Grim yet gripping murder mystery
■The Keepers, Netflix, May 19 This latest true-crime offering is being hailed as the new Making a Murderer but in many ways it’s more in the vein of Jinx or Serial. The seven-part series examines the murder of Baltimore nun Sister Catherine Cesnik, which remains unsolved almost 50 years later. It probes motives for her killing – including that her disappearance may have had something to do with information she had on a sex scandal within the Catholic Church. Baltimore residents described the nun as a “spirit of compassion and kindness” and the series points to the ongoing Justice for Sister Cathy campaign. Director Ryan White has revealed that his mother hails from a large Catholic family in Baltimore, and his aunt’s favourite teacher at school was a 26-year-old nun named Sr Cathy Cesnik who taught her English. Sr Cathy vanished in 1969 and her body found two months later. The Keepers tells the story through Jean Wehner, a trailblazer determined to keep the case in the public domain. Wehner and another woman accused the chaplain of their Catholic high school, Fr Joseph Maskell, of repeatedly raping them when they were students. They went public after Maskell’s death in 2001 and agreed to take part in the Netflix series. What unfolds is the shocking details of a child sex abuse ring and the network of survivors still struggling to come to terms with what happened to them – not to mention the corruption and cover-ups. Sr Catherine Cesnik