‘The Keepers’: FBI to exhume body of 1969 unsolved murder victim
Global News – December 14, 2023
The FBI is planning to exhume the body of a 20-year-old woman whose unsolved 1969 killing has been the subject of widespread speculation, and was featured in Netflix true crime docuseries The Keepers.
The 2017 docuseries focused on the slaying of a Baltimore nun days before Joyce Malecki was found dead, but raised questions about whether the two deaths were linked, as they unfolded under eerily similar circumstances.
Malecki, a young woman from the Baltimore area, was Christmas shopping in November 1969 when she vanished from a suburban mall. Days later, she was found dead inside a military base, nearby Fort Meade. An autopsy determined she had been strangled to death.
Free Press - September 23, 2025 Somerset, MB - The Archdiocese of St. Boniface has denied a man’s claims he was sexually abused by one of its priests in rural Manitoba decades ago. The man, who’s in his late 60s, claimed in a lawsuit filed in the Court of King’s Bench earlier this year that he was sexually abused by now-deceased Catholic priest Rene Touchette in the village of Somerset, about 150 kilometres southwest of Winnipeg. In a statement of defence filed in late July, the archdiocese argued the lawsuit should be tossed out — and that the man has provided no proof of the alleged abuse.
National Catholic Reporter - August 13, 2025 London, ON - Ontario’s Superior Court has ruled that Fr. Michael Bechard, a diocesan priest from London, Ontario, can proceed with his civil lawsuit against Basilian Fr. Thomas Rosica and the Basilian Fathers of Toronto for alleged sexual abuse. The defendants had sought to have the matter handled exclusively in a Catholic canonical court, but Justice Evelyn ten Cate found that Canadian civil courts have jurisdiction and should hear the case. Bechard has also filed a separate complaint under Vos Estis Lux Mundi, Pope Francis’ 2019 rules for reporting abuse within the Church. The Diocese of London is not a party to the lawsuit and maintains its bishop acted appropriately when Bechard first reported the allegations in 2015. Justice ten Cate ruled that religious organizations are not exempt from Canadian law and rejected the argument that Bechard’s oath to canon law barred civil action. She emphasized that the Church’s canonical courts cannot award damages or impose vicarious liability, making civil proceedings necessary to ensure justice.