Man accused in nun's death arraigned

KLAMATH FALLS - The man accused of raping two nuns and strangling one of them with her rosary beads in Klamath falls was arraigned today.

Maximiliano Silerio Esparza appeared in Klamath County Circuit Court on 14 counts including aggravated murder for which the district attorney has said he will seek the death penalty

http://www.msnbc.com/local/pisea/85522.asp

Nun's rosary beads were used to kill her, Oregon authorities say

SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER STAFF AND NEWS SERVICES

Sep. 4 - KLAMATH FALLS, Ore. -- The man accused of attacking two nuns on a bike path used the rosary beads they wore around their necks to control them while he raped both and left one dead, the district attorney said yesterday.

     An autopsy done Monday showed that Sister Helen Lynn Chaska, 53, an Orthodox Catholic nun from Bellevue, died from ligature strangulation with her rosary beads, which were left embedded in her neck, Klamath County District Attorney Ed Caleb said. The autopsy also showed she was raped and beaten severely about the face and neck.
     Barring any unforeseen developments, Caleb said he would seek the death penalty for Maximiliano Selario Esparza, 32, a transient who rode into town by train from Portland on Friday and checked in at the Klamath Falls Gospel Mission, where he landed a job helping to refurbish the bleachers at Lost River High School in Merrill.
     Caleb said he would also seek permission to take a DNA sample from Esparza.
     Esparza was sleeping on the floor of the motel room of the man who hired him for the bleachers job when police tracked him down Sunday night on a tip from someone who thought they recognized him from the composite drawing based on the surviving nun's description, Caleb added.
     Because a court-appointed attorney has yet to be assigned the case, Klamath County Circuit Judge Richard Rambo postponed Esparza's arraignment until this afternoon. The case was to go before a grand jury tomorrow. Esparza was held without bail, which is not normally granted on aggravated-murder charges in Oregon.
     While Esparza sat in the Klamath County Jail with a Spanish-language interpreter, Rambo sat in court and read, using a video connection, from a district attorney's information listing 14 charges, including aggravated murder, murder, attempted aggravated murder, attempted murder, rape, sodomy, sexual abuse and assault.
     Caleb said Esparza had been drinking beer for a couple of hours at Klamath Falls' only strip club, Cowgirls 3, when he left shortly before midnight Saturday and rode a bicycle back toward the Gospel Mission, passing an Albertsons grocery store where the nuns had been selling religious items all day, and turned onto a bike path, where he encountered the two nuns.
     Dressed in their blue habits, the two nuns had spent the day and evening selling religious books, statuettes and rosary beads from a table set up next to the entrance of the Albertsons, located across the street from Cowgirls 3.
     Store director Robon Evans said one of the nuns asked him for permission Saturday morning to raise money by selling religious items, and he agreed, recalling they had done the same thing for a couple of years without any complaints from anyone.
     The nuns gathered up their things shortly before midnight, when the store closed, and went back to their motel, the Best Western Klamath Inn, where they decided to take a walk while saying their prayers, Caleb said. They had gone about a quarter-mile when they turned to go back, and Esparza confronted them.
     He head-butted one of them, and beat them both with his fists, knocking them to the ground and grabbing them by the rosary beads around their necks, twisting tight when they wouldn't do as he said, Caleb said.
     After the attack, one nun walked back to the motel, and the night clerk called police, who found Sister Chaska lying dead on her back on the asphalt bike path. The other nun was treated at a local hospital and released. She left town yesterday.
     "We don't understand why what happened, but it's all in His plan," the surviving nun told The (Portland) Oregonian in a telephone interview. "Whatever His reason, we'll know in eternity. It's so hard for us on Earth to fathom these things."
     The nuns were members of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, a self-identified Orthodox women's order.
     Yesterday, Roman Catholic leaders in Seattle said they knew little about the women's order, except to say it is not part of the Roman Catholic Church. The Archdiocese of Seattle issued a statement saying the order does not operate under its "auspices." They are also not part of the Sisters and Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, a Pennsylvania-based women's order recognized by the Vatican.
     Joyce Cox, the Seattle archbishop's delegate for religious communities, said she believes the group adheres to a strict interpretation of religious life and that she has seen them a few times in the past, selling rosaries and literature at malls and grocery stores. But she said she has had little contact with the women.
     Some religious leaders theorize that the women's order may have been a part of two groups that refused to accept the reforms of Vatican II and splintered from the Roman Catholic Church.
     "I really don't know much about them," Cox said. "But all religious communities are shocked by it. We abhor what happened, and we're very, very saddened."

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