Date: 2/11/2009
By DON BABWIN
Associated Press Writer
CHICAGO (AP) — A former Roman Catholic priest convicted of taking a boy on religious retreats to have sex with him was sentenced Wednesday to 25 years in prison.
Donald McGuire, of Oak Lawn, displayed no emotion as U.S District Judge Rebecca Pallmeyer imposed a 300-month sentence that likely means the 78-year-old former priest will die in prison.
Pallmeyer said McGuire used his stature, his international reputation that included being a spiritual adviser to Mother Teresa and the trust parents had in him that he would care for “the finest gifts God ever gave them: their children.”
She said the boys’ confidence, faith, innocence and sexual desire were destroyed.
“You robbed them of all these things,” she said after a hearing that included statements from victims, including McGuire’s godson.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Julie Ruder told the judge that it was “a horrific and monstrous crime.”
McGuire was convicted in October of charges of traveling outside the United States and across state lines to have sex with a teenager between 2000 and 2003. The Vatican ordered McGuire out of the priesthood last year.
In 2006, McGuire was convicted in Wisconsin of child molestation and sentenced to seven years in prison. He has appealed that conviction.
McGuire also has been indicted in Arizona on child molestation charges and faces lawsuits on new child molestation accusations.
Victims and their parents testified before the sentencing Wednesday that they felt guilty for not coming forward sooner with their allegations.
“I apologize to the other victims,” said one man who told the judge he was abused by McGuire for six years beginning in the late 1970s. “I apologize that I didn’t come forward.”
Many of those who testified also asked McGuire to apologize to them, which Pallmeyer noted the former priest didn’t do.
McGuire has maintained his innocence throughout the trial. At the hearing, he told the judge he would continue to pray for everyone connected to the trial and spoke of being near the end of his life.
“I see that horizon, it’s heaven, where every tear will be wiped away,” he said.
McGuire would have to serve most of his sentence before he is eligible for release.
Copyright 2009 The Associated Press.
DNA match breaks open Wisconsin slaying from 1976
Date: 2/10/2009
By TODD RICHMOND
Associated Press Writer
FOND DU LAC, Wis. (AP) — A DNA match has helped detectives arrest a man in the stabbing death of a 19-year-old woman more than three decades ago, apparently clearing a case that has haunted this central Wisconsin city for a generation.
Police arrested Thomas Niesen, 53, of Ashwaubenon, last week in the 1976 death of Kathleen Leichtman. Prosecutors said Monday they expect to formally charge him Tuesday morning.
Leichtman’s death was the only unsolved homicide in Fond du Lac, and the case dogged detectives and the victim’s relatives for years.
“This was their nightmare,” Fond du Lac Police Chief Tony Barthuly said at a press conference Monday.
Barthuly’s own uncle, Alexander Semenas, was district attorney when Leichtman was killed. “Last week was one of the happiest moments of my career,” he said. “I’d be remiss if I didn’t tell Kathleen’s family I hope this resolution allows you to sleep comfortable at night.”
Fond du Lac, a city of about 42,000 people, lies at the south end of Lake Winnebago about 70 miles from Madison, Milwaukee and Green Bay, the state’s three largest cities.
Leichtman, who was from Milwaukee, came to Fond du Lac on July 14, 1976, to work as a go-go dancer at a nightclub called The Other Place. A motorist discovered her body in the road across from a golf course about 2 a.m. the next day. Someone had slit her throat and stabbed her multiple times.
Police put together sketches of two men who left the nightclub with Leichtman, but no arrests were ever made.
Detectives sent DNA evidence from Leichtman’s death to the state crime lab in 2001 but received no matches. The sample went into the national DNA database. There were no results for seven years.
“This is the one everybody looked at as the one that was going to get away,” said Capt. Michael Frank, the Fond du Lac Police Department’s detective supervisor.
Then, in October 2008, the lab matched the Leichtman sample to Niesen, who had to submit DNA after he was convicted of felony child abuse in Brown County earlier that year. Niesen gave his sample in August, Frank said.
The department assigned two detectives to work exclusively on the case. Frank estimated the agency has spent about 1,000 hours on the case since the DNA hit came back.
Detectives interviewed Niesen at his home Wednesday and took him into custody. He remains in the Fond du Lac County Jail, police said.
District Attorney Dan Kaminsky declined comment on the investigation before filing charges. He said only that investigators have a working theory about what happened to Leichtman and believe they have the right man.
Leichtman’s family issued a two-sentence statement through police, asking the media to leave them alone and thanking detectives for their work.
They said they “would like to express their special appreciation and gratitude to everyone working on this case and to their dedication.”
Copyright 2009 The Associated Press.
By TODD RICHMOND
Associated Press Writer
FOND DU LAC, Wis. (AP) — A DNA match has helped detectives arrest a man in the stabbing death of a 19-year-old woman more than three decades ago, apparently clearing a case that has haunted this central Wisconsin city for a generation.
Police arrested Thomas Niesen, 53, of Ashwaubenon, last week in the 1976 death of Kathleen Leichtman. Prosecutors said Monday they expect to formally charge him Tuesday morning.
Leichtman’s death was the only unsolved homicide in Fond du Lac, and the case dogged detectives and the victim’s relatives for years.
“This was their nightmare,” Fond du Lac Police Chief Tony Barthuly said at a press conference Monday.
Barthuly’s own uncle, Alexander Semenas, was district attorney when Leichtman was killed. “Last week was one of the happiest moments of my career,” he said. “I’d be remiss if I didn’t tell Kathleen’s family I hope this resolution allows you to sleep comfortable at night.”
Fond du Lac, a city of about 42,000 people, lies at the south end of Lake Winnebago about 70 miles from Madison, Milwaukee and Green Bay, the state’s three largest cities.
Leichtman, who was from Milwaukee, came to Fond du Lac on July 14, 1976, to work as a go-go dancer at a nightclub called The Other Place. A motorist discovered her body in the road across from a golf course about 2 a.m. the next day. Someone had slit her throat and stabbed her multiple times.
Police put together sketches of two men who left the nightclub with Leichtman, but no arrests were ever made.
Detectives sent DNA evidence from Leichtman’s death to the state crime lab in 2001 but received no matches. The sample went into the national DNA database. There were no results for seven years.
“This is the one everybody looked at as the one that was going to get away,” said Capt. Michael Frank, the Fond du Lac Police Department’s detective supervisor.
Then, in October 2008, the lab matched the Leichtman sample to Niesen, who had to submit DNA after he was convicted of felony child abuse in Brown County earlier that year. Niesen gave his sample in August, Frank said.
The department assigned two detectives to work exclusively on the case. Frank estimated the agency has spent about 1,000 hours on the case since the DNA hit came back.
Detectives interviewed Niesen at his home Wednesday and took him into custody. He remains in the Fond du Lac County Jail, police said.
District Attorney Dan Kaminsky declined comment on the investigation before filing charges. He said only that investigators have a working theory about what happened to Leichtman and believe they have the right man.
Leichtman’s family issued a two-sentence statement through police, asking the media to leave them alone and thanking detectives for their work.
They said they “would like to express their special appreciation and gratitude to everyone working on this case and to their dedication.”
Copyright 2009 The Associated Press.
