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The 1969 unsolved disappearance and murder of a Baltimore nun, Sister Catherine Cesnik, certainly has all the makings of a compelling whodunnit. "Who killed Sister Cathy?" the trailer asks.

However, The Keepers, a multi-part "documentary" about the case airing on Netflix, is nothing but a bleary-eyed scavenger hunt trafficking in speculation, innuendo, rumor, discredited science, and a healthy heap of anti-Catholic bigotry. Anyone looking for an honest and clear-thinking analysis of this case will not find it here.

How can anyone believe this?

The central thesis of The Keepers is that an alleged abusive priest, the now-deceased, can be tied to the disappearance and murder of Sr. Cathy. However, some of the central accusers in all of this, who claim that Maskell sexually abused them when they were young girls, have quite a bit of explaining to do.

For example, in 1995, a woman named Jean Wehner – whose claims play a central role in The Keepers – filed a civil lawsuit against Maskell under the name Jane Doe. What was uncovered in the course of her suit can only described as disturbing. It turns out that all of Wehner's claims of abuse surfaced through the dangerous and discredited practice of "repressed memory therapy."

It turns out that, according to court documents, Wehner has not just claimed that Rev. Maskell abused her in her life. Wehner has also claimed that she has somehow also been abused by:

four additional priests;

priests; three or four religious brothers;

three lay teachers;

a police officer;

a local politician;

an uncle; and

two nuns.

Good grief. Really, Jean?

[***Click to read the source court documents yourself (pdf)***]

(Originally accessed at the site of writer Mark Pendergrast, author of the upcoming book,

Memory Warp: How the Myth of Repressed Memory Arose and Refuses to Die)

To say Wehner's claims are wild is an understatement. Not surprisingly, these inconvenient facts from the court documents were completely omitted from The Keepers.

Indeed, contrary to the series' corrupt attempts to give validity to "repressed memory therapy," there is zero doubt that "repressed memory" is an utter fraud. As Dr. Richard J. McNally, Professor and Director of Clinical Training in the Department of Psychology at Harvard University, has written (pdf):

"The notion that traumatic events can be repressed and later recovered is the most pernicious bit of folklore ever to infect psychology and psychiatry. It has provided the theoretical basis for 'recovered memory therapy' — the worst catastrophe to befall the mental health field since the lobotomy era."

That pesky DNA

As if Wehner's outlandish history were not disrupting enough, in May, two days before The Keepers first aired on Netflix, the producers of the series received some really bad news. The body of Fr. Maskell had been exhumed back in February, and police announced that DNA connected to the murder scene of Sr. Cesnik did not match that of the deceased priest. (Maskell died in 2001 denying any abuse and any connection to Sr. Cathy's murder.)

Needless to say, this piece of inconvenient news put a big damper on Netflix's story and Wehner's insane tale about Fr. Maskell somehow once showing her Sr. Cathy's corpse.

Trying to get the facts out

Following the cue of other fact-challenged screeds against the Catholic Church (1, 2, 3, 4, 5), The Keepers tries to advance the ages-old anti-Catholic bigotry of the Church as a corrupt, all-powerful institution somehow able to exert its influence across all sectors of society, including law enforcement.

To its credit, however, the Archdiocese of Baltimore has made a decent effort to punch back against the wild and bigoted claims that litter Netflix's hit piece. For example, contrary to claims in the film, the archdiocese strongly contends that it was not made aware of sex abuse allegations against Fr. Maskell until "1992, more than 20 years after the abuse occurred." Any claim that the archdiocese knew about allegations against Maskell before 1992 "is speculation and it is false."

We encourage readers to check out the archdiocese's extensive rebuttal to The Keepers.

The bottom line: Make no mistake. The Keepers is not honest and clear-thinking filmmaking. The Keepers is a bigoted and bumbling mess whose investigative depth more resembles The Keystone Cops. This is unfortunate, because Sr. Cesnik deserves much, much more.

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[EDITOR'S NOTE, 7/30/17: On the same day we published our post, BigTrial.net published an excellent post by writer Mark Pendergrast, "The Dangerously Misleading Narrative Of 'The Keepers'." Check it out!]