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- [00:00]
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- [01:15]
Mike Ferguson
Criminology is a true crime podcast that may contain discussion about violent or disturbing topics. Listener discretion is advised.
- [01:52]
Mike Morford
Hello everyone, and welcome to episode 409 of the Criminology Podcast.
- [01:57]
Mike Ferguson
I'm Mike Ferguson and this is Mike Morford.
- [02:00]
Mike Morford
Morph, how you doing this week, buddy?
- [02:02]
Mike Ferguson
Doing pretty good. How you doing?
- [02:04]
Mike Morford
I'm doing great. Got a lot of stuff coming up. I think we've talked about some of it. Obviously you and I are getting ready to go to Crimecon and then about. I have a week at home and then I head across the pond, across some ponds down for my daughter's wedding. Basically, she's getting. She's having a destination wedding.
- [02:31]
Mike Ferguson
So you've got some travel miles coming up.
- [02:34]
Mike Morford
Yeah. Which is strange for a guy who doesn't leave his basement all that often.
- [02:40]
Mike Ferguson
Well, you got to get out every once in a while. I'm getting ready for summer. Our kids are getting off in about two, three weeks out of school and they're going to be home and playing sports and doing what it is that kids do, so. Getting ready for it to get a little louder in here?
- [02:55]
Mike Morford
Yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, my oldest daughter and obviously my wife, they're. They're both in the education profession, so they're almost done for the year and they're both coming to Vegas with me. So let's Go ahead and give our Patreon shout outs. We had one new Patreon, and that was Brian A. But we really appreciate that support.
- [03:18]
Mike Ferguson
Yeah. Thank you so much, Brian. It really helps us out. And for anyone else that supports the show, thank you. And if anyone wants to help and get started, head over to patreon.com criminology
- [03:28]
Mike Morford
all right, buddy, it's time to jump into this week's case. Or should I say cases? Because we're discussing the murders of multiple men and it's a little reminiscent of our episode a couple of weeks ago about dead and missing scientists. But this time around, we're exploring the violent deaths of priests. Some people theorize that there may have been someone out there targeting priests for murder in the 1980s. But whether or not that's the case, one thing is for sure, the attacks we're going to discuss in this episode are nothing short of brutal.
- [04:02]
Mike Ferguson
In the summer of 1982, Father Reynaldo John Rivera, a Catholic Franciscan priest, was one of the priests working at the cathedral Basila of St. Francis in Santa Fe, New Mexico. On August 5, a man called the cathedral looking for help. He said his name was Michael Carmelo and that he was driving with his very sick grandfather, who appeared close to death. He was pulled over at a rest stop in Waldo, a ghost town about 45 minutes from Santa Fe. He was in desperate need of a priest to perform last rites before it was too late. Since someone who has already passed away cannot receive these prayers, time was of the essence. At the time this call came in, it was already dark, and Father Patrick Gerard, the priest who answered Carmelo's car that night, couldn't drive in the dark due to his poor vision. So Father Gerard asked Carmelo to call back again shortly while he found someone else who could help him.
- [04:55]
Mike Morford
Michael Carmelo called back that night at about 8:30, and this time Father Reynaldo Rivera answered the phone. Father Rivera was more than happy to make the drive and perform last rites for the dying grandfather. Carmelo said they would be in their vehicle, a blue pickup truck, waiting for him. Father Rivera left the cathedral around 9pm this would prove to be the last good deed that he would ever carry out. He didn't return back to the cathedral that night. Father Rivera's body was found days later laying in a muddy field off the side of Interstate 25 near the Waldo exit. He had been brutally murdered. There were signs that his hands had been bound at some point and that he had been strangled with some kind of thick wire, like a Metal wire hanger. Before he was shot once in the stomach, there was no sign of the father's brown 1974 Chevrolet Malibu. And like we said up front, Morph, I mean, we're going to be talking about some. Some brutal murders. And this is one. What struck me about this whole scenario, though, was Father Rivera getting this call about traveling to a truck. Somebody is dying inside a truck, and the caller wants the Father to perform last rites. I mean, there's a part of me that wants to be skeptical about that. But then at the same time, I think that this is probably a person who is very trusting, wants to believe the best in others, and sees this as something he really needs to do.
- [06:45]
Mike Ferguson
Yeah, I think a lot of time people come into churches for help, seeking counsel or guidance or prayers, whatever it may be. But I know there are times when priests go out to others, whether it's to their home or wherever it might be to help them. So I think this was probably something that happened sometimes, and Father Rivera probably wasn't worried. But I also think it's a little bit odd if he had time to stop and wait for the Father to come out there and then call back later on to talk to a different father. And maybe in that time, he could have just driven to the church. So to me, that was a little bit strange.
- [07:29]
Mike Morford
Yeah, I think that's a great point. Right. Driven to a church, driven to a hospital somewhere other than just kind of staying in this truck. But again, my point is I don't know that Father Rivera or any priest would maybe be as skeptical as I would be.
- [07:55]
Mike Ferguson
Those that knew Father Rivera were shocked and couldn't think of anyone that would want to harm him. That made the investigation harder for police, and they felt that if they could find Father Rivera's car, it might yield more clues. Over 100 miles west of where Father Rivera's body was found, his car was found. It was parked near Grants, New Mexico, at a rest stop off Interstate 40. The gas tank was completely empty. Whoever had driven it had left it there and apparently had no choice but to find a different way to travel or call attention to themselves with the stolen vehicle of a murder victim. If they asked for help in getting gas. Since it was a rest stop, we can probably assume that the person hitched a ride out of the area. Father Rivera's last rights kit, which would have held holy water, a crucifix, candles, and other items, was not found with his body, and it wasn't in his car. Neither were his glasses or his wallet to this day, none of his items have turned up. Investigators did examine the vehicle and collect fingerprints.
- [08:56]
Mike Morford
I think what's standing out to me most here, Morph, is that someone drove his car. And presumably you would think it would be the. The person who killed him. But what would be the reason? If the person really had a truck, as they claimed in the phone call, why couldn't they just have driven away in the truck? Why the need to drive the father's car? So I don't know if that points to maybe there was no truck or if there was more than one person involved.
- [09:36]
Mike Ferguson
Yeah, because it sounds like the spot where the father went out to where he was supposed to meet this Carmelo guy. It doesn't seem like a spot that was someplace you could get to without driving there. So perhaps this person had some other way they got to that spot, you know, dropped off by someone, or maybe they had hitched a ride there, killed the father, and then took his car to get out of the area. I mean, it opens up so many possibilities, but one thing that jumped out to me was if you've just killed this priest and then taken his car, you're taking a chance driving 100 miles. That's quite a distance to be driving in a car of someone that you just murdered.
- [10:21]
Mike Morford
Yeah, that's true. Because, you know, when the investigation starts, they're going to try to figure out if anyone had seen that car. Because the car is known about. They're going to know what type of car that. That he drove. And ultimately they did find it. They would have seemingly no idea other than a truck. Right. They don't know what color, they don't know what kind. So there's just a lot of strange things here so far. It wasn't long before Father Rivera's case cooled off, and police in New Mexico turned to the FBI to help them. Apparently, the Federal Bureau of Investigation created a psychological profile of the suspect and determined that the most likely motive for Father Rivera's murder was revenge. But Father Rivera wasn't the one who initially answered the call that came in for help that evening. And this mysterious caller, this Carmelo, which police came to believe wasn't his real name, never asked for help from any specific priest. What if Father Gerard hadn't had such poor eyesight at night? Would he have been killed? Or would he have performed last rites and made it back to the cathedral safely? Did the caller know the Fathers and know that regardless of who answered the phone, if something needed to be done at night, only Father Rivera could respond? Was This a way of luring the father without revealing that he was driving straight to his death. One interesting thing the police found was that they discovered that the payphone at the rest stop where this mystery man Carmelo said he was calling from wasn't working. So the caller had to have been somewhere else. Intentionally luring a priest, apparently any priest, to the remote location. So we definitely have a real mystery here, right? A person calls in and says that their grandfather's dying. They need a priest to perform last rites, but then that priest ends up dead. They find out that the place where this person said they were calling from the payphone, wasn't working. There were no cell phones back then. So that takes that out of the equation. I think if you're the police, you got a real mystery on your hands as to number one, who did this, because that's the big question. But then also, why did this person simply want revenge on the church, revenge against organized religion? And were they targeting Father Rivera specifically, or was any priest suitable for their pent up rage? I mean, these were all questions investigators had to consider, no matter the motive. People living in the area and those involved with the church were horrified. Later, when speaking with KeyArk QE, Archbishop Michael Sheehan of the Archdiocese of Santa Fe said that it was an evil thing to ask a priest to come and do his ministry and then at that moment to take him and kill him.
- [13:48]
Mike Ferguson
With no clear suspects or motives, Father Rivera's case faded from the headlines and became cold. But almost two years later, the disappearance and presumed murder of a different priest a thousand miles away in Montana would make headlines. Montana authorities in that case actually contacted investigators in New Mexico to compare notes and try to collaborate. Due to some similarities, this time, the victim would be Father John Patrick Kerrigan. Father Kerrigan was transferred to the Sacred Heart Catholic Church in ronan, Montana, on July 18, 1984. Just two days later, he vanished. He was last seen as he left the bakery on July 20. He had popped in on his way home from a jog at 6:30 the next morning. There was no father for Mass. Father Kerrigan simply hadn't shown up. And this was alarming. No priest transferring to a new congregation would ever let this be his first impression. Still, he was given some grace. It was thought that maybe he was confused about the schedule or got lost in the area when he went out. But on July 23, after two days of nobody seeing or hearing from Kerrigan, he was officially reported missing. Also missing was Father Kerrigan's car.
- [14:59]
Mike Morford
Nearly a week after Father Kerrigan was declared a missing person. Bloody clothing determined to belong to him was found off of Montana Highway 35. The shirt found had a $100 bill in the pocket, potentially ruling out a robbery. Also found there on the shore of Flathead Lake, was a metal wire hanger covered in blood. These items were discovered just five miles from the town of Ronan. The next day, Father Kerrigan's car, which was, interestingly, a brown Chevrolet Malibu, just like Father Rivera's, was found. And also like Father Rivera's Malibu, Father Kerrigan's car had been abandoned. The keys had apparently been tossed. They were found in some brush about 30 yards from the car. But there were items inside the trunk that were cause for concern. First, the father's wallet full of cash was still inside. That doesn't instill a lot of confidence that Father Kerrigan had just walked away from the church in his old life. It's unlikely that Father Kerrigan would have left behind $1,000. And when you look at that with inflation, if that happened today, it would be like leaving behind nearly $4,000 if the money being left wasn't alarming enough. There was also a pillowcase and a shovel, both covered in blood. The car appeared to have been wiped down to remove fingerprints, but the interior was stained with blood. Searches for Father Kerrigan failed to turn up any sign of him. But based on everything we've mentioned, police believe that he was murdered, though to this day, his body is still missing. And more. If you and I talk a lot in certain cases about the possibility that, you know, someone decides to up and leave, right? Maybe they're not happy with their life, they want to start a new one, and so they leave. It does happen. Now, I think it's rare in a lot of the cases that we talk about, but when you look at the facts of this one, to me, it's even less likely. Right? You think about there's blood inside the car, there's a bloody pillowcase and a shovel with blood on it in the trunk. And then you have what is really a large amount of money, right? $1,000 in the 1980s. To me, that says a couple of things. Number one, the motive for whatever happened to Father Kerrigan wasn't money. And number two, what person goes and, you know, starts a new life without this big chunk of money? Also, why is a priest carrying around $1,000? You know, that kind of jumped out at me. To me, if someone is going to target someone for money, I would think a priest or a member of the clergy would be the Last person you would think of as someone who would have a lot of money on them.
- [18:15]
Mike Ferguson
Yeah, and I. I'm not familiar overly with how much, you know, priests get paid or got paid, especially back in the 80s. But I can imagine that the. It wasn't a lot, you know, it wasn't a lucrative career, from what I understand. So some people might raise questions about, well, why does he have so much money? Was there something shady going on with him to begin with? To have that kind of money and then to carry it around is obviously risky because you could lose it, you could be robbed, Anything could happen. I think leaving that kind of money behind, the equivalent of $4,000 today, it just screams to me that he's met with foul play, because I don't think there's any circumstance that he would willingly leave that kind of money there.
- [19:05]
Mike Morford
Now, to be fair, I think in the 80s, a lot more people carried cash or more cash than what they do today. I can't remember the last time I went to an atm. I just don't carry that much cash in the world we live in today. Just, you really rarely even need it.
- [19:24]
Mike Ferguson
So I can see him carrying around some pocket change, maybe to buy lunch, get some gas, run an errand. But a thousand dollars is a lot of money to be carrying around back in the 80s.
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Mike Morford
Yeah, no doubt. And to your point, you know, I don't think priests made a lot of money. I don't think they make a lot of money now. Now, they may not have a lot of expenses, but it's still interesting that, you know, he had that much cash on him.
- [19:51]
Mike Ferguson
Yet to me, that opens up a possibility at least that maybe he was being blackmailed, maybe he was bringing that money to give someone and something happened. But if that's the case, why didn't the money exchange hands? I think in a case like this, you have to consider all the possibilities.
- [20:12]
Mike Morford
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- [22:26]
Mike Ferguson
these two cases happened two years and a thousand miles apart. But investigators had to consider that they might be connected due to several things being similar. First of all, both victims were Catholic priests. They were both 58 years old at the time they were killed or disappeared. They both had a brown Chevy Malibu. Father Rivera may have been strangled with a metal hanger, and a bloody metal hanger was found in Father Kerrigan's trunk. But there was another possible connection. It turns out that Father Kerrigan had spent some time in New Mexico before ending up in Montana in 1983. He was at the Congregation of the Servants of the Paraclete in Jemez Springs, New Mexico for three months. Jemez Springs is about an hour and a half from Santa Fe where Father Rivera was killed.
- [23:09]
Mike Morford
Although there were some key similarities in both cases, there was one thing that was markedly different in the two victims. Father Kerrigan had been accused of sexually molesting children. Apparently The Jemez Springs, New Mexico, congregation, where he was at before going to Montana, was basically full of troubled priests, and the site was used as a place to get them back on track. After personal issues, addictions, mental health problems, or any kind of misconduct, including sexual abuse. This could certainly be a motive for abducting and killing the priest. By contrast, there were no such allegations against Father Rivera. So the sexual abuse allegations were one key difference between the victims. But for the most part, the parallels in the cases of both priests were hard to ignore. And no doubt this is an angle that police would have to explore. Right. If Father Kerrigan had been accused of sexually molesting children, that would definitely be a motive. You could see where maybe a parent of a child who had been molested by him would want to take their revenge. Or depending on when it happened, maybe somebody had grown up but wanted to take their revenge against Father Kerrigan for something he had done to them in the past.
- [24:41]
Mike Ferguson
Yeah, that certainly opens up some avenues of investigation. But to me, the odd thing about that is why would that person wait until two days after he's transferred to another state, into Montana, quite a distance away? Why do it then? It seems like it would be easier to do while he was back at the old congregation. Unless maybe they wanted some distance between themselves and didn't want to do it while he was there. That could be a reason for that.
- [25:14]
Mike Morford
Yeah, that was my thought exactly. The timing seems strange, but is it? If you had this built up rage against someone, but you didn't want to be connected to the crime, maybe once you found out that this person was being transferred to another state, well, that puts some distance between what happened to you or your child and the abduction murder.
- [25:45]
Mike Ferguson
So that makes me wonder if the police considered any of those sexual alleged sexual abuse victims or their families as suspects. Because now that gives them an avenue to go down. We don't have all the details about that and who were suspects and how far they were investigated, but it seems like an avenue worth pursuing by the police.
- [26:08]
Mike Morford
Well, and we said there were no allegations against Father Rivera, but no allegations doesn't necessarily mean something couldn't have happened. Now, I don't want to smear this man's name, obviously, I have no idea, but I think you'd have to say that it doesn't absolutely mean something couldn't have happened that somebody wanted to get back at him for.
- [26:34]
Mike Ferguson
At the time, Santa Fe police officer Lieutenant Gilbert Ilaberi wholeheartedly believed that the cases were related. He told the Alamogordo Daily news that he had a gut feeling that the cases were connected. However, he has since changed his mind and stated that he does not think there's any connection between the two cases. This is important because if there was anything that could verify a real connection between these two cases, investigators likely would have found it. They initially believed the cases were linked, which means they were looking for things that would have backed their theory up, but they apparently couldn't find anything that conclusively did. So this wasn't a case of tunnel vision where investigators were so focused on something that they didn't think to look into any other connections or where they just didn't investigate other theories. The cases were investigated as if they were connected and only over time did the people working on both cases start to change your mind as no connection could be found.
- [27:30]
Mike Morford
These cases are frequently discussed on websites like Websleuths and Reddit and a lot of people there focus on the similarity that Both victims were priests but two days after Father Kerrigan disappeared, a teacher from Missoula, Montana also vanished. 31 year old Curtis Holman, who taught math at Target Range Elementary School, disappeared in his 1976 Toyota pickup truck was found on a logging road just 40 miles from the area where Kerrigan's car was found. Curtis Holman's brother, not the authorities, felt that the cases of his missing brother and the missing priest might somehow be connected. Some of Holman's belongings were still in the car, including his glasses, wallet and a map of the forest, but the keys weren't there. A search of the area revealed footprints that matched the size Holman wore, but they weren't the only prints. There were also paw prints from a grizzly bear. A female grizzly had been reported in the area, leading to speculation that Holman had been killed in a bear attack. It would otherwise seem odd for him to become lost in the woods. The map was spread open in the passenger seat and Holman was a survivalist. He had once hiked for an entire year throughout the United States and Canada, living off of stockpiled food. However, authorities believe that Holman may have taken his own life because the last time he saw his brother he reportedly seemed depressed or distant. Most people who discuss the cases of the murdered or missing priests don't think either case is connected to the disappearance of Curtis Holman.
- [29:17]
Mike Ferguson
One case that does get connected by some people to the cases of the two priests is one that preceded both of them. Just two months before Father Rivera was killed and a full two years before Father Kerrigan vanished, the Reverend Father James Otis Anderson, an Episcopal priest, vanished from Townsend, Montana. He was last seen around 8 o' clock in the morning on June 13, 1982, driving east on Highway 12. He was reported missing after he missed the evening service. The sermon he was supposed to give at that service was still sitting on his desk at home. Everything at the house looked normal. All of his personal belongings, even daily toiletry items like a razor and toothbrush were where they were supposed to be. The only thing besides Father Anderson that anyone could tell was missing was his car, a silver 1975 Volkswagen Scirocco.
- [30:07]
Mike Morford
Four months later, just days before Halloween, Father Anderson's car was found abandoned in the mountains 25 miles east of Townsend. The car was nearly completely concealed. Tree branches hid the vehicle from view by air, and thick brush and trees obscured the car from view of any hikers or anyone driving by on the road. It was a hunter who ultimately stumbled upon the car and called it in as suspicious. Inside the trunk, investigators found a shovel that appeared to be covered in blood with hair stuck to it. This is eerily reminiscent of the bloody shovel found in the trunk of Father Kerrigan's abandoned car. A ground search, including sniffer dogs, began in the area of the car. On a ridge about a half a mile from the vehicle, a prayer book, clerical collar hat, and a pair of glasses were discovered. They were determined to belong to Father Anderson. Nothing else was found in the search, which was eventually called off. His handgun, address book and his favorite blanket were never recovered. Father Anderson is still missing to this day.
- [31:20]
Mike Ferguson
In 1990, Father Anderson was declared legally deceased. Father Anderson and Father Kerrigan once worked together in White Sulphur Springs, Montana. They were also said to be friends. At the time of Father Anderson's disappearance, he and his wife, Patricia, were in the process of a divorce. The two were also battling over custody of their two children. He was also potentially facing trouble at work and might have even been on his way to getting fired. These facts, coupled with the fact that Father Anderson's handgun was never found, has caused many people to consider the possibility that he went out into the mountains to take his own life. If he did, the gun in his body would likely be found at the same time. Since both are missing, there's a real possibility that they're likely in the same
- [32:04]
Mike Morford
spot, and that could be right. Obviously, he was going through some things in his personal life, but it also could open up the possibility morph, as we've seen in so many cases, that he was killed over these things that he was going through in his Personal life. The one thing that I guess kind of stuck out to me was potentially facing trouble at work and maybe about ready to be fired. The problem is we don't really know what that was about. But you have to ask the question. Could it be something along the lines of the allegations that were levied against Father Kerrigan? If so, then some of the same things we said about him would apply. There could potentially be people out there who wanted their revenge against Father Anderson.
- [33:05]
Mike Ferguson
And I think it's easy to say he's going through stuff at work, he's had having relationship problems. Maybe he was just depressed and he was going out there to end his own life. But then what really jumps out to me that makes me say, well, hold on a second. He knew and worked with Father Kerrigan and they were said to be friends. So that's the case. That's a connection that, you know, makes my ears perk up.
- [33:32]
Mike Morford
Yeah, absolutely. And that's kind of what, you know, fuels conspiracy theories. At the very least, it deepens the mystery right there. There could be a very simple explanation for what happened to Father Anderson. He could have taken his his own life. But you add in these other elements and other possibilities, you know, it's hard to ignore them. In 2015, the Diocese of Helena released a list that contained the names of 80 people who had been accused of sexually abusing minors. Father Kerrigan was among the names on that list. If Father Rivera had any such allegations against him, this list would not have included his name because he was a Franciscan priest, not a diocesan priest. But as we mentioned, as far as we could find in the research, there were no such allegations against Father Rivera. Some people have considered the possibility that maybe Father Rivera was mistaken for Father Kerrigan and inadvertently killed. And when the killer realized they made a mistake, they caught up to Father Kerrigan. Two years later, as we mentioned, they both drove a similar brown Chevrolet Malibu and both had been in New Mexico.
- [34:59]
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- [35:28]
Mike Ferguson
There have been other Cases in which a killer attacks the wrong victim. For example, a man named Daniel Ott was killed during a home invasion in Ohio in 2006. It turned out that a different Daniel Ott had been cooperating with authorities in an organized crime case, and the hitman apparently used the name to track down an address, not realizing there were multiple people with that name in the same area. We also previously covered the Mary Morse murders that have a similar theme. In that case, in October 2000, two different women named Mary Morse were found dead in their cars in Houston, Texas, just four days apart. Mary Lou Morse, the first to die, was so badly burned that the cause of death couldn't be determined. But Mary McGinnis Morris, who died just a few days later, was shot to death in her car. It's long been a popular theory that the second Mary Morris was the intended victim and that the first one was killed by mistake. So could there be a situation like this with Fathers Rivera and Kerrigan?
- [36:26]
Mike Morford
If there is a situation of mistaken identity and the wrong priest was killed, since Father Rivera was attacked first, this would likely make Father Kerrigan the intended target. Father Rivera would have been the one who was just unlucky enough to drive the same car as the priest someone actually wanted dead. It would make sense for Father Kerrigan to be the target, because the suspect in that scenario would have apparently started looking in New Mexico, where Father Kerrigan had been. When the killer realized their mistake, they could have done more research and tracked down the right priest. And we talked about the time frame here, Morph. You know, the 1980s, early 80s, there's no Internet. It's a little bit tougher to get information on people, or it would have been back then than it is today. Obviously, you know, we can sit at our computer and search. And now you have AI that helps you compile all that. In the early 80s, that was a much tougher proposition.
- [37:40]
Mike Ferguson
Yeah, I think it's an interesting theory, too, that maybe Father Rivera was accidentally killed by someone thinking he was Father Kerrigan. But I also go back to the point that Father Rivera wound up going out to that truck stop sort of randomly. The person didn't ask for him specifically. He only went because the other priest couldn't see well enough to drive at night. So, you know, that, to me, kind of throws cold water on the. The theory that he was killed by someone wanting to kill Father Kerrigan.
- [38:14]
Mike Morford
Yeah, I'm kind of with you. I understand why people look at it that way, discuss it that way, but that mere fact alone, that the caller didn't ask for Father Rivera kind of points away from that scenario.
- [38:33]
Mike Ferguson
We should point out that there are some people that don't even think Father Kerrigan ever met with any harm. Author Brian d', Ambrosio, who wrote a book about unsolved crimes in Montana, has put forth a theory that Father Kerrigan wasn't murdered. This theory is purportedly developed from the notes of the lead investigator trying to solve Kerrigan's murder and track down his body. The theory is that Kerrigan wanted to disappear, possibly because of the sex abuse allegations he knew eventually would pop up, and that he had decided to fake his own death and had staged the scene to make it look as if he had been attacked. And it's one thing to leave some of your belongings behind or plant some clues to make it look like you met with foul play. But would Kerrigan really have left behind will be the equivalent of $4,000 in cash today? It seems unlikely. If he started a new life, he likely would have needed that money.
- [39:23]
Mike Morford
Yeah, you know, in a lot of cases we're talking about, okay, there's no activity on a person's bank account. And you're kind of walking that line of thinking, well, if someone wanted to start a new life, they would need access to that money. Versus if you're trying to sell the fact that something happened to you because you're trying to sneak away, well, then you can access your bank accounts. But this is different, because he already had the cash. To me, there's absolutely no reason to not have taken it if you were planning to start a new life or
- [40:04]
Mike Ferguson
maybe just leave a little bit of the cash, you know, as 100 hours or something, just to say, okay, well, that would throw off investigators because they'll think it wasn't a robbery, because here's cash sitting here. But he could have taken the bulk with it and left a little bit behind as a decoy. So I think that's, to me, points to him really meeting with foul play.
- [40:26]
Mike Morford
There is another case that people tend to discuss with the other priest cases, though it's not unsolved or open like the others. In January of 1989, Father Francis Craven was found dead in Tuscaloosa county, Alabama. His vehicle, a GMC van, was found burned and abandoned in a huge puddle of water near. Nearly a week later, about 12 miles from the crime scene, Father Craven had obviously been murdered. His body was badly burned. There were signs that he had been beaten before he was killed, likely in the very spot he was found. Judging by the blood and hair found deep in the dirt. His hands were still bound in front of his body. The heat from the fire had made his muscles stiffen, freezing his arms up in the air. His eyes and mouth were covered by the charred remains of something investigators believe it was duct tape. Drag marks in the sand showed where the father had likely been pulled out of a vehicle. His head was resting on a prayer book. A metal chain, a dog leash was still around his neck.
- [41:36]
Mike Ferguson
Neighbors were shocked by the discovery of father craven's body, and it definitely rocked their sense of safety. Harold O' Quinn Jr. A Northport Police department officer who lived in the area, told the Patch.com I still can't believe I was so close and never heard anything. They would have had to driven right by my house to get to that spot. A man named david thomas lightner was convicted of the murder of father francis craven. He was the one who called authorities to inform them that the unidentified burned body was undoubtedly father craven. He even gave the name of father craven's dentist, which did lead to his identity being confirmed. In 1996, Leitner took his own life behind bars, hanging himself with a bedsheet. After his final appeal was rejected, he maintained his innocence as far as we know, since the contents of his suicide note were never released to the public. According to the Patch.com, lightner once told a group of reporters, I'm guilty of being bisexual. I'm not guilty of killing my friend.
- [42:35]
Mike Morford
There are signs that father craven's murder was a sexual fantasy gone terribly, terribly wrong. In the rectory, inside of a closet with multiple locks, Investigators found a journal that included some very graphic, very detailed fantasies. The writings describe the father being abducted, bound and dragged from a vehicle. All things that seemed to have really happened to him. But at the end of his writings, he was still alive. If he was playing out a wanted fantasy, something changed. Something went wrong. Priests still have personal lives, and they still have interactions with other humans that they can make angry. They still do dangerous things. They have secrets. With father craven's murder, it's easy to take the priest part out of the equation and focus on risky secret sex and a panicked cover up of whatever went wrong. Maybe there's something like that in the other priest cases that we just don't know about. In this case, to me, morph is fascinating as well. You know, you often hear in cases that, you know, the person who finds the body or the person who calls the authorities about a body is often a suspect in the beginning. Right. They have to be ruled out. Well, Here you see why the person who called in about the body turned out to be the killer. At least they were convicted of being the killer. But this idea of a sexual fantasy gone wrong, it does kind of, in some ways, line up right. Lightner once told a group of reporters that he was bisexual, but he didn't kill his friend. It, to me, kind of seems like the two had some type of sexual relationship. Now, were they playing out some fantasies and something went wrong? It's possible. We don't have all the details of the evidence, the trial. We don't have time to go into all that. We actually don't know at all. But there's no doubt that a jury found him guilty. Lightner. But obviously, you can't discount, you know, this journal with the graphic details of a fantasy that later kind of turns into reality in some aspects.
- [45:13]
Mike Ferguson
Yeah. In this last case, we have that journal. We know more. Obviously, the case was solved. There's a conviction, so there's answers that we don't have with some of the other cases we talked about. And it opens the possibility maybe there's something like that going on in those cases as well, but they just don't have the pieces of the puzzle to. To solve it. We mentioned earlier that there was A list of 80 names of priests. Who had apparently been guilty of sexual abuse. And Father Kerrigan wasn't the only one on the list to vanish. There's at least one other priest that disappeared in the 1980s. Father George Ferguson, a member of the Helena Diocese, moved to Mexico in 1980. In June of 1986, he disappeared after leaving his home. His housekeeper was there when he received a phone call from someone who spoke English. Father Ferguson wrote something down and then left the house. He never came back. Investigators believe he was murdered, although who may have done it and why remains unknown. On December 21, 1981, Father Patrick Ryan was found dead in a motel in Odessa, Texas. He had been driving from Denver City, Texas, to New Mexico. For some reason, he checked into the motel using fake information, including a false name. The father was found naked on the floor, face down, with his hands behind his back, tied together with a sock. The room was covered in blood, and there were obvious signs of a struggle. The air conditioning unit had been broken and was hanging off the wall. The TV screen was broken. The phone had been ripped from the wall. Furniture had been knocked over and broken. A man named James Harry Reyes was convicted of Father Ryan's murder. Even the receipts and a speeding ticket could prove that he had been in New Mexico, not Texas. When Father Ryan was killed, the violent struggle would have been loud, but no one heard anything, leading investigators to believe that Father Ryan was killed just after he checked in at 8pm but before the neighboring room was occupied at 9pm James Harry Reyes found himself connected to the murder because he confessed to it one night when he was drunk, despite an airtight alibi proving that he hadn't killed Father Ryan. For a jury, the confession was enough. Reyes was sent to prison, where he served 40 years before officially being exonerated while Father Ryan's real killer walked free.
- [47:38]
Mike Morford
Another case worth mentioning is that of Father Benjamin j. Carrier. On November 10, 1982, police in Yuma, Arizona, responded to the El Rancho Motel and found Father Carrier dead on a bed and inside one of the rooms. His hands were tied behind his back and he had been strangled or smothered. His car was found three days later in Las Vegas. He had been seen at the hotel with two white men. These men have never been tracked down. So, I mean, there's not a lot of details or information about that case in particular, but it is another priest found dead. You know, the last two that we talked about, there are some similarities. You know, hotel rooms. It kind of lends one to think that possibly they were meeting someone at this hotel or at these hotels for some type of sexual encounter, something went wrong, they were killed. Now, I don't know that for sure. I'm kind of speculating. But as we're wrapping up this episode morph, I think we definitely have to look at the cases of Fathers Rivera and Kerrigan. Once again, we touched on it, right? Similar cars, coat hangers possibly used in both cases, both of them with a New Mexico connection. But there's also a connection between Father Kerrigan and some of the other priests, these being Fathers Ferguson and Anderson, they shared a Montana connection. So that's an interesting aspect as well. But, you know, when you start digging into these cases, you quickly realize just how many priests have met an unfortunate fate over the years, especially in the 1980s. And this goes back a bit to what we touched on a couple of episodes back in our coverage of the missing and dead scientists. If you look closely enough at any profession, could you find a pattern of suspicious cases? Well, if you do that, there were many murders of priests then worth considering in the 1980s. I think with, you know, Fathers Rivera and Kerrigan, there are enough similarities that are hard to just simply brush off without considering a connection. You also have the connections with Kerrigan and Fathers Ferguson and Anderson. You know, One thing that I keep thinking about as we've gone through these cases morph is the sexual component. There seems to be allegations against some of these men. Some were killed in what appear to be sexual situations. Was there something bigger and much broader at play here? And this is where I think some people point to the conspiracy angle, which would be sexual abuse by some of these priests who had connections. And could that have led to one or more individuals wanting revenge against them? I think it is one scenario that you have to at least consider. I also think there is the possibility that none of these are connected. Right. You would have to say that's something to consider as well. But there are some things jumping out at me that I think at least some of these could possibly be connected.
- [51:42]
Mike Ferguson
I think for police, when they can find the motive, they can often find a suspect. But when they don't have a motive, that makes it tougher. And it's easy to say, in Father Kerrigan's case, you know, there's a motive there, the sexual abuse. But in Father Rivera's case, there's no known sexual abuse claims against him. And as we mentioned a couple times, he wound up going to that rest stop because he was the only one that could see at night to drive. So it seems like he could have gone there randomly. Of course, maybe the person that lured him out there knew he was the only one that could drive at night, so he'd ultimately be coming there. So, unfortunately, it just doesn't answer any questions. It just leads to more questions.
- [52:29]
Mike Morford
Yeah. And I'd be remiss if I didn't kind of circle back to another possibility, which is someone just upset with either the church, religion in general, just wanting to take revenge against people with whom they really had no real connection. I think that's a possibility that you have to keep on the table as well.
- [52:58]
Mike Ferguson
Yeah. The one thing that really does seem like an interesting connection to me is that both Father Rivera and Father Kerrigan were the same age. They're both 58. They both drove the same kind of car. They had both been in New Mexico. So those three things there really jump out as, you know, if they're coincidences, they're huge coincidences.
- [53:20]
Quince Ad Voice
Yeah.
- [53:21]
Mike Morford
I do think you can make the argument that those two cases probably have the. The most probability of having a connection. But then you factor in the fact that Father Kerrigan, you know, knew these. These two other priests. Maybe it's all connected. But like we said, Father Rivera was a case of mistaken identity. You can see, morph, why this is a case that people like to talk about online. They like to dissect it, cover different theories because there's a lot of angles to and paths to go down.
- [54:05]
Mike Ferguson
One thing we don't know for sure is how much physical evidence the police have in both Father Rivera's and Kerrigan's cases. Maybe they have something that might yield DNA from the killer. And it'd be interesting to see if they've been looking to test that with more recent advances in science, might there be something there that they couldn't test back in the 80s that now might yield answers? And it would be interesting to see if they can solve one or both cases and if they are ultimately connected.
- [54:38]
Mike Morford
Yeah, that, that is an interesting point that you bring up. I mean, both of those murders occurred before DNA was, was being used. We talked about coat hangers or metal hangers and things like that. It would be interesting to know what, if any, types of evidence they have that could provide a DNA profile. And maybe because this case is so old, they just haven't gone back and either swabbed it, tested it. We just don't know. But that's it for our episode on the Priest murders. As always, if you love the show but haven't done so yet, take a minute, go out, leave us a review a rating. Also, keep telling your friends. Word of mouth about the podcast really helps us out.
- [55:30]
Mike Ferguson
If you want to find us on social media. We're on every major platform. Just search for criminology podcast on your favorites. And for news about the show, old episodes and more, head over to our website, criminologypodcast.com and finally, if you want to join a discussion about the podcast and the cases we discuss, head over to Facebook and search for criminology podcast discussion and fans.
- [55:53]
Mike Morford
So that's it for another episode of Criminology. But Morph and I will be back with all of you next Saturday night with a brand new episode. So until then, for Mike and Morph, we'll talk to you next week.
- [56:04]
Mike Ferguson
Take care everyone.
- [56:36]
Mike Morford
When I found out I was going to be a parent, I immediately felt a lot of anxiety and worry. So I went on to BetterHelp to try to look for for a therapist
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