God's Spy (6 page)

Article from the Maryland Gazette, 29 July 1999, page 7
AMERICAN PRIEST ACCUSED OF SEXUAL ABUSE COMMITS SUICIDE

Sachem Pike, Maryland – As sexual abuse scandals continue to rock the Catholic Church in North America, a Connecticut priest accused of sexually abusing minors hanged himself in his room at an institution for troubled clergy, according to a report police made to the American Press service last Friday.

Peter Selznick, 61 years old, relinquished his position as parish priest at Saint Andrews in Bridgeport, Connecticut on 27 April of last year, just one day after authorities in the Catholic Church interviewed two men who claimed Selznick had abused them over the course of several years, from the end of the 1970s to the early 1980s, according to a spokesman for the Bridgeport Diocese.

The priest was being treated at the Saint Matthew Institute in Maryland, a psychiatric centre that deals with members of the clergy who have been accused of sexual abuse or have ‘problems in sexual orientation’, according to a statement from the institution.

‘Hospital personnel knocked on his door several times and attempt ed to enter his room, but something was blocking the door,’ Diane Richardson, spokesperson for the Prince George police department, stated at a press conference. ‘When they entered the room, they found the body hanging from one of the exposed beams in the ceiling.’

Selznick hanged himself with a bed sheet, Richardson stated, adding that his body had been taken to the mortuary for an autopsy. At the same time, she categorically denied rumours that when the body was found, it was nude and had been mutilated – rumours she characterized as ‘completely unfounded’. During the press con ference, reporters cited ‘eyewitnesses’ who stated that they had seen the mutilations. The spokeswoman replied that ‘a nurse who works for the County’s medical team was under the influence of marijuana and other drugs when those declarations were made’. This particular employee has been suspended from his job without pay until his case is resolved. This newspaper made contact with the nurse who started the rumour, but he refused to say anything other than a brief ‘I was wrong’.

The Bishop of Bridgeport, William Lopes, stated that he was ‘profoundly saddened’ by Selznick’s ‘tragic’ death, adding that the scandal presently preoccupying the North American branch of the Catholic Church has ‘many victims’.

Father Selznick was born in New York in 1938, and was ordained in Bridgeport in 1965. He served in various parishes in Connecticut and for a brief time worked as a priest at the parish of San Juan Vianney in Chiclayo, Peru.

‘Every person, without exception, has dignity and value in the eyes of God, and everyone needs and deserves our compassion,’ Lopes stated. ‘The disturbing circumstances that surround his death cannot eradicate all the good that he did in life,’ the Bishop said in conclu sion.

The Director of the Saint Matthew Institute, Father Canice Conroy, refused to speak to this publication. Father Anthony Fowler, director of new initiatives at the Institute, apologized for the absence of a state ment from the Director, explaining that Father Conroy was presently ‘in a state of shock’.

Tuesday, 5 April 2005, 11.14 p.m.

Fowler’s declaration was like a shot to the solar plexus. Dicanti and Pontiero were frozen in their tracks. They stared at the priest. ‘May I sit down?’
‘There are plenty of empty seats,’ Paola said. ‘Take any one you
like.’
She made a sign to the employee from Documentation, who
quickly left the room.
Fowler laid his small black suitcase on the table, its edges scratched
and frayed. The suitcase had seen its fair share of the world and its
condition was a testament to the many miles it had travelled with its
owner. Fowler opened the case and took out a thick stack of papers
from a cardboard box, whose edges were bent and coffee-stained.
He set the papers on the table and sat down across from the inspector. Dicanti watched him carefully, noting his economy of movement and the energy radiating from his green eyes. The question
of where exactly this strange priest came from very much intrigued
her, but she made a firm decision not to let herself be overwhelmed,
particularly on her own turf.
Pontiero grabbed a seat, spun it around and sat to Fowler’s
left, his hands resting on the back. Dicanti made a mental note to
remind him to stop imitating old Bogart movies – her second-incommand must have watched The Maltese Falcon at least three
hundred times. If he considered someone suspicious, he inevitably
sat to their left, compulsively smoking one unfiltered Pall Mall after
another.
‘Go ahead, padre. But first show us something that proves you are
who you say you are.’
Fowler took his passport out of his breast pocket and handed it
to Pontiero, then grimaced, showing his displeasure at the cloud of
smoke billowing from Pontiero’s cigarette.
‘I see, I see – a diplomatic passport. So you have immunity, eh?
Who the hell are you? Some sort of spy?’
‘I am an official in the United States Air Force.’
‘What rank?’
‘Major. Would Detective Pontiero mind if I asked him to stop
smoking right next to me? I gave up years ago and have no desire
to start again.’
‘He’s addicted to tobacco, Major Fowler.’
‘Father Fowler, Doctor Dicanti. I am . . . retired.’
‘Wait a second. How do you know my name, or the inspector’s?
Pontiero muttered.
The criminologist smiled. She found herself both curious and
entertained. ‘Maurizio, I suspect that Padre Fowler is not as retired
as he says he is.’
Fowler returned Dicanti’s smile, but with a hint of sadness.
‘I’ve recently gone back into active service, it’s true. And strangely
enough, the reason for that is the work I did in civilian life.’ He grew
quiet, waving his hand to push away the smoke.
‘So tell us, if you’re so clever, who and where the son of a bitch is
who did what you see here to a cardinal of the Holy Mother Church,
so that we can all go home to bed.’
The priest remained silent, as unflappable as his white collar. Paola
suspected the man was simply too hardened to fall for Pontiero’s
little act. There was no doubt life had thrown some terrible experiences at him, as witnessed by the creases on his skin, or that his eyes
had confronted worse things than a small-time policeman and his
smelly tobacco.
‘Enough, Maurizio. And kill the cigarette.’
Pontiero angrily threw the butt away.
‘OK, Padre Fowler,’ Paola said as she shuffled the photographs
on the table, her eyes bearing down on the priest. ‘You’ve made it
clear that, for now, you’re in charge. You know something I don’t
– something I need to know. But you’re in my neck of the woods,
on my turf. It’s up to you where we go from here.’
‘What about starting off with a profile?’
‘Can I ask why?’
‘Because in this case there’s no need to create a profile in order to
find out who the killer is – I can tell you that. In this case we need
a profile in order to know where to find him. And those are two
different things.’
‘Is this an exam, padre? Do you want to know exactly how good
the person sitting opposite you is? Are you going to be the judge of
my deductive capacities, like Troi?’
‘I think that at this moment the only person judging you is you
yourself.’
Paola took a deep breath and mustered every bit of self-control
to keep herself from shouting. Fowler had put his finger right in the
wound. But just when she thought she was about to lose it, her boss
showed up in the doorway. He stood there, not moving, carefully
studying the priest, who looked back at him intently. Finally, the
two greeted each other with nods of the head.
‘Padre Fowler.’
‘Direttore Troi.’
‘I was informed of your arrival by – shall we say? – an unusual
channel. It goes without saying your presence here is an imposition,
but I recognise that you could be of some use to us, if my sources
aren’t lying.’
‘They aren’t.’
‘Then please go on.’
From her earliest childhood Paola had had the discomforting sensation that she was a late arrival to a world that had already begun,
and at that instant the feeling returned. She was fed up with the fact
that everyone seemed to have information that she didn’t. She could
ask Troi for an explanation later, when she got the chance, but right
now she decided to turn the situation to her advantage. ‘Padre Fowler has told Pontiero and myself that he knows the
identity of the killer, but it seems he wants a free psychological
profile before he reveals the man’s name. It’s my personal opinion
that we’re losing precious time here, but I’ve decided to play along
with his game.’
She leapt to her feet, surprising the three men watching her. She walked over to the blackboard that took up almost all of the back of
the room and started to write.
‘The killer is a white male, between the ages of 8 and 6. He’s of
medium height, strong and intelligent. His studies took him as far
as university, and he has a gift for languages. He’s left-handed; he
received a strict religious education and endured difficulties or abuse
in his early life. He’s immature, his work subjects him to pressure
that exceeds his emotional and psychological stability, and he suffers from intense sexual repression. He most likely has a history of
considerable violence. This isn’t the first or even second time he has
killed someone and, obviously, it won’t be the last. He has nothing
but contempt for us – both for the police and for his victims. And
now, padre, why don’t you give our killer a name?’ Dicanti spun
round and tossed the chalk into the priest’s hands.
Fowler watched her, a look of surprise on his face; Pontiero
beamed; Troi looked sceptical. Finally it was the priest who spoke
up.
‘Well done, dottoressa. Ten out of ten. I may be a psychologist
but I can’t figure out how you came to your conclusions. Could you
explain a little further?’
‘The profile is only provisional but the conclusions should be quite
close to reality. That he is a white male is shown by the profile of his
victims, since it’s very unusual for a serial killer to kill someone from
a different race. We can tell he’s of medium height, since Robayra
was tall and the angle and location of the cut in his neck indicate
that he was assaulted by someone about five foot nine inches tall.
That he’s strong is obvious; otherwise it would have been impossible for him to take the cardinal as far as the interior of the church,
because even if he used a car to transport the body to the back door,
there is still a distance of some one hundred and thirty feet to the
chapel. His immaturity corresponds to the type of murderer who
plays games: he has profound disrespect for his victims, considers
them to be mere objects, and the same goes for the police. He sees
us all as inferior beings.’
Fowler interrupted her by politely raising his hand. ‘Two details
in particular grabbed my attention. First, you said that it’s not the
first time he’s committed murder. Did you deduce that from his
handiwork at the scene of the crime?’
‘Exactly. This person possesses a basic familiarity with police work.
He’s carried this off on more than one occasion. Experience tells us
that a first murder is usually very messy and spur-of-the-moment.’ ‘The second thing was when you said, “His work subjects him to
pressure that exceeds his emotional and psychological stability.” I’m
at a loss to explain how you came to that conclusion.’
Dicanti, still standing, blushed. She crossed her arms and didn’t
answer. Troi took the opportunity to intervene.
‘Ah, good old Paola. Her great intelligence always leaves a small
crack for her feminine intuition to slip in, isn’t that so? Padre, at
times Dicanti arrives at purely emotional conclusions. I don’t know
how. Of course, she would make a great writer.’
‘Better than you know, because she’s hit the bull’s eye,’ said Fowler,
getting up from his chair and striding towards the blackboard.
‘Inspector, what is the correct name for your profession? Profiler
– isn’t that it?’
‘Yes,’ Paola said, still embarrassed.
‘When did you receive your qualification as a profiler?’ ‘Once I’d finished the course in Forensic Criminology and after
a year of intensive study at the FBI’s Behavioral Sciences Division.
Very few candidates manage to pass the entire course.’ ‘Can you tell us how many qualified profilers there are in the
world?’
‘At present, twenty – twelve in the United States, four in Canada,
two in Germany, one in Italy and one in Austria.’
‘Thanks. Is everyone clear on that, gentlemen? Only twenty people in the world are capable of drawing a psychological portrait of a
serial killer with any degree of certainty, and one of them is in this
room. Believe me, if we want to catch this man . . .’
Fowler turned round and wrote a name on the blackboard in
large, thick letters:

VICTOR KAROSKY

‘. . . we are going to need someone capable of getting into his head. Now you have the name. But before you race to the phone to bark out orders for his arrest, let me tell you everything else I know about him.’

Excerpts from the correspondence between Edward Dressler, psychiatrist, and Cardinal Francis Casey
Boston, 14 May 1991

[. . .]Your Eminence, we no doubt find ourselves in the presence of a born recidivist. From what I am told, this is the fifth time he has been reassigned to a new parish. The tests we carried out over the course of two weeks confirm that we cannot take the risk of sending him to live in close proximity to young children without putting them in danger. [. . .] By no means do I doubt his desire to repent, because it is strong. But I do doubt his ability to control himself. [. . .]We cannot permit ourselves the luxury of having him in a parish. It would be better if we clipped his wings before he loses all control. Otherwise, I cannot take responsibility for what might occur. I recommend a period of internment of at least six months in the Saint Matthew Institute.

Boston, 4 August 1993

[. . .] This is the third time I’ve had dealings with him [Karosky]. [. . .] I have to say that the ‘fresh air’, as you called it when you moved him from parish to parish, hasn’t helped at all; rather the opposite. He is beginning to lose control with greater frequency, and I detect traces of schizophrenia in his behavior. It’s very possible that at some point he will completely cross the line and become another person. Eminence, you know my devotion to the Church, and I understand the present overwhelming lack of priests, but to lower the bar so very close to the ground . . . Thirty-five of these men have passed through my hands so far, Eminence, and I have seen, in some of them, the possibility that they might recover on their own. [. . .] Karosky is definitely not one of them. Cardinal, only on rare occasions has Your Eminence followed my advice. I beg you to do so now: persuade Karosky to enter the Saint Matthew.