Agnes of God - Background

Background

A few years before the play was written, a similar incident occurred in a convent in Brighton, New York, just outside the city line of Rochester.

Sister Maureen Murphy, a thirty-six year old Montessori teacher, was found bleeding in her room by the other sisters of the convent when she did not come down for meals.

Sister Maureen denied she had given birth; when examined by medical staff, she said she couldn't remember being pregnant. She had covered up the pregnancy by wearing the traditional nun's habit. The baby was found dead in her small convent room in a waste basket, asphyxiated.

The police found ticket stubs and other information in the nun's convent room indicating that precisely nine months earlier she had traveled out of state to an educational conference. During the trial, the father of the baby was never named. It was never suggested that the nun had been raped by a priest.

At her trial, Sister Maureen waived her right to a jury, and Judge Hyman Maas, a Jew, presided. There was a great deal of controversy about whether a Jewish judge would give a Catholic nun a fair trial. The trial was over in ten days, and Maas found the nun not guilty of all charges by reason of insanity in March 1977. It was reported in several newspapers on March 4, 1977.

The convent where the murder occurred is adjacent to the still-functioning suburban parish and school. The convent is used to house University of Rochester graduate students. The girl's high school, St. Agnes, where some of the nuns taught, is closed.