Originally published in The Blade on Friday, February 8, 2008
BY RYAN E. SMITH
BLADE STAFF WRITER
David Yonke always wanted to write a book - just not this one, not one about a Roman Catholic priest convicted in the gruesome killing a nun. But something of the journalist inside him led him forward.
"Somebody has to tell the truth. Somebody has to tell the unpleasant stories," he told an audience of about 550 people last night at an "Authors! Authors!" speech in the Great Hall of the Stranahan Theater.
The series is presented by The Blade and is arranged by the Toledo-Lucas County Public Library.
Mr. Yonke, 53, has written Sin, Shame & Secrets: The Murder of a Nun, the Conviction of a Priest, and Cover-up in the Catholic Church, a 228-page true-crime story about the 1980 murder of Sister Margaret Ann Pahl in Toledo. Gerald Robinson, a priest, was found guilty of killing her in 2006.
Mr. Yonke, who grew up Catholic and is now an Evangelical Christian, began the evening by saying that the book is not anti-Catholic by any means.
"This book is a factual story about one of the most amazing cases that ever happened in the United States, certainly in Toledo history," he said
"As far as I can tell it's the only time a priest has ever been convicted of killing a nun."
The controversial nature of the subject matter and concern from some family and friends were enough for there to be extra security last night, according to Rhonda Sewell, library spokesman. There were no disturbances during the speech.
Mr. Yonke, who is The Blade's religion editor, traced the route he took in producing the book and described some of the obstacles he faced, especially a gag order preventing everyone involved with the case from talking with the media.
Mr. Yonke also brought up some of the more unsettling aspects of the case, such as allegations that the slaying was a ritual murder.
Sister Margaret Ann, 71, had been strangled nearly to death, then stabbed 31 times - some of the wounds forming the shape of an inverted cross - in the sacristy of the former Mercy Hospital on Holy Saturday, 1980.
Her body was found with her undergarments pulled down around an ankle and her habit pulled up to her chest.
In answering a question from the audience, Mr. Yonke said he personally became convinced that there were too many satanic elements involved for there not to be truth in that theory.
Writing the book was a difficult journey, he said, but he felt that it was a story that needed to be told.
"This was a book that I felt had to be written. I wrote it, but the next book I'm working on is a novel," he said, "and there's no priests or nuns in the whole book."
The next speaker in the Authors! Authors! series will be longtime humanitarian and activist Marian Wright Edelman on April 16 at 7 p.m. in the same location, 4645 Heatherdowns Blvd.
Author David Yonke, center, speaks with Gary and Connie Murphy of Perrysburg Township at a reception before the speech. (THE BLADE/JETTA FRASER)
