Greater than 50 years after his sister was killed, Darryl Malecki watched on Thursday as her physique was lowered into her grave, for a second time, at a cemetery in Baltimore.
Nobody has ever been charged with the killing of Joyce Malecki, who disappeared in November 1969, when she was 20, and was discovered useless days in a while the Fort Meade army base south of Baltimore. However the exhumation of her stays for DNA samples has raised her household’s hopes that the case will lastly be solved.
“It’s a steppingstone,” Mr. Malecki, 71, stated in an interview after his sister’s physique was returned to her grave. “They faraway from her no matter they wanted.”
On Thursday, the F.B.I. confirmed in a press release that it had exhumed Ms. Malecki’s physique at Loudon Park Cemetery in southwest Baltimore as a part of an investigation into her killing. It gave no additional particulars, however the announcement revived questions concerning the case, which was featured in a 2017 Netflix documentary collection concerning the loss of life of a nun and allegations of sexual abuse towards an area priest.
Two days after Ms. Malecki was reported lacking, her physique was present in a pond at Fort Meade, a sprawling army base about 18 miles south of Baltimore. She was on her strategy to meet her boyfriend, a soldier posted on the base, when she disappeared, her brother stated. An post-mortem decided that she had been strangled.
The Netflix collection “The Keepers” examined Ms. Malecki’s loss of life in reference to the killing of the nun, Sister Catherine Ann Cesnik, a 26-year-old English trainer at Archbishop Keough Excessive College in Baltimore. The ladies went lacking inside days of one another, and their our bodies have been discovered just some miles aside. Folks conversant in the case stated within the collection that Sister Cathy was about to disclose allegations of sexual abuse by the Rev. A. Joseph Maskell, a steerage counselor on the college, when she was killed.
Days earlier than the documentary was launched, Archbishop William E. Lori of Baltimore stated in a press release that the primary suggestion that Father Maskell might need been concerned in Sister Cathy’s loss of life was made to the Baltimore Archdiocese in 1994. However Archbishop Lori stated that there was no report of Sister Cathy contacting the Archdiocese about Father Maskell and that no felony fees have been filed in connection along with her loss of life.
In 1992, Jean Wehner, a former pupil of Sister Cathy’s, accused Father Maskell of sexually assaulting her when she was in highschool. She stated that she had confided in Sister Cathy, and that Father Maskell took her to see the nun’s physique as a warning towards talking out.
“The Keepers” targeted primarily on Sister Cathy’s homicide, however it revived accusations of a broader cover-up by the Archdiocese that a few of her former college students, in addition to some who’ve accused Father Maskell of abuse, say has clouded the investigation into Ms. Malecki’s killing.
Father Maskell died in 2001. In 2017, the Baltimore County Police Division introduced {that a} DNA pattern taken from his stays didn’t match crime scene proof from Sister Cathy’s killing.
In April, the Maryland Lawyer Normal’s Workplace launched a 463-page report that discovered “staggering” charges of sexual abuse of youngsters by clergy members throughout the Archdiocese of Baltimore over the course of six many years, in addition to cover-ups by members of the church hierarchy.
The Malecki household lived a few block away from St. Clement Catholic Church, the place Father Maskell was a parish priest earlier than he was transferred to Archbishop Keough Excessive College.
Advances in DNA expertise and genetic family tree have helped investigators remedy extra chilly instances in america, giving the Malecki household new, if cautious, hope that the authorities may discover her killer.
“Considered one of our strongest conjectures about all that is they don’t seem to be exhuming this younger woman after 54 years in a random try to achieve proof,” stated Kurt Wolfgang, the manager director of the Maryland Crime Victims Useful resource Heart, which has been working with the Malecki household. “We predict they’ve a powerful principle or they might not be doing this.”
“If the one who did that is nonetheless alive, they need to see him prosecuted,” he stated.
Mr. Malecki stated that the F.B.I. has instructed his household that its file on the investigation has grown to 4,000 pages. The bureau has supplied no particular details about what, or who, it’s in search of, he stated.
On Thursday, regulation enforcement officers closed the cemetery because the exhumation was going down. After it was over, Mr. Malecki, his older brother Pat and two nieces have been escorted to a chapel the place Ms. Malecki’s coffin was ready.
“We went into the chapel so we might see the casket and say our goodbyes,” he stated.
The coffin was positioned right into a hearse and brought to the identical plot the place she was buried 54 years in the past. It was lowered into the cement vault, and a backhoe refilled it with earth.
Mr. Malecki stated he was the final member of his household to see his sister alive. He was working a late shift at a fast-food chain referred to as Gino’s in Baltimore. It was Nov. 11, 1969, and Ms. Malecki stopped by to swap her Pontiac for his or her dad and mom’ 1967 Chevrolet Impala, which Mr. Malecki had taken to work. She was on her strategy to meet her boyfriend and do some procuring.
“I assume she felt extra comfy in a brand new automobile,” Mr. Malecki stated.
She by no means got here dwelling. Two days later, two hunters discovered her facedown in a creek, he stated.
“My sister was solely 20 years previous, in her prime,” he stated. Reflecting on the life that was nonetheless forward of her, he stated, “She was robbed of all that.”