Danny's Little Sister
A lesson in resilience after tragedy.
The Croteau Family. From upper left: Greg, Mike, Carl Jr., Joe. Bottom left: Bunny holding Cat, Jackie, Carl Sr., Danny.
A note: I had intended to just post sections of the AI-transcript of the “Unholy Fathers” episode about Cat (Croteau) Powers. While proofing, I once again realized how poorly AI transcribes true human emotion and story.
Plus, revisiting Cat’s words and wisdom hit me hard. I feel her POV is important and can be helpful to the rest of us. So I decided it would be more appropriate to share the entire transcription as way for folks to learn her family’s tragic story AND possibly glean tips for dealing with stress, anger, worry and sorrow.
Below the podcast link, in text format, is a transcript of “Danny Croteau’s Sister.”
Crash
This episode of “Unholy Fathers” will be a little different than the previous eleven. We’re going to discuss, in detail, how the murder of Danny Croteau by Rev. Richard Lavigne affected Danny’s family.
We’ll hear from Danny’s youngest sister, an inspiring woman named Cat, who also happens to be a high school classmate of mine, a fellow Cathedral Panther “Class of 1986.” In 1983, we both took the “Introduction to Journalism” course taught by Sister Ann Lynch.
I remember Cat as being a nice person, though I wasn’t close to her at all. I thought she was cool because she was a punk, which was a rare creature in the preppy corridors of Cathedral. And because I was a wannabe punk.
Back in high school, I hadn’t known Cat was Danny’s sister. In fact, I didn’t learn Danny’s actual identity and his relation to Cat until Rev. Richard Lavigne was arrested in 1992. Before that, I just knew of the local legend of a priest suspected of killing an altar boy a couple miles away from my childhood home and getting away with murder.
Unbeknownst to most of us at Cathedral High, Cat, haunted by her brother’s death, was dealing with serious trauma. That’s probably why, as she explains it, her teenage years were a mess. Obsessed with a certain boy and smoking a ton of marijuana and cigarettes. She enjoyed many of her British style weed-and-tobacco cigs in Cathedral’s official student smoking area, conveniently located outside, near the cafeteria, on the path to the school science wing.
In 2019, 34 years after we graduated from Cathedral, I reached out to Cat, asking to interview her about her experiences connected to the death of her brother.
Graciously, she agreed.
Cat
Whenever anybody ever asks me how Danny’s death affected my life, I always say it was like a bomb going off in Hiroshima, because it never stopped. It’s generational. My kids are affected by this. My daughter was named after my brother. I don’t know how much of an honor having this heavy name on her shoulders has been. My family did not survive this. Instead, we chose to live, in spite of this. And that’s a huge difference. I chose to live. I’m part of the world.
Crash
Even after 48 years, the murder looms large in her life. She thinks about her brothers, her parents and Lavigne every single day.
Cat
You see all those specials on television that says “Time heals all wounds.” Or “Eventually you’re going to get past this.” That is a lie. You have to learn how to live with it. You can’t ignore it. You can’t get over it. It doesn’t feel better, ever. It’s not something that heals with time. There’s no such thing as getting justice. There’s no such thing as that moment when somebody goes to jail that’s going to make anything okay.
Crash
Just to be clear, Cat, her family and Lieutenant James Fitzgibbons of the Massachusetts State Police, and lots and lots of other cops, journalists, lawyers and locals who knew the entire sordid story all believe that, without a doubt, Richard Lavigne murdered Danny.
Cat
My dad and my mother until the day they died, believed with their whole heart, mind in full, that Lavigne was the one who took their son’s life. And some of that was because of that phone call.
Crash
She’s talking about the phone call on the afternoon of May 2, 1972, seventeen days after Danny’s body was found floating in the Chicopee River. During that call from Father Richard Lavigne to Bunny Croteau, Cat’s mom, the priest told her that “under the circumstances, it would be best if I didn’t come around for now.” Then without another word, Lavigne hung up. Bunny was baffled. Why was their devoted friend suddenly abandoning them? On this of all days. It had already been a tough one. That morning, the state crime lab had released Danny’s blood alcohol test results: .18%, nearly twice the Massachusetts legal limit for adults.
Cat
They found it very weird, very odd. What do you mean? You’re not going to be coming around anymore. That specific phone call was very damning for him. They just lost their child. This is the individual that just said their son’s funeral mass. It was very confusing for my parents to be told this by somebody who was their friend and their spiritual support person, “Bye, see you later.” That was really, really hard for them both.
Crash
For the longest time, she wondered why Lavigne called and spoke with her mom rather than her father. Now she has a theory.
Cat
I don’t think Lavigne was brave enough to speak with my dad. I think he was afraid to do that. It was easier to hit my mom in the back of the knees. My mother could be stoic at times, and kind of kept everything inside. But when she did that, she kind of shut down. And I think that Lavigne was counting on that. Because he’d known her for a while at the point. And he knew my father would have been the person to ask “Why?”
Crash
Cat’s memories of April, 1972 are blurry and distant. No surprise. She just turned five years old a couple weeks before.
Cat
I really didn’t understand what was going on. I just had an understanding that people were very upset. There was a lot of chaos. There were people in and out of the house. I remember going into the car with my mom and looking for my brother with her. I remember her calling his name. It was in a time where you called kids’ names, and they usually came home. You’d scream their names throughout the neighborhood and then they went running back home.
Crash
As we know, sadly, Danny never came home. And Cat was sent to stay with a family friend for a couple of days, until things calmed down a little bit.
Cat
I have no recollection whatsoever of that visit. I remember the gathering after the funeral at my parents house. I remember rain. I remember my mom crying a lot. And a lot of cigarettes being smoked, and people were so, so sad. My brothers were acting weird. I didn’t understand, really what was going on, feeling like I was invisible. I twirled around for my great aunts. And I did my ABCs backwards and got $5 from an uncle. I was trying so hard to make everybody laugh. And I wasn’t really understanding what was going on because everybody was just so serious.
Crash
Even though she was just five, Cat had dealt with death before. A beloved aunt and her grandfather had passed away the previous year. But this was different.
Cat
I have a very, very clear recollection of throwing an absolute temper tantrum crying my eyes out and screaming, “I just want my brother back!” My mom didn’t know how to handle it, and my poor aunt was the one who really had to explain to me that he’s not going to come back to the house anymore. I don’t think even my little girl mind comprehended that my aunt and my grandfather were not going to come back. They didn’t live with us. But Danny was my toy in so many ways. Like when the all the boys were going off to do something and my sister was going off to play with someone… there weren’t a lot of kids in this area in my age bracket. And he would play tea with me. He would read me stories. He’d play “peek-a-boo” with me. One of my favorite memories is laying on the floor, sticking the little pegs into the Lite Brite with him and being very angry with that Lite Brite afterwards. I have no idea why, but for some reason in my little girl head, that Lite Brite was bad, but I don’t know if I somehow correlated that with my brother being gone. Or I don’t know why, but I really didn’t like the Lite Brite very much after that.
Crash
Cat’s memories of Richard Lavigne are vague.
Cat
I know I didn’t like him. I just didn’t like him. That’s really pretty much all I remember is that when he was present, I didn’t care for him. I always liken it to a dog. When a dog just doesn’t like somebody and they growl at someone, I just did not like him. Matter of fact, I know my mom kind of pushed me towards him. And so did my father. In retrospect, I think, in their minds at that time, I was being disrespectful to Lavigne. By not being “woo-hoo” for him. Everybody else liked him. But for me, I just didn’t care for him. Years later, there was a person that my aunt was dating and I didn’t like him. My mom let me leave the table because I just did not want to be near him. And she said, “No, her instincts are right.” She let me leave.
Crash
Her parents’ relationship with the child molesting priest had been exceptionally strong just before Danny’s death.
Cat
Lavigne was extremely close to my parents, to both my father and my mother. He was close to both of them. At one point, my mom had told me that there were rumors her and Lavigne were having an affair because he was over at the house so much. I have very distinct memories of pulling into the church parking lot and having Father Lavigne come out and talk to my parents. And that just made me really kind of nauseous to call him “Father.” But he would come out and would talk to her. Sometimes I would be half asleep in the backseat. It was the good old days when you didn’t have to wear a seat belt. And they would talk, and my mom would drive away.
Back then, it’s my understanding, that you made a formal appointment with your priest. Or you went to the confessional and you discussed things. Whether it’s family problems, whatever. The way my dad described it to me was it was like that with Lavigne, but only had a more casual feel to it. Instead of feeling like you are in front of the principal and you’ve been a bad person and you’re not going to go to heaven, Lavigne managed to put you at ease. And he would discuss things, and my father would tell you if he were here today, that Lavigne was very, very charismatic when he preached from the pulpit. And how he was very charismatic when he had one-on-one conversations with you. Whether it was about the war or where he traveled or doing whatever he did. My father would often say Lavigne was extremely intelligent and he made mom and dad feel comfortable.
Crash
As with many unsolved mysteries, myths arise. One that’s been retold often in the media accounts of Danny’s murder was that Lavigne was the one who identified Danny’s body. Cat says that’s not true. Her Uncle Richard was the one who id-ed Danny at the funeral parlor. Lavigne was there providing comfort. As a priest.
Cat
Honestly, I don’t think it matters at this point. I know that the biggest struggle that my parents had to deal with was the fact that Lavigne convinced them to keep that casket closed. And that was horrifying for my mother. Because my mom would sometimes wonder, is it really her son? It interfered with her grief process.
Crash
The closed casket was totally unnecessary. As we learned from Lieutenant Fitzgibbons in Episode one, Danny’s injuries were either internal and invisible or external, but easily covered by mortician’s make-up. Fitzy, by the way, became part of Cat’s childhood. He visited the Croteau house frequently, keeping Carl senior updated on the investigation. And if it wasn’t for Fitzy, Cat’s brothers probably never would have revealed that Lavigne fed them booze and molested them individually on a regular basis, for years. Her brothers, true to form for 1970s era Catholics, couldn’t discuss sex with their parents. Much less sexual abuse by their supposedly beloved parish priest. They had reluctantly told Fitzy of being molested by Lavigne about three weeks after their brother’s murder.
Cat
They were extremely fearful of telling my father, prior to Danny’s death, what had happened to them. And after Danny’s death, my brother, Greg, had related to me. He felt very responsible. That if he had told my dad, would dad had believed him? If he had told Dad, would this have have stopped it from happening. My brother struggled all his life with the guilt of not telling my dad and having a really difficult time communicating with my dad about what happened to him.
Crash
Sadly, Greg was burdened forever after, never able to convince himself that he was not responsible for the murder of his little brother.
Cat
But when you’re forty years old, and you’re looking back, or you’re 25 years old or 30 years old, you’re being told that the primary person who might have killed your brother is the man who hurt you, you don’t think, “Oh, my God, I’m just a teenager.” You think “I should have told my parents? I could have stopped this.” You start playing the blame game. It’s not an abnormal thing for kids to do that.
Crash
The year after Danny’s murder, Cat began attending OLSH, aka Our Lady of Sacred Heart, like all her siblings had. Unlike most of her fellow students, she loved the nuns who ran the school.
I was treated very well by the nuns. I know I have friends that go, “you were what? They were mean!” I don’t think any of the nuns at OLSH were mean. I thought they were wonderful. Could they be hard? Yeah, but I always felt that they were how nuns were supposed to be. And I guess for other people, it wasn’t necessarily the same experience. And I hate thinking that it would be because of my brother’s death, that they treated me well. But I also felt protected by them.
Crash
Turns out she did need protection, at least during her first two years at OLSH. I’ve mentioned Father Gerry Spafford a couple times before. He was a very close friend of both Richard Lavigne and Father X. In fact, he was the one who suggested Father X commission the family portraits that still hang on the X priest’s living room wall in Episode 7 of “Unholy Fathers.” Also like Lavigne, Spafford was the rare priest in the early 1970s who spoke out from the pulpit against the Vietnam War. From Cat’s perspective, as a young girl, though, Spafford did not seem like a priest.
Cat
He wore sandals. He looked like Jesus. My best description of him is he kind of, retrospectively, reminded me of Charles Manson, his beard and the long hair. And I did see him with the sandals on, with the priestly garments on. But at the same time, to my little, very strict Irish-Catholic family, priests had short hair. They dressed in their black suits. Except for, I do know that Lavigne would show up in the house with casual clothing on. But not like being in dungarees and a t-shirt. More like a dress shirt and pair of pants.
Crash
Gerry Spafford has not been placed on the list of Springfield clergy credibly accused of child sexual abuse, though I’ve found several mentions of him in court documents related to child molesting priests. Ordained in 1967 by child molesting Bishop Christopher Weldon, Spafford served as a priest at OLSH until 1976 when he suddenly disappeared and was given a so-called “leave of absence” for a year. Then, he returned to the priesthood, serving at Sacred Heart parish in Holyoke for a couple more years, before taking another “leave of absence” and then leaving the priesthood for good in 1979.
Spafford died in 2015 at age 75, and I gotta admit, I hope he suffered before kicking the bucket. (His obit, though, says he “died peacefully.”) I wanted him to suffer because in 1973, when Cat was in the first grade, this scary “Charles Manson-looking priest” accosted her in the hallway. She was alone. On her way back from using the girls’ room. Spafford grabbed the six-year-old Cat by the arm and said, “Your parents are going to burn in hell.” When he let go, Cat ran back into her first grade classroom and told Sister Marie what happened.
Cat
I was very upset. I was crying. And she took me out into the little hallway, and she spoke with me for a few minutes. And I told her that that man said my parents are going to burn in hell. And I just remember being really, really upset. And she told me to calm down, then sent me to my desk. She didn’t come back into the room right away, but I will tell you that after that, Father Spafford did not come anywhere near me.
Crash
Why did Spafford say that to Cat? We’ll never know, but in the wake of Danny’s murder, the Croteaus had strayed from the flock.
Cat
For a while, my parents did not go to church. Specifically my mom. She stayed away from her church the longest. The one thing my mother never did, though, was give up her rosary. She had a rosary everywhere. But she eventually did go back to church.
Crash
Interestingly, Cat also has her mother’s devotion to the rosary. However, Cat believes her fondness for the meditation comes from the David Carradine character she saw on reruns of the old “Kung Fu” TV show.
Cat
That show did plant some seeds for me. And, as a little girl, gave me some coping mechanism. So I had the rosary, which were like his beads on the program, and I would do the Rosary. The Rosary has always been something very comforting to me. And I know that a lot of people would be going, “What do you mean? That’s a Catholic thing?” Well, it’s a mala [used in Buddhism to count repetitions of mantras] and it’s not necessarily a Catholic thing. And I don’t have a problem with being Catholic. I have a different perspective than some people. And my perspective is not black and white.
I don’t believe that any religion in the world is necessarily a bad thing or wrong thing. I don’t think that if you’re a practicing Buddhist and you once were a Catholic, that you’re going to burn in hell.
Crash
About a year after Danny’s death, Carl senior returned to church and mass. Initially at OLSH, though, not St. Catherine’s, their longtime parish where they’d befriended Lavigne. According to Cat, her dad kept pestering Bunny to accompany him to church. Eventually, after about four years, she gave in. And, sadly, when they began attending Mass, the Croteau family wasn’t welcomed by everyone.
Cat
We did start going back to church and it wasn’t a pretty picture. My parents were treated kind of like pariahs. Some people snubbed my parents.
My parents were trying to warn different people, “you really don’t want your kids to be with Lavigne.” Those people weren’t happy with them. It never went beyond the [failed] investigation, so they felt like my parents had sullied this good priest’s name.
There were also people who showed my parents a great deal of support. I don’t want to downplay that by any means, because there were some wonderful people in the community. Even if they didn’t agree with my parents, they were supportive of my parents. But there were some people who were assholes, like we had the bubonic plague. In 1992, when people were coming out of the woodwork saying “Oh my God, I’m so sorry [[we doubted you]]. Our son [was abused] by Lavigne.” They didn’t take my parents advice. And their children had become victims.
Crash
Danny’s name was rarely mentioned in the Croteau household in the years following his murder. And almost never in front of Cat’s four brothers. All of whom were haunted by guilt. Whenever Lieutenant Fitzgibbons came around, he always discussed the investigation with Carl senior outside. Fitzy and her parents were trying to protect Cat from the painful reality of their loss. And, probably, trying to protect their own mental well-being. As she got older, Cat wanted to learn more about her dearly departed brother and honor the scant memories she had. However, that didn’t go over too well, especially with her brothers.
At this point, one of my siblings had told me, when I was nine years old, “You can’t talk about Danny. You’re too young. You don’t remember him. You were too young when he died.” And that really ate at me for a while.
Crash
The following year, it happened again, this time with another brother, a traveling salesman who came home for a visit.
Cat
He was home with his girlfriend, and his girlfriend was asking about Danny, and I couldn’t give her some of the answers that she wanted. Like, I know she was digging about Danny stuff, but I was talking to her about what I remember of him. Like how he played tea with me. And how he made my dolls talk and my bears talk. I remembered that, and I wanted to share that. I finally had somebody who would listen to me. And my brother blew. He blew like you would not believe. It didn’t sit well with him. He was like, “I don’t want you [his girlfriend] asking my sister. She’s too effing young to remember this.”
Crash
Today Cat knows the girlfriend was asking questions about Danny because the woman had been concerned about the terrifying nightmares Cat’s brother had almost every night. But at the time, as a young girl, Cat certainly couldn’t fill in the details about Danny’s vicious murder. And she was very upset by her brother’s anger. Unfortunately, Cat’s mom had been at a ceramics class during that painful conversation, so young Cat was all alone in her distress.
Cat
When my mom came home, I did tell her what happened, and she did tell him, “You know what? I get that this is hard for you. But Danny was her brother, too.”
Crash
Decades later, when that brother fell ill, he moved into Cat’s home, and she took care of him.
Cat
He remembered that incident. And we talked about it too. It bothered him for awhile that he had basically forbidden me to speak about Danny. But it had a profound effect on me. Because it became even bigger for me than you can imagine.
Crash
A couple of months later, when she was 10 years old, Cat decided it was time to find out what happened to Danny. But not from her mom.
Cat
You could literally talk to my mother about anything. Like I could ask my mother “I heard this. What does this mean?” But I couldn’t talk to her about Danny.
Crash
Despite being extremely protective of her daughter, Bunny allowed Cat to make occasional trips around town on the city bus, provided she went with a friend. One day that summer, Cat decided to visit the main branch of the Springfield library to see what she could learn about her brother’s murder. This would have been quite the adventure, in the late 1970s, for two young girls from Sixteen Acres to hop aboard the PVTA bus and head downtown to the Springfield quadrangle.
I was a reader, and I loved the library and I knew that they had newspapers. I didn’t necessarily know that they had my brother’s stories on microfiche, but I knew that they kept the newspapers. So I went downtown with my friend, and I did not tell the librarian what I was looking up. I wanted to see the newspapers that had articles about my brother. And the librarian was like, “Well, those are old. They’re on microfiche now.” So they set up the machine and I looked, and I was pissed. There were only two articles on my brother’s death. Two, that’s all I could find.
Crash
Cat is correct about the lack of media coverage of Danny’s murder. The two stories from 1972 had very few details, leaving Cat with more questions than answers. It would be another 20 years, when Lavigne was arrested for molesting altar boys, before reporters began to dig deep into the priest’s sins and crimes. Cat returned to Sixteen Acres that day, deeply disappointed.
Cat
I remember being upset. It didn’t really explain enough for me. I wanted to know what was going on. And what happened to him. And when I went home, I told my mom. She asked how our trip to the library was, and I was like, “I went to do this.” And my mom was upset that I didn’t feel like I could ask her questions or talk to her about Danny.
Crash
What happened next would transform Cat’s life forever. Her mom offered to try to answer any question Cat might have about her brother and his murder. So Cat asked about what had been bothering her the most. She’d always thought that Danny had drowned because he was found in the Chicopee River. But now, she wasn’t so sure. She took a deep breath and asked her mother, “How did he die?”
Cat
She asked me “Are sure you really want to know this. Are you sure you can handle it? Because it’s going to be hard.” And then she said she would get Danny’s death certificate.
Crash
Bunny couldn’t bring herself to read the official document aloud.
Cat
She got it and she showed it to me, and it said, ‘death by laceration to the brain.’ That moment probably changed me in more ways than I can say. It changed me in more ways than I can explain.
Crash
From then onward, Cat was a different person.
Cat
I look at my pictures from when I was a small child, and I can tell you right when I found out the complete and total truth about Danny. Because I start gaining weight. And I’ve struggled with my weight, since. A lot of stress and a lot of grief can cause physical ailments. Back then, I suffered profusely from migraines. They were horrible. There were times in my life as a teenager, that I could not get out of bed. I was throwing up. I never correlated the two between each other.
I believe that Lavigne murdered more than just Danny. I believe he murdered -- the physicality of death -- two of my other brothers. And I believe he changed the very nature of every person in my family.
Crash
It’s impossible to rank the impact of each member of her family’s personal pain and suffering, but the murder probably damaged her four brothers the most. All her siblings had emotional and substance abuse problems. And a couple brothers had extreme drug and alcohol issues that wreaked havoc on their lives and the lives of their children.
Cat
My brother’s death — and what happened to them — absolutely ate at them like poison. Like somebody just feeding a little bit of arsenic every single day. Every day. That’s why they didn’t want to hear his name. When I got older, when I was in my 20s, talking about him was fine, but when I was a kid, you did not say his name in front of my brothers. That was a no go. At that time, I didn’t understand. Retrospectively, I don’t understand because I think it interfered with their healing process, but you just didn’t mention Danny.
I loved all my brothers so much. They were so funny and they had so much to offer this world. And they struggled with guilt. They struggled with shame. They struggled with fear because as one of my brothers told me, “I’m afraid to be around my kids. Sometimes I’m afraid that I’ll become like that monster.” He talked to me about about that fear. It was not something that he easily discussed and I could tell the effect that it had on them was just indescribable. Because in the 80s and the 90s, therapists started talking like “if it happened to you, then, basically, it destroys you, or you become a monster.” There was never any gray area ever presented. It’s like... I’m either going to be destroyed completely, or I’m going to become a monster.
Crash
Her parents, of course, also suffered great sorrow.
Cat
My mom never went for counseling and she was profusely and profoundly depressed. And she hid it quite well. There are pictures of my mom where she smiles. She has this beautiful smile, pre Danny, and then post-Danny…there’s almost like a snarl to her lips. Part of her lip is just slightly raised, like it’s her ‘tell’ that that’s not a real smile.
My mom really tried very, very hard not to be absent. But she was very absent for a period of time in my life when I was little. And I think it was her processing the crap that was going on and the investigation. And my father was extremely protective of my mom, and I don’t know how much he told her at different junctures. He knew everything, but I always felt like my father kind of piece-mealed the information to her.
Crash
While her mother never saw a shrink, she did have weekly visits with one of her sisters, who served as her sounding board and confidant, listening to Bunny’s fears and tribulations for decades. Carl senior never sought professional help either, but found some solace in booze and attending church. And while playing poker with a bunch of fellow Korean War veterans who returned to Springfield in 1953. All of them shell shocked and finding camaraderie with others damaged by the horrors of modern warfare.
Carl never spoke to Cat about the atrocities he witnessed, although he did share a handful of details with the other older children. Some of the battles his unit fought are known for being particularly brutal, and there, playing cards, among comrades, Carl was able to talk about his devastating feelings of loss. And Danny’s murder and Carl’s anger that Lavigne was still walking free. Cat, luckily, learned a coping mechanism from her dad.
Cat
When I was about 17 years old and super-angry and crying and just really, really, really, really, really angry, my father said something to me. “You’re never going to get past this unless you forgive him.” I asked, “Dad, what do you mean? How do you forgive him?” He said, “Every single day I have to try all over again to forgive him.”
I don’t forgive Lavigne the man, but I forgive Lavigne the child. Because I really, truly believe in my heart, for somebody to be that kind of a sociopathic monster, that something horrible had to have happened to them. Whether it was, as some have reported, at the hands of his mother… I don’t know who it was at the hands of, but I don’t think people are just born monsters. I think their environment plays a key part in what happens to them.
Crash
Cat’s attempts to forgive Lavigne, though, haven’t ended her suffering.
Cat
I’m still angry. I’m so very angry. I don’t think anything is ever truly cathartic. People who learn how to deal with a tragic loss, learn how to deal with it by getting to know the monster in the room. How has this affected me? How has it changed me? What can I do to make this more positive for myself? Because I could have very well became a drug addict and an alcoholic.
I’ve also come to recognize that I use the word hate a lot. And that’s a very strong word. And I recently had to think about, where is that coming from? The elephant in the room? I’m literally looking around it going, I don’t understand why I’m like this. Why do I use “hate” as always my go-to. I don’t go to “I dislike,” I always say “I hate.”
Well, when you grow up, where you feel like you didn’t just lose your one brother, you feel like you lost them all. Instantly. Because one is away to California because he can’t deal with it. And another one goes into the Army because he can’t deal with it. And you have another brother working this weird job, and you never see him anymore. And it’s not just the natural evolution. It seemed like they all just dispersed. Your sister is no longer at the house with you. She’s down the street, and avoiding being home at all possible costs. Baby-sitting... just not wanting to be around the house. When you’re five, six, nine and twelve years old. You really feel like your entire family just died.
Crash
As an adult, Cat has occasionally crossed paths with Richard Lavigne. She’s seen him at the Holyoke Mall. Once at BJs Wholesale Club, she had to leave because the child molesting priest was also shopping there. Another time, she bumped into him at the cardiologist office where she was bringing her mother for a doctor’s appointment. She had always avoided speaking to him until a couple of years before our conversation.
Two years ago, I ran into him at a diner. And he pissed me off because I recognized him. And I must have had that look of recognition. Like “I know you from someplace. Or you’re famous.” Or whatever it was, because he gave me this smug nonchalant look like “Yeah, I’m famous” kind of nod back. And it just sent me through the roof.
And I got up and followed him out into the parking lot. And I told him, “Don’t worry, Danny and Mike and Joe will never forget you. And we are always watching. We are always watching.” Then I turned around and walked back into the dinner and sat down. I was shaking like a leaf. Not from fear, though.
First, I can’t believe I did it, but I was not a happy person seeing him and felt like saying “You raped boys and ruined their lives. I don’t know how many suicides you probably caused in Sixteen Acres. And you think that you can just give me a flip of your head? Like, yeah, that’s right. I’m saying you’re a smug, arrogant bastard.”
I just wanted him to know that people haven’t forgotten. That people are still looking out for him. They still they know who he is and what he is.
I don’t think that we should torture ourselves thinking that “only if someone had just spoken up back in the early 1970s” that the course of this life would have been changed. And Danny would have possibly lived. Back then, I don’t necessarily think that anybody in the church would have acted on information about Lavigne. I think if two or three people came forward and and if they tried to act on it, I think somebody higher in the power scheme would have said, “not gonna happen.”
Crash
Obviously, Cat will always be haunted by the murder of Danny and the slow demise of her brothers Mike and Joe. But she’s trying to live her life in spite of that trauma. These days, she’s a post op RN at a Springfield Hospital. She recently became further accredited as a holistic nurse, which gives her more latitude to discuss alternative treatments with her hospital patients. And she tries to follow her own advice.
Cat
I suffer from clinical depression and I’m not ashamed to say that. I experienced the traumatic event at a young age, and I struggle every day to not be sad. It’s something that’s always very tangible for me. I could be having a great day, and something could trigger me. So I have struggled with that.
I will tell you that part and parcel of choosing “to live” is to say “today, I’m not gonna let this get to me.” And I will not lie and say I was super successful. Because I wasn’t always. I made bad choices. I made bad decisions. But mindful meditation, alternative therapies, like reflexology and breathing exercises. I’ve done Reiki. I’ve gone to meditation groups in the Springfield area. I’ve done anything and everything that had been suggested to me that could possibly help me without having to pop a pill to feel better.
By no means is it perfect. It’s not like peaceful things just happen immediately when you’re doing these meditations. But it does help calm the soul.
And finding a little spark of joy in every day and being proud of yourself... and there’s something my mom told me once that probably helped me the most is to tell myself, “I love myself.” Every day, even if I didn’t believe it in the moment. Every morning, tell yourself you love yourself.
Crash
As for talk therapy, Cat believe sometimes it’s helpful. Sometimes not.
Cat
So when you’re told most of your young life that you’re not allowed to talk about a particular subject, and then all of a sudden you can talk about this… talk therapy is very, very helpful. But sometimes we get very stagnant in it, and we start the loop in this “I feel sorry for myself” narrative, and I don’t want my life narrative to be, “I felt sorry for myself.”
My grandfather had nicknamed me ‘Sunshine’ and I remember being a very happy little girl. And I really try to keep a part of her alive in me every single day and find some sort of joy every single day. And it’s not easy. It’s not easy. And it doesn’t have to be anything big. Getting yourself out of bed and putting on something other than your pajamas… that’s a start.
I was like a five-year-old the other day because I saw a doe on the side of the road. In Springfield, a doe on the side of the road is a big deal.
I know there are people out there that are suffering, feeling guilty and feeling a whole range of emotions. I hope they know that they’re not alone.
Crash
I want to thank Cat for speaking to me about Danny and her family’s ordeal. To relive and discuss those stories must be so awful.
To me, Cat is a hero for surviving such a horrific trauma and going on to create a life for herself. I’m so happy that she’s found a loving husband, has two great kids and a rewarding career where her healing and compassion helps others.
During our first conversation, there were many times when I broke down sobbing after Cat revealed some terrible detail. While researching and investigating the Catholic church for this podcast, tears came easily. And they came frequently, especially as I listened to her sad tale, in her own words and voice.
At the end of the phone call, she urged me to try to find some joy. She knew I had spent the last three years working on this investigation and that I was extremely depressed. She was worried about me. I wish I could have hugged her. Right then through the phone lines.
As our second phone call wrapped up, she told me she wanted to thank me, and I’m like, “thank me? Why?” And she explained that the night after our first interview, she’d been replaying our conversation in her head. As she drifted off to sleep, she’d been worried that nightmares were headed her way.
Instead, she had a wondrous dream, which she views as more of a memory than a dream. She was a baby in her crib in her parents’ house. And her brothers, the ones who passed away, were playing with her. Peek-a-boo. Peek-a-boo.
She saw them. Remembered them. Laughing and giggling. And then she heard her mom yelling at the boys, telling them to calm down, because they were starting to play too rough with each other. And then she heard Bunny’s sweet voice speak to her, saying, “It’s time to lay down. It’s time to lay down.”
For Cat, even though the dream -- the memory -- probably just lasted a couple of seconds, for her, it was a precious gift.