By: Siobhan Garrett
BALTIMORE (Scripps News Baltimore) — It’s a 54-year-old murder case and now the FBI is hoping the victim’s body can provide more information.
The FBI is working to exhume the body of Joyce Malecki. She was killed in 1969 when she was 20 years old and her murder was detailed in the Netflix series “The Keepers.”
Kurt Wolfgang from the Maryland Crime Victims Resource Center said the FBI called them to say they are filing the paperwork to do this.
The advocacy group represents the Malecki family. They haven’t been given a timeline on when the body will be exhumed.
The FBI did not say what prompted investigators to exhume the body or what they plan to do with it.
“The Keepers” suggests that Joyce Malecki’s murder may be linked to the murder of Sister Catherine Cesnik at the old Archbishop Seton Keough High School.
Cesnik had been a teacher at the school and many of her former students believe she uncovered widespread sexual abuse at the all-girls school at the hands of Rev. Joseph Maskell and another priest.
Cesnik left her apartment on November 7, 1969, to buy a gift and never returned. Her body was found two months later by two hunters in Lansdowne.
An autopsy revealed she died from a skull fracture.
Malecki disappeared four days after Cesnik. Malecki’s body was found near a Fort Meade shooting range. She was found bound, strangled, and drowned.
No arrests have been made in either case.
“The Keepers” did help renew an investigation into widespread sexual abuse in the Baltimore Archdiocese.
Back in April, a long-awaited 456 investigative report was released.
This story was originally published on July 6, 2023, by WMAR in Baltimore, an E.W. Scripps Company.
