Agnes of God
In the winter of 1977, a tragedy was painfully and painstakingly unfurled in the Monroe County, New York courtroom of Judge Hyman Maas. Eleven months earlier, on April 27, 1976, a Roman Catholic nun and school teacher, Sister Maureen Murphy, surreptitiously gave birth to a baby boy at the Our Lady of Lourdes parish convent in Brighton, just outside Rochester. It was alleged that she then shoved a pair of panties into the infant’s mouth, asphyxiating him, and left his remains in a wastebasket.
After the body was found, the 36-year-old member of the Sisters of St. Joseph was questioned, but she denied ever being pregnant. Medical examiners at nearby Genesee Hospital concluded that she had, in fact, recently delivered a baby, and had apparently managed to conceal the pregnancy under a traditional nun’s habit, but Sister Maureen claimed she did not remember it. She was charged with first- and second-degree manslaughter along with criminally negligent homicide.
It was a high profile case. Ms. magazine dispatched Catherine Breslin to cover the trial, which lasted ten days. The fact that Sister Maureen had waived her right to a jury trial only served to heighten the courtroom drama. Even in the supposedly enlightened days of the late 1970s, some questioned out loud whether a Catholic nun could expect to receive a fair trial from a Jewish judge.
On March 5, newspapers around the country carried United Press International’s account of the judge’s verdict. The defense had conceded that Sister Maureen committed the act, but had also argued that blood loss during childbirth along with the overall trauma of the experience had impaired her judgment, that she may not even have been fully conscious during the episode, and that she had not actually meant to kill the baby. Judge Maas agreed and found her not guilty on all counts (see “Nun cleared of charges in son’s death,” The Bryan Times, Bryan, OH, March 5, 1977, 10).
A story, thrice told
The plotline was apparently too good
After the body was found, the 36-year-old member of the Sisters of St. Joseph was questioned, but she denied ever being pregnant. Medical examiners at nearby Genesee Hospital concluded that she had, in fact, recently delivered a baby, and had apparently managed to conceal the pregnancy under a traditional nun’s habit, but Sister Maureen claimed she did not remember it. She was charged with first- and second-degree manslaughter along with criminally negligent homicide.
It was a high profile case. Ms. magazine dispatched Catherine Breslin to cover the trial, which lasted ten days. The fact that Sister Maureen had waived her right to a jury trial only served to heighten the courtroom drama. Even in the supposedly enlightened days of the late 1970s, some questioned out loud whether a Catholic nun could expect to receive a fair trial from a Jewish judge.
On March 5, newspapers around the country carried United Press International’s account of the judge’s verdict. The defense had conceded that Sister Maureen committed the act, but had also argued that blood loss during childbirth along with the overall trauma of the experience had impaired her judgment, that she may not even have been fully conscious during the episode, and that she had not actually meant to kill the baby. Judge Maas agreed and found her not guilty on all counts (see “Nun cleared of charges in son’s death,” The Bryan Times, Bryan, OH, March 5, 1977, 10).
A story, thrice told
The plotline was apparently too good