phone call to come to the chapel because Sister Margaret Ann had been killed. Her body, strangled and stabbed 31 times, was discovered by a nun around 8:20 a.m.

Also testifying this morning were retired Toledo police detectives Dan Foster and David Weinbrecht, both of whom took part in the 1980 murder investigation.

Mr. Konop raised the point that some 1980 police reports indicated that a pair of scissors missing from the hospital chapel might have been used in the murder. Mr. Weinbrecht responded that a former Lucas County coroner said wounds to Sister Margaret Ann’s face had to have been made by an instrument sharper than scissors.

He also challenged some of the prosecution’s witnesses’ time references for when they saw Father Robinson near the chapel on the day of the murder.

The trial, which began April 21, continues this afternoon in Lucas County Common Pleas court in Toledo.

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