"That upset the detectives to no end," Mr. Mandros said.

Deputy Chief Vetter also requested that detectives give him their reports on the case, Mr. Mandros said. Some of those reports were never seen again. Within a month, the case was dropped for lack of evidence. Mr. Vetter, who retired in 1986, testified this week that he was a practicing Catholic but had not been involved with the investigation.

The investigation was reopened in 2003 after a woman from Toledo approached the Toledo Diocese with accusations that a number of priests, including Father Robinson, had molested her as a child in a series of rituals, Mr. Mandros said. The accusations were sent to the prosecutor's cold case unit.

Using new forensic techniques, the authorities discovered imprints on the altar cloth that closely matched a letter opener belonging to Father Robinson that had an emblem of the United States Capitol on the side, Mr. Mandros said. They also found three witnesses who said they saw the priest near the chapel around the time of the killing.

Victims of sexual abuse accuse the diocese of a long-running effort to shield priests from prosecution.

"I'm relieved by the verdict today," said Claudia Vercelotti, who was molested by a Toledo priest as a child and is now a member of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests. "But the murder happened 26 years ago. You can't talk about this case without talking about the Catholic Church's cover-up."

Father Robinson maintained his innocence throughout the trial. With a number of the original witnesses dead and many original documents missing, his lawyer, Alan Konop, argued that prosecutors did not have a case. "The initial police investigation was very poor, and there was so much conflicting testimony," Mr. Konop said.

When Father Robinson was arrested in April 2004, he told the police on a videotape that was shown at the trial that he had been shocked to find the nun dead and shocked again when the other hospital chaplain accused him of murder.