... (The author's old notes) contain much of what I know about John Merzbacher, the child rapist accused of terrorizing dozens of Catholic students in Baltimore in the 1970s. The church turned its back on those children when it was happening, and again, in many ways, in the 1990s, after several of them gathered the courage to come forward as adults, in court, ultimately condemning Mr. Merzbacher to multiple life sentences in prison.

...Mr. Merzbacher was ultimately charged with more than 100 crimes, accused of raping and sodomizing students and forcing them to have sex with one another under threat of death from the gun he frequently flashed; he was convicted of rape and sexual abuse in the first, and therefore only, case against him to go to trial: Ms. Murphy’s.

During the 1995 trial, the archdiocese professed to support the named victims and eventually paid most of them in confidential settlements that took away their right to sue certain parties — including Mr. Merzbacher and Ms. Weisman, who continued to work for the archdiocese post trial.

...Drug addiction, depression, self-loathing — that’s what many of Mr. Merzbacher’s students were left with, those who survived, anyway. At least three suffered early, tragic deaths. They lost their childhood and their church.