Gemma Hoskins, who investigated Sister Cathy Cesnik's unsolved killing, dies

Gemma Hoskins, a former Maryland Teacher of the Year who spent years investigating the unsolved killing of Sister Cathy Cesnik, died Sunday.

Hoskins' death was announced on social media by podcaster Shane Waters, who co-hosted the podcast "Foul Play; Who Killed Sister Cathy?" with Hoskins. The two produced nearly 100 episodes about Cesnik's disappearance and death.

"That was never the plan," Waters wrote. "Season 2 of Foul Play was supposed to be a few episodes about an unsolved murder in Baltimore and then we were going to move on. Then somebody asked to join us. Then somebody else did."

Waters said Hoskins would speak with potential guests before episodes were recorded, write the questions and name nearly every episode.

"I would offer to send her one before it went live and she would say, 'Nah. I trust you,'" Waters wrote.

"We kept at it for almost eight years because neither of us was willing to let it go quiet," Waters wrote. "Nobody has ever answered for what happened to Cathy."

Waters also referenced allegations of sexual abuse and a cover-up within the Archdiocese of Baltimore, which were detailed in a 2022 report by the Maryland Attorney General's Office.

"Gemma's position on all of it never changed," Waters wrote. "She said, 'I'm not going to sit down, shut up and go away.'"

Hoskins taught at an elementary school for 26 years and was named Maryland Teacher of the Year in 1992.

She was a student at Archbishop Keough High School in Baltimore when Cesnik, one of her teachers, disappeared in November 1969.

Cesnik's body was found in a garbage dump in Lansdowne, in Baltimore County, in January 1970. Her killing remains unsolved and later became the focus of the Netflix documentary series "The Keepers," which premiered in 2017.

A previous WJZ investigation revealed that many women who said they were sexually abused by Father Joseph Maskell believed Cesnik was killed because she was preparing to expose the abuse.

"She confronted him and she lost her life for it," Teresa Lancaster told WJZ in 2017.

Maskell, a counselor at Archbishop Keough High School in the 1960s and 1970s, was accused of sexually abusing dozens of students, most of them women.

Many of those victims, including Lancaster, told WJZ they confided in Cesnik before her death.

"Sister Cathy went to Father Maskell on behalf of the girls who were being abused," Lancaster said. "I think it's obscene that not more was done about this murder."

"The Keepers" also raised questions about whether the deaths of Cesnik, Joyce Malecki and others were connected to Maskell.

In 2022, a 450-page report from the Maryland Attorney General's Office detailed allegations of child sexual abuse and a cover-up within the Archdiocese of Baltimore. The report included allegations against Maskell.

Maskell died in 2001 and was never criminally charged. He denied allegations of sexual abuse during his lifetime.

According to The Baltimore Banner, the attorney general's report included a 2019 interview with another teacher who said Maskell had confided in him that the allegations were true.

Lancaster called Hoskins a "true trailblazer" for continuing to seek answers about Cesnik's disappearance.

"She genuinely cared about what had happened to her Keough sisters who suffered abuse," Lancaster wrote. "She listened, she pursued the truth, and she never stopped seeking answers."