Catholic school child rapist Merzbacher dies in prison

81-year-old was convicted in 1995, imprisoned since then

John Merzbacher, an 81-year-old former Baltimore parochial school teacher who was cited in the state’s recent Catholic sexual abuse report as having “repeatedly and violently” abused his victims, died Friday in prison, according to the state’s corrections department.

The former teacher at the Catholic Community Middle School in Locust Point had been serving four life sentences since his rape conviction in 1995 and is cited in the Maryland Attorney General’s Office’s report as “the most obvious example of systemic abuse” by nonclerical members of the Archdiocese of Baltimore.

Merzbacher died in the infirmary at Eastern Correctional Institution in Westover, said Lt. Latoya Gray, a spokesperson for the Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services. She said there was no sign of foul play, and a death certificate “states that he died from natural causes.”

Prosecutors dropped criminal charges relating to Merzbacher’s conduct with 13 other victims after his conviction and life sentences on a rape charge involving a former student that he raped in the 1970s at the Locust Point school.

Elizabeth Ann Murphy detailed her attempts at reporting the abuse to the archdiocese when she spoke in 2019 with investigators from the attorney general’s office, which outlined Merzbacher’s abuse of numerous survivors as well as his use of verbal threats, guns and alcohol in the school building as tools of abuse in its report released in April.

The report says the archdiocese held in its records the names of more than 40 possible victims of Merzbacher’s abuse at both the parochial school and at public schools where he taught before he joined the Catholic Community Middle School in 1972.

Survivors have testified that Merzbacher brought a gun into school and held it while he sexually abused them, sometimes using the firearm to force male students to rape female students or once shooting it in the classroom “over the heads of the students.” He threatened to kill students or their families if they didn’t submit to his abuse or told others about the sexual acts, they testified.

The attorney general’s report details how survivors attempted to report Merzbacher’s brazen abuse to the school’s principal and the archdiocese, but were met with dismissive statements or silence, and notes “there is additional evidence that” the archdiocese knew of his conduct by early 1974. Merzbacher quit the school in 1979.

Speaking to an investigator from the attorney general’s office, Merzbacher “denied doing anything wrong and said he would refuse parole rather than admit guilt,” the report says.

As a lay person, Merzbacher is not listed on the archdiocese’s credibly accused list.

The archdiocese released a statement Sunday night regarding Merzbacher’s death.

“Now, as always, is an important time to keep those victim-survivors who Merzbacher harmed so deeply in our prayers,” the archdiocese said in the statement. “The archdiocese prays for their strength and for their continued healing.”