It's been a year since The Keepers came out, so we wanted to revisit the story and catch up with some of the people impacted by it. NPR's Kelly McEvers will be in conversation with The Keepers director Ryan White and Jean Wehner, one of the survivors who bravely shared her story. And we'll hear from Gemma Hoskins, who updates us on the cold case and what her life has been like since the series came out. If you haven't seen it yet, or you need a reminder, The Keepers is a seven part docuseries that investigates the unsolved murder of Sister Cathy Cesnik, a nun and Catholic high school teacher in Baltimore. Make sure to subscribe for the full length episode next week.
It's been a year since The Keepers came out, so we wanted to revisit the story and catch up with some of the people impacted by it.
NPR's Kelly McEvers will be in conversation with The Keepers director Ryan White and Jean Wehner, one of the survivors who bravely shared her story. And we'll hear from Gemma Hoskins, who updates us on the cold case and what her life has been like since the series came out.
If you haven't seen it yet, or you need a reminder, The Keepers is a seven part docuseries that investigates the unsolved murder of Sister Cathy Cesnik, a nun and Catholic high school teacher in Baltimore. Make sure to subscribe for the full length episode next week.
Rae: Welcome to You Can’t Make This Up, a companion podcast from Netflix. I’m Rae Votta, and I’m one of the hosts of this show.
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Rae: Since we’re like a book club, this is the prologue episode of You Can’t Make This Up. It’s where we reveal the film or series that we’ll be watching and talking about the following year. And next week, we’ll be watching one of last year’s most talked about series, The Keepers.
It’s been almost exactly a year since The Keepers came out on Netflix. So we wanted to read it as a story, and catch up with some of the people impacted by it.
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Rae: If you haven’t seen it yet, or you need a reminder, The Keepers is a seven-part docu series that investigates the unsolved murder of Sister Cathy Cesnik. A nun and Catholic high school teacher in Baltimore. The series uncovers the secrets lurking beneath the school, and tells the story of Jean Wehner, one of the survivors of the school’s chaplain, Father Maskell. We’ll get to him next week.
Jean will join director Ryan White in conversation with NPR’s own Kelly McEvers. Kelly is the host of the popular investigative podcast Embedded, and is a true radio star. Here’s a quick clip.
Kelly: So I didn’t even know you guys were partners in this endeavor. I mean, just all along.
Ryan: Partners is the best word. I think most documentaries are like that, but this one more so than any. I mean, I remember going to the Nantucket Film Festival with Jean soon after the premier, and it was actually Jean’s first public appearance as Jane Doe. She did a Q and A with me. And I always call it our breakup conversation, which was tearful from both sides, but you know, I also like to joke that Jean’s been my most honest relationship I’ve ever had.
She brings an honesty out of me. And we had a conversation, a tearful one, about how we were moving to the next phase of our relationship. And I wasn’t going to be in her life for two weeks of every month, which we had been doing that for years, visiting Baltimore half of every month.
Jean: To say that is was a partnership is a most understating. I feel that I love Ryan, and I came to trust his way of seeing me. And there are a few people, up until that point, that I allowed into see me. And he was ministering in some way to that broken child within me that was having the opportunity to talk, and to share, and to not be denied, and to not be told she’s lying. And to be encouraged to, you know, to take a break. And to, maybe we’ll do, let’s just take a walk, and not film. He heard me, he got me on some level, but he was working at doing that too.
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Rae: Not only do we have that interview for you, but we’ll have a special update from one of the most beloved characters in the series, Gemma Hoskins. Gemma is a former student of Sister Cathy, and a self proclaimed, retired grandma Nancy Drew. We’ll check in with Gemma, about what has changed now there’s a whole world of Netflix fans helping her find justice.
Gemma: The weeks after The Keepers was released, I literally received thousands of messages from all over the world. The series was released in 190 countries in 25 languages. So a lot of my messages, I had to hit the translate button to see what people were saying. But I have to say that my life is so rich with the new friends I’ve met because of this. And if you think about something good coming from a horrible situation, for me, it would be the people that I’ve met, that care, and they care about me. Because they’ve become really dear friends in the community where I live now.
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Rae: If you need someone to talk to while watching The Keepers, you can always Tweet the Podcast at Can’t Make This Up on Twitter. Or you can find us on Facebook at You Can’t Make This Up with Netflix. That’s it for this prologue episode. We’ll see you next week with the full discussion.
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