Glynis Kazanjian for Business Insider
BALTIMORE - FBI investigators exhumed the body of 20-year-old Joyce Malecki from a Baltimore cemetery Thursday morning, seeking answers in a more than 50-year-old cold case possibly tied to a number of unsolved murders from the same era, including the death of a nun featured in the 2017 Netflix docuseries, "The Keepers."
Malecki went missing on Nov. 11, 1969. She had gone Christmas shopping at Harundale Mall in Glen Burnie, Maryland, and then planned to meet a man she was dating who worked at Fort Meade military base. Her parents expected her home by 11 p.m., but a family representative said she never showed.
Two days later, her body was discovered partially submerged in a stream in a soldier park training area at Fort Meade. Her hands were bound behind her back and she had a single stab wound to the throat. But she died of strangulation, according to a medical examiner's report reviewed by family representative Kurt Wolfgang, the executive director of the Maryland Crime Victims Resource Center.
Since Malecki's body was found on federal property, the FBI has had jurisdiction over the case for more than 50 years, but the investigation hasn't yielded any answers for the family, including her parents, who have since died.
Malecki's younger brother, Darryl Malecki, told Business Insider that he is the dark "as much as everybody else" as to why after five decades the FBI is exhuming his sister's body.
"I can only imagine that the FBI is not doing this for the fun of it, that they have a reason," he said.
Wolfgang said the FBI has been "very tight" with their information and about what their theory is at this point, but he knows they've profiled several serial murderers from that era and sees some parallels to Malecki's crime.
"In order to justify this exhumation," Wolfgang said, "we think they have a definite suspect and are looking for something specific to link that suspect to Joyce Malecki."
The Malecki Family
Last March, the FBI and Anne Arundel County Police concluded that Forrest Clyde Williams was responsible for the death of Pamela Lynn Conyers, a 16 year-old that went missing in October 1970 after shopping at Harundale Mall, the same mall Malecki visited 11 months earlier. Conyers, like Malecki, died from strangulation.
Sister Cathy Cesnik, a nun at Archbishop Keough High School in Baltimore, went missing four days before Malecki, on Nov. 7, 1969. Her body was later discovered in a wooded area in January 1970. She died from blunt force trauma to the head. In the months leading up to her death, Cesnik suspected that the school counselor, Father A. Joseph Maskell, was sexually abusing students.
Both Malecki and Cesnik have ties to Maskell.
Maskell was featured in "The Keepers" and is believed to have sexually abused scores of children and students during his tenure in the priesthood, according to testimony given to the state Attorney General's Office during its multi-year investigation of the Baltimore Catholic Diocese. He is also believed to have been involved with Cesnik's death. At least one Keough student said she was taken by Maskell to see Cesnik's body following her murder, as a warning not to talk about the abuse, according to the former student and a 2023 OAG report. Maskell was never charged for her death. He was removed from the church in 1994 and died in 2001.
Malecki's family home was located two blocks from St. Clement Catholic Church, where they were parish members and Maskell was a priest and a resident in the rectory. He was stationed there from 1966 to 1968, according to the OAG report.
Malecki "had been Father Maskell's parishioner for many years and went to confession and attended summer Bible camps with him," according to a 2017 column written by Tom Nugent, a former Baltimore Sun reporter featured in "The Keepers."
Maskell also served as a military chaplain at Fort Meade for several years, according to Nugent.
Baltimore Sun
In 1975, 14-year-old Danny Corcetti, a Catholic altar boy, went missing. Days later he was found dead with a stab wound to his throat in a wooded area near Our Lady of Victory Church in Baltimore. Malecki also had a stab wound in her throat. Nugent wrote that Maskell served at Our Lady of Victory Church and lived at the church rectory from 1968 to 1970.
Six years later, in 1981, Heather Porter, 13, was abducted and killed. Her family also attended St. Clement Church, the same church as Malecki's family, Nugent reported. From 1975 to 1980, Maskell was stationed at St. Clement to provide psychological services for the Baltimore Diocese, according to the OAG report.
"Her body was found the next day, strangled and stabbed, in a wooded area" in Baltimore County, Nugent reported. However, like Conyers, Porter's crime was recently solved in 2021, according to media report.
Wolfgang said over 4,000 pages of investigative FBI files surrounding Malecki's death exist, but at this point all he and the Malecki family can do is speculate.
"The FBI is currently conducting an exhumation at Loudon Park Cemetery regarding the murder investigation of Joyce Malecki," a Baltimore FBI spokesperson said in a statement to Business Insider. "We remain committed to bringing justice for Joyce and her family. Because the investigation is ongoing, we cannot provide any additional information."
Wolfgang said Malecki's body would be "re-inter[ed]" Thursday afternoon, and a press conference is planned for Friday.
Disclosure: Mathias Döpfner, CEO of Business Insider's parent company, Axel Springer, is a Netflix board member.
