Word: nuns
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...coincidence? Or was something more sinister behind the high death rate in the 38-bed geriatric ward of the public hospital in the picturesque Flemish Belgian town of Wetteren? Early last year, some of the nurses assigned to the ward, presided over by a short, plump nun named Sister Godfrida, of the Apostolic Congregation of St. Joseph, decided to compile a secret diary about the peculiar goings-on there. In their record they listed not only the continuing deaths and the circumstances surrounding each one but also various incidents of what appeared to be extreme maltreatment of old people...
...diary entries would eventually uncover, however, even the nurses were not prepared for. Last week Sister Godfrida, 44, was in jail in nearby Ghent, and her neighbors in Wetteren, a quiet marketing town (pop. 25,000) in a stolid, conservative Catholic area of Belgium, were reeling from shock. The nun, a local woman whose name was Cecile Bombeek before she joined the Josephites, had been accused of stealing more than $30,000 from her elderly patients in order to support a morphine habit. Far worse, after she had been charged with theft, Sister Godfrida placidly confessed to killing three...
Belgian police formally charged the nun with three murders. Meanwhile, a judge ordered crews into the graveyard to exhume not only the bodies of the three patients that Sister Godfrida admitted killing but also those of two other possible victims. While the police awaited the autopsy reports they needed before they could add more murder charges, embarrassed ecclesiastical authorities pondered a list of improprieties that violated most of the remaining Commandments and included several deadly sins as well...
...semi-shy, urbane homebody." It turns out that the fast cars, wine and women are just an act on screen. Reynolds does drive a Rolls-Royce, but at the speed limit, and is going steady with an actress (Sally Field) long known for playing a flying nun...
...abortions and birth control, the building was doused with gasoline and set afire earlier this year. Rebuilt, it now is being picketed daily. Says Tom Webber, executive director of Planned Parenthood of Minnesota: "They say the rosary here. They chant it in a circle on our front sidewalk. A nun even splashed our building with holy water. My life has been threatened a number of times, all in the name of a higher morality...