TOLEDO - Standing behind a casket draped with a white cloth and alongside 10 Roman Catholic priests, the Rev. Gerald Robinson celebrated the funeral Mass for a nun brutally killed in his hospital chapel.
Now, 24 years later, Robinson is charged with strangling and stabbing the nun about 30 times in a ritualistic killing. Another nun found the body, covered by an altar cloth and surrounded by burning candles.
In the years after his co-worker's murder, Robinson never mentioned the death, friends recall, even though police say he was a suspect at the time. He later became pastor at several parishes and administered to the sick and dying in nursing homes.
Friends and parishioners see Robinson as a dedicated priest who rarely ventured outside without his collar.
To see him in prison garments is such a shock
said Bea Orlowski, his former secretary at St. Anthony Church. It's unbelievable. 17
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