I met this week with Barry F. Hudgin, attorney for the Sisters of Mercy religious order and Mercy College of Northwest Ohio.

Barry is a highly professional and thorough lawyer with a quick laugh and a sharp sense of humor. He had been present in the courtroom throughout Father Gerald Robinson's murder trial, making sure the religious order to which Sister Margaret Ann Pahl belonged was represented.

He remembered clearly the day of the exhumation, Thursday, May 20, 2004.
"It was an unusually hot and sticky spring day for Ohio," he said.

Barry got up early that day and drove an hour southeast from Toledo to Fremont, where the nuns had their retirement home, retreat house, and cemetery.
The Lucas County and Sandusky County prosecutors had signed a Notice of Disinterment for the body of Sister Margaret Ann Pahl, in order that the coroner's office could conduct an autopsy and examine the body.

In an interview this week, Barry said that when the prosecutor's office first contacted him about the exhumation, he had three main concerns: first, that the prosecutor had the right to order the disinterment; second, that it be done with dignity and respect, and third, that it only be done once.

"I didn't want the prosecutor's office to perform the disinterment and then have the defense attorneys order another one a month later," he said in an interview this week.
Exhumation orders were not part of his usual daily routine, he said. Upon looking into it, he found that yes, the government had the right to order the body removed from the grave.

The next concern was to keep the process dignified.

"No offense to you or your colleagues, but we didn't want the media at the gravesite," he told me.

Understandable.

Father Gerald Robinson had been arrested April 23rd, less than a month earlier, and media interest was still at a fever pitch.

It was a delicate enough situation to open the grave of a 71-year-old nun who had been brutally murdered 24 years ago. It would have been a nightmare to perform the disinterment with TV cameras, newspaper photographers, or even helicopters trying to get the scoop.

I'm a journalist, sure, but I have a heart and a conscience. While it would have been a news story to cover the exhumation, I have respect for Sister Margaret Ann's soul. I have seen the media turn private events into a circus and I think the parties involved here made a wise choice.

That said, I would have preferred to have been there with a photographer – because I know I could have been respectful and unobtrusive. But open it up to all the media and it would have been a crass and chaotic scene.

Hudgin's research showed that the defense attorneys, unlike the government, had no right to order an exhumation, so there was no threat of having to perform the ritual a second time.

When the time came for the disinterment, the only ones present were Sister Marjorie Rudemiller, head of the Sisters of Mercy; Hudgin; representatives of the Toledo police; the Lucas County cold-case squad; the coroner's office, a local funeral home, and cemetery workers.

Sister Marjorie decided that no other nuns should have to witness the exhumation, so she asked that they hold a prayer service in a nearby chapel.

Workers used a small backhoe to remove the dirt, then a crane to lift the concrete vault containing the coffin. It was a slow and careful process to open the grave without disturbing the adjacent burial sites, Barry said.

The vault was then opened, revealing a thin pine box of a coffin. The nuns did not care for expensive, elaborate caskets, preferring the most simple wood boxes.
The coffin had partially decayed and the blue of Sister Margaret Ann's dress was visible through the openings, Barry said.

The coffin was then lifted and placed in a transport van and taken to the Lucas County coroner's office in Toledo.

The prosecutor's office planned to return the body to the grave after the Memorial Day weekend, but ended up keeping it for 11 days.

During that time, examiners removed teeth to be used for DNA standards, and conducted forensic anthropology tests on the slain nun's bones.

When the body was returned to the grave on June 1, the Sisters of Mercy conducted a private graveside service.

The media did not report the exhumation until July 8.

Mission accomplished for Barry Hudgin and the prosecutor's office.

Afterward, the defense attorneys complained that they had never been notified of the exhumation and had not had an opportunity to have their own experts examine Sister Margaret Ann's body.

Dean Mandros, assistant Lucas County prosecutor, said despite the complaints, everything was done according to the letter of the law. "Believe me, if it wasn't, the defense attorneys would have filed a motion. They had no legal leg to stand on."
Check the photo page on this website to read the Order of Disinterment, which will be posted in the next few days.

Aug. 4, 2006. Toledo, Ohio