October 19, 1978.
Bishop Magorian is found murdered in his home.
All four limbs grotesquely broken, hogtied into a ghoulish rectangular flesh cube. His eyes were removed and placed upon an open bible at the scripture:
“The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.
But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!” – Matthew 6:22-23
“You gotta come see this.” the detective says to the FBI agent in charge.
“What, the donut truck break down outside?”
“We just got a confession.”
The two men race from the office and down the hall. They stop outside of an interrogation room.
“Is this some kind of joke?” asks the agent.
“Hear what they have to say first.” requests the detective.
They enter the room, close the door and are seated. The detective reaches towards the tape recorder, stopping with his right index finger above the red button.
“You ready to make it official?” he asks.
The person sitting across from him nods in the affirmative. He presses record.
“My name is Eleanor - Sister Eleanor Thurman. I am thirty-one years of age. I have been with Our Blessed Lady of Sorrows for nine years, eleven months, three weeks and five days.”
The two men stare at the young woman of diminutive stature.
“I am responsible for the recent killings of four clergymen.”
There is a generous pause, the men exchange a brief glance.
“I would’ve killed so many more.”
She sat at the table, small and harmless in appearance with a red carnelian rosary coiled around her blood-stained hands.
No more than five foot three - a hundred and ten pounds soaking wet. Doe eyes and freckles with short, dark brown hair. The look of a college girl, young teacher or new mother. Nothing about her spoke to even the furthest possibility of serial murderer.
This one slipped under the gate.
“Why?” asks the agent.
“For years, I knew - and did nothing! I knew and stood by, all the while, these child-raping monsters doing the unthinkable. Loosing their demons upon the innocent. Ruining countless lives.”
“Why didn’t you come forward, with evidence?”
“I didn’t have the proof you would require but there were signs - tells - things that no normal, decent person would dismiss or try to explain away.”
“So you think turning yourself in will absolve you of these crimes? Make it right with your God?”
“It is my penance, for not acting sooner. To live out my days in a cage.”
“Ya know, they’re gonna push for the death penalty.”
“So be it.” she says, resigned.
“It’ll never happen. But, you will die in a cell. Guaranteed.”
“I accept that.”
Sister Eleanor continues her statement on each grisly murder, providing details no one but the killer would know. She is read her rights, booked in and taken to a holding unit. This was a first for both the city of West Chester and the state of Pennsylvania.
TWO WEEKS LATER
The long, flowing black robe trimmed in rich crimson hangs loosely on the spindly older gentleman’s body as he makes purposeful strides up the bright and surprizingly clean hallway.
The guard leaves the Cardinal standing in front of a cell door. A switch is thrown, the door unlocks. Inside, seated on her bunk - Sister Eleanor. The man enters, leaving the door open wide.
Several moments pass, a loud gurgling and other sounds of a struggle leak from the room. After several seconds, the man exits and walks the hallway in the opposite direction.
Half an hour later, Sister Eleanor Thurman is found on the floor of her cell surrounded by smeared bloody hand-prints with a white frothy discharge around her mouth.
