Possible link in 1980's priest killings

[Mystery Man]

Father Patrick Ryan: December 21st, 1981

Father Reynaldo Rivera: August 7th, 1982

Father John Kerrigan: August 8th, 1984

-All killed in New Mexico

-Patrick Ryan's close friend, James Harry Reyos confessed when drunk and high on drugs, but immediately recanted

-Father Patrick Ryan picked up a hitchhiker who likely ended up murdering him, according to Reyos's testimony. Father Rivera received a call from an unidentified man who likely killed him as well.

Whatever facts I may have missed, I believe a serial killer is responsible for these crimes and may still be at large.

[MegtheEgg86]

Whatever facts I may have missed, I believe a serial killer is responsible for these crimes and may still be at large.

I don't.


It has never been proven that Fr. Kerrigan was murdered. He was never found and disappeared in Montana, not New Mexico.

Fr. Ryan was killed in Odessa, TX. It has never been proven that Reyos didn't commit the murder.

UM wanted to purport a theory that Frs. Rivera and Kerrigan were killed by the same party because they were both Franciscan priests (there are MANY Franciscans, both in the U.S. and abroad) and that there was "some evidence" of a coat hanger being used in Fr. Reynaldo's death and Fr. Kerrigan's disappearance. The first point is very pointed, but still not necessarily a non-random coincidence. The second is quite--quite--vague.


If hard evidence were there, certainly I would support that theory. But my opinion is that Fr. Ryan was killed by Reyos, Fr. Rivera fell victim to a murderer who had a vendetta against either the parish, priests, or the Catholic Church itself, and what happened to Fr. Kerrigan, God only knows.

[kadrmas15]

I actually disagree Reyos killed Father Ryan. In fact the evidence that proves he didn't kill Father Ryan is pretty strong despite the inebriated confession that Reyos gave.

There was no physical evidence in the hotel room as in no finger prints or blood that matched Reyos. More importantly though, Reyos was confirmed to be in Hobbs, New Mexico. Hobbs is about 100 miles away from Odessa. In fact the time of the murder, in terms of when it was to have been committed, Reyos was confirmed to be in Hobbs at certain times due to eyewitnesses and cash receipts that he had that were issued at certain times.

It was actually found that for Reyos to be able to get from Hobbs to Odessa to commit the murder in the timeframe Father Ryan was murdered, he would have had to go approximately 111 miles per hour, the entire way without stopping in order to make it from Hobbs to Odessa in time to do the murder. Plus it is not a straight shot from Hobbs to Odessa. You would have to take state roads and back roads to get there as there is no interstate from Hobbs to Odessa.

Plus, take into account that Reyos was driven to Hobbs in the afternoon of the day of the murder by Father Ryan everyone agrees on that. Everyone also agrees that Father Ryan left Reyos in Hobbs abruptly. The trip had been made as Reyos needed to pick up his truck from a bondsman as he had put up the truck for collateral to post bond on a drunk driving charge. The bondsman himself was a witness who saw an unidentified man in the car with Father Ryan and the bondsman testified that Father Ryan had abruptly left, leaving Reyos there. Plus Reyos had the best alibi of all. He was stopped for speeding by a New Mexico State Trooper and the time of the traffic stop was around the time Father Ryan was believed to have been murdered and at that point. Reyos was around 200 miles away from Odessa.

How would Reyos even know that Father Ryan was going to Odessa? Neither Father Ryan nor Reyos were from Odessa. They both lived in the small town of Denver City, Texas which was around 100 miles north of Odessa. Denver City is in Yoakam County, Texas and in fact Denver City is closer to Lubbock than to Odessa. However Denver City is not far from Hobbs, New Mexico, 30 to 40 miles away from it.

So in my opinion, Reyos is innocent. I think the evidence proves pretty substantially he simply could not have been in Odessa at the time of the murder. These three incidents might not be connected but it is possible. There were some similarities and some differences and clearly the locations were all different, Odessa, Texas, Santa Fe, New Mexico and Ronan, Montana.

[kadrmas15]

Also interestingly, you will never guess who some suspect to be the actual killer of Father Ryan? The man found dead in the Boise, Idaho Catholic Church that killed himself in 1982. That man is supposedly a suspect in both Father Ryan's murder and the November, 1982 murder of a Catholic Priest, Father Benjamin Carrier who was found dead in a Yuma, Arizona motel room.

[MegtheEgg86]

Also interestingly, you will never guess who some suspect to be the actual killer of Father Ryan? The man found dead in the Boise, Idaho Catholic Church that killed himself in 1982. That man is supposedly a suspect in both Father Ryan's murder and the November, 1982 murder of a Catholic Priest, Father Benjamin Carrier who was found dead in a Yuma, Arizona motel room.

I've heard that theory. I don't understand the linkage, though. Just because he committed suicide in a Catholic church means he might've killed two priests?

The time between the Fr. Ryan and Fr. Carrier murders is not expansive and both were killed in motel rooms. The man who committed suicide in Boise was believed to probably be from the Southwest due to his deep tan and clothing style--but other than the time period and his appearance, what else is there?

[kadrmas15]

From what I understand, how this theory came about in the first place was from the Boise Police Detective who was on UM about the case of the unknown guy who committed suicide in the Catholic Church there. I guess he was able to track down a pair of sunglasses the dead man had on him to one particular store in Arizona. Then he heard about a Priest murder there and when he heard about Father Ryan's murder in Odessa, Texas to him the two cases were connected. While both Father Carrier and Father Ryan were Catholic Priests and both were found dead in motel rooms evidently of a homosexual encounter gone bad, other than that there was no connection. The dead man's prints were compared to unknown fingerprints found in the Odessa motel room and like Reyos, the dead man in Boise's prints did not match.

[kadrmas15]

How the theory came about is the detective theorized that the dead man in the Church was in fact a Catholic priest himself who killed himself after killing two fellow priests because he was ashamed of his own repressed homosexuality. It is quite a leap to come up with that theory but this detective did it.

[MegtheEgg86]

How the theory came about is the detective theorized that the dead man in the Church was in fact a Catholic priest himself who killed himself after killing two fellow priests because he was ashamed of his own repressed homosexuality. It is quite a leap to come up with that theory but this detective did it.

That might explain why the man signed the note found on him with the name of a company that manufactured vestaments for priests. That's not exactly something the average individual--or average Catholic individual for that matter--would typically know offhand. (Just a curious caveat--I searched "William L. Toomey" and found nothing, but was directed to an R.J. Toomey company--this is the one the man might have been referring to in the note: http://www.catholicsupply.com/churchs/clerr.html I wonder where "William L." comes from, then.)

I find that theory rather far-fetched for one reason, however. If the man was a priest, I find it extremely hard to believe that absolutely no one missed him. It's not exactly like a priest doesn't live a very communal life, putting him in contact with multiple people who would immediately notice his absence.