This episode contains distressing themes and descriptions of violence.

This podcast is intended for a mature audience.

Listener caution is advised.

A quiet nun in a central Aberdeen Cathedral was dealing with some paperwork when she had a visitor.

She neither knew the person,

nor did she have any way of knowing she wouldn't leave her office alive.

Welcome to Season 8, Episode 39 of They Walk Among Us, a podcast dedicated to UK True Crime.

The striking building on Huntley Street had stood there for over 120 years.

Busy from its beginnings as the prominent place of worship in the Catholic Diocese of Aberdeen since 1860,

people came and went, and familiar faces filed in for mass to sit on

the wooden pews dressed in their Sunday best. Communions, confessions and confirmations brought

even more people to St Mary's Cathedral, along with the attendees of weekly groups and meetings.

It was hard, if not impossible, for the clergy or staff members to keep track of the

comings and goings of every person who walk through the cathedral's doors.

Someone who welcomed visitors in 1988 was Sister Josephine Ogilvie, who was well-liked enough to have her name shortened to Sister Josie by colleagues and parishioners.

St Mary's Cathedral is in the sort of place where you would imagine what police later described as a particularly

vicious attack occurring, and Sister Josie, bespectacled with a kindly face, wasn't someone

you would necessarily think would be a victim of a violent crime. However, statistics highlight

that being a universally recognised member of authority in churches

across the country is becoming an increasingly dangerous position.

A survey by the Royal Holloway University in London to gather insights into the safety and security

of the Anglican clergy was conducted in early 2019.

...