Netflix is following up on the success of 2015's Making a Murderer with an all-new seven-part true-crime docuseries called The Keepers, which tells the story of Sister Cathy Ann Cesnick, a 26-year-old nun and schoolteacher who was brutally murdered nearly 50 years ago. The 1969 case has long since run cold, but the series promises to reexamine the evidence and piece together a possible connection between her death and a sex abuse scandal that allegedly went on at the nun's place of work. So where did Sister Cathy Cesnik teach?
After graduating high school in her hometown of Pittsburgh, Cesnik moved to Maryland and entered the Baltimore Province convent of the School Sisters of Notre Dame in 1960. She finished her studies and took her final vows in 1967, but in 1965, she secured a teaching position at Archbishop Keough High School, a newly opened school in Southwest Baltimore. It was there that she taught drama and English for four years before entering a period of exclaustration. While at Keough, Cesnik was beloved by students, parents, and faculty, and many former students of hers called her the best teacher they ever had, which makes what happened to her even more heartbreaking.
But in her final year of teaching, Cesnik had decided to take a break from convent life. She moved into her own two-bedroom apartment, which she shared with a fellow nun, began wearing layperson clothing, and transferred to a public school called Western High for a year of missionary teaching during the 1969-1970 school year.
Just a few months into the 1969-1970 school year, she disappeared while running evening errands. Her roommate eventually contacted a priest by the name of Gerard Koob — who reportedly had a romantic relationship with Cesnik at some point in time — and together they informed the police of her disappearance that same evening. Two months later, Cesnik's body was discovered in a garbage dump. While the case rocked the Baltimore County Police Department at the time, no one was ever convicted of the crime. The case to this day remains unsolved.
The Keepers intends to take another look at the case and hopefully help further the investigation so that justice can finally prevail. You can catch the seven-part series beginning on Friday, May 19 on Netflix.
