In a St. Agnes Catholic School memory book from the 1990s, the Rev. William Mannion looks more heartthrob than priest, with his hair cut into a wavy, feathered mullet and his loose-fitting, short-sleeved shirt open at the collar. Some recall him as a breath of fresh air in a Catonsville parish long led by aging disciplinarians.

Those memories are now challenged by criminal charges against Mannion, 63, of Sparrows Point, who long ago left the priesthood, got married and started a family. A former altar server and student said Mannion sexually abused him for several years, warning that God would punish him if he didn’t go along with it.

The former priest, who was indicted in April on 15 felony sex and child abuse charges, maintains his innocence.

Although many new abuse allegations against Catholic priests have surfaced in recent years, the case against Mannion is different. The Baltimore Banner learned that he was investigated by the Maryland Attorney General’s Office, but officials did not include him on the list of more than 100 allegedly abusive priests in their landmark 2023 report, which exposed decades of child sexual abuse and coverups within the Archdiocese of Baltimore. Now, the Baltimore County state’s attorney is charging him over the same allegations.

The Mannion case has also divided the area’s Catholic community. His supporters have rushed to his defense, emphasizing that he’s been an advocate for victims and once helped bring down notorious child rapist John Joseph Merzbacher by reporting the former Catholic schoolteacher to church officials. They also point to holes in the case against Mannion. For example, police initially said the child’s alleged abuse ended in 1994, but that’s the year Mannion joined the staff at St. Agnes. Prosecutors later said the misconduct stretched into 1995.

“I want to be extremely clear that I stand with victims,” said Maura McCarthy, a former student at the church’s Catholic school. “But somebody is not doing their homework.”

Patrick Wall, a former Benedictine monk and clerical abuse expert, said false claims against clergy are “highly uncommon.” The man’s memory about the years the alleged abuse occurred could have been muddled, he added. “A lot of the facts for a child who was sexually abused, they just don’t get it right,” Wall said.

Court records obtained by The Banner are in line with one key element of the man’s allegations — that Mannion had a drinking problem. The victim told police he could smell wine on Mannion’s breath when the alleged abuse occurred. While serving as a priest, Mannion was twice charged with driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs. He received probation before judgment each time.

The Banner also verified what had long been rumored — that Mannion started dating a St. Agnes parishioner around the time he left the priesthood in the late 1990s. He was later charged with assaulting that woman, police and court records show, and he again received probation before judgment.

Baltimore County Police made no mention of the attorney general’s investigation, or the other charges, when they charged Mannion in March.

Baltimore County State’s Attorney Scott Shellenberger acknowledged the state’s probe in response to questions from a reporter and stressed that the lead detective had interviewed new witnesses. But Charles Waechter, an attorney representing Mannion, said the discovery materials he’s received so far largely mirror the investigation conducted and closed five years ago.

Are prosecutors going after a predator, or targeting an innocent man?

Surrounded by alleged perpetrators

William Michael Mannion Jr. grew up in a South Baltimore rowhouse, the only child of William Michael Sr. and Mary Margaret Mannion. He lived across the street from a Catholic church and around the corner from the Catholic Community School of Baltimore, where Merzbacher worked as a teacher and was later found to have assaulted Mannion’s classmates.

Throughout his time as a student, and later his tenure as a priest, child sexual abuse was a pervasive issue within the Catholic Church. Some allegations were not revealed until years later, but the sheer number of alleged perpetrators now known to have been in Mannion’s community in the 1970s, ’80s, and ’90s demonstrates how vulnerable young Baltimore Catholics were at that time.

When Mannion was a student at Cardinal Gibbons High School in the 1970s, he was a member of the cross country and track and field teams, according to yearbooks. His coach was the Rev. Kenneth Farabaugh, a priest who has been accused of sexual abuse by five men and women.

Ronald Nicholls, a Marianist brother who taught social studies at Gibbons when Mannion was a student, was also accused of abuse.

At Loyola University Maryland, where Mannion was working toward an undergraduate degree before studying to become a priest, three professors were later accused of sexual abuse. So was one of his classmates at Mount Saint Mary’s Seminary in Emmitsburg.

After being ordained, Mannion was assigned to St. Anthony of Padua Church in Baltimore’s Gardenville neighborhood, where he worked for five years and ministered alongside three men who would later be accused of abusing children. The Rev. Thomas Bauernfeind, the Rev. Charles Rouse, and Msgr. Henry Zerhusen were all listed in the state attorney general’s 2023 report, saying there was credible evidence of abuse. So were Farabaugh and Nicholls. None of them were criminally charged.

It was during Mannion’s last year at St. Anthony that he saw a former middle school classmate at a wake who told him Merzbacher had raped her when they were children. He reported the allegations to the archdiocese and encouraged her to go to police. Years later, Mannion called Merzbacher’s behavior outrageous.

Msgr. Francis Fortenbaugh was leading St. Agnes when Mannion joined the parish in 1994, according to archdiocesan records and directories that list priests’ job assignments. At that point, Fortenbaugh had already been accused of inappropriate contact with minors three times. In one case, the archdiocese determined that Fortenbaugh had acted appropriately. The other cases lacked sufficient evidence, church officials said.

Still, Fortenbaugh continued living at the St. Agnes rectory after his retirement in 1996 until his death in 2002. Mannion lived in that rectory, too.

The young parish priest

Before Mannion arrived at St. Agnes in 1994, the average age of the priests on staff was 69, more than twice Mannion’s age when he joined the parish at 32. This matches what the former altar server told Baltimore County Police, that his alleged abuser was a youthful St. Agnes priest named Father Bill who was far younger than his colleagues.

The Banner reviewed church assignment records in the Official Catholic Directory and scoured school yearbooks from the 1990s and found no other St. Agnes priests matching the description given to police.

However, the years police say the alleged abuse occurred don’t match Mannion’s job assignment history, and a few elements of the former altar server’s story suggest that the abuse he alleges could have occurred later than he recalls. Wall said it is common for abuse survivors to forget or confuse some details. Many of the people he has interviewed over the years who were assaulted as children had imprecise memories.

“The major injury for childhood sexual abuse is brain trauma,” Wall said. “So, they will have extreme clarity on certain things, and, like every other child, there are a bunch of things that just don’t lodge.”

The man told Baltimore County Police that the first instance of alleged abuse occurred when he was in second grade, records show. Police say it would have been the 1991-92 school year. He said Mannion was playing a Jars of Clay CD when the priest forced him to perform oral sex on him, according to records.

But the popular Christian rock band from Nashville did not release their debut album until October 1995.

The man told police the abuse continued over the next two school years. He alleges that Mannion had them undress and shower together, instructing him to rub the sins away. During the third year of alleged abuse, the man says, Mannion started raping him during these showers, which he told police occurred almost weekly.

But at that time, Mannion was still working at St. Anthony, which is 20 miles away from St. Agnes, a drive that today could take up to 45 minutes.

Wall, the clerical abuse expert, said this would not be unusual.

One former St. Anthony parishioner named Sandy said she doesn’t recall Mannion working part-time at any other churches. She asked to be identified by her first name only to protect her privacy because of the sensitive nature of the allegations. And the Rev. Joseph Lizor, 93, who overlapped with Mannion at St. Agnes, said he doesn’t remember his far younger colleague ever “fooling around” or bringing altar servers into the rectory.

“He is unequivocally innocent of these charges. Based on the evidence and the timetable,” said Waechter, Mannion’s attorney.

Shellenberger, the Baltimore County state’s attorney, previously said there’s evidence Mannion worked with youths from other parishes while he was at St. Anthony. He was “familiar with St. Agnes prior to 1994 and requested to go there because all the other priests ‘were old’ and he would be the ‘new young priest’ that would connect with younger parishioners,” Shellenberger wrote in an email to The Banner.

“We based our indictment on the disclosure of the victim, and the time frames do overlap,” Shellenberger added.

He declined to say when police verified Mannion’s job assignments with the archdiocese. A spokesperson for the archdiocese also declined to comment.

The state attorney general’s office declined to provide any records of its Mannion inquiry in response to a public records request filed by The Banner. Many of the records cannot be released because they were obtained in response to a grand jury subpoena. Others are protected because they detail allegations of child abuse or neglect. However, the state did characterize the scope of the work.

There are 89 documents from the Catholic Church sex abuse investigation that mention Mannion, Senior Assistant Attorney General Peter Berns wrote in an email. And nearly two dozen of those documents contain notes from interviews with former students, parents, teachers and administrators of St. Agnes School. Waechter recently filed a motion seeking access to these records.

‘Amazing, kind, genuine person’

Several women who belonged to the St. Agnes community describe Mannion as a caring, energetic man who they don’t think committed the crimes he’s been charged with.

One woman said she was in eighth grade at St. Agnes Catholic School in fall 1994 when Mannion arrived. Soon after, he started a youth group she joined, and he began leading children’s Masses she attended.

“Bill is an amazing, kind, genuine person,” Kerry Runkles said. “We had many one-on-one conversations, and there was never a time when something seemed weird or off, not once.”

She said she recalls Mannion enjoying classic and Christian rock music and reflecting on song lyrics with young parishioners during youth group gatherings. She said she recalls Mannion asking her to listen to “In Your Eyes” by Peter Gabriel and interpret the meaning.

“It was super cool to have a guy who understood music,” she added.

A former St. Agnes social studies teacher said she remembers how much Mannion enjoyed working with children. She recalls him darting through the school hallways, sliding boxes of candy canes through the classroom doors around Christmas time.

The teacher said she considers Mannion a family friend whom she loves. While working as a priest, he presided over her son’s marriage. She said she believes Mannion is innocent and expects him to be exonerated. But she lamented that his life could be forever altered by the charges, regardless of the outcome.

“I’m usually on the side of the victim. And I’m not picking at the victim,” said the teacher, who asked to remain anonymous because she fears online harassment. “Something probably did happen to him. But not with Bill.”

Wall, the clerical abuse expert, said a priest narrowly focused on ministering to children fits the profile of a possible perpetrator. These priests, he said, have extreme preferences, “and that’s where they spend all their time.”

McCarthy, the other former St. Agnes student, said she knows false allegations are rare and feels uncomfortable doubting the former altar server’s story. Still, she doesn’t think Mannion is an abuser. Why didn’t the archdiocese mention the discrepancy between the man’s account and Mannion’s job assignments in the public statement released soon after his arrest, she wondered?

“I can’t imagine anyone upending their life or making up this kind of trauma,” McCarthy said. “But why isn’t anyone stepping up and saying anything about the timeline?”

The priest and the parishioner

Mannion left the priesthood in 1998, about four years after he arrived at St. Agnes. For reasons unrelated to child abuse, the archdiocese blocked him from continuing to work as a priest, said a spokesperson for the archdiocese, who declined to elaborate. Mannion’s attorney said he resigned voluntarily.

Some parishioners said they wondered if Mannion was taking a sabbatical and planned to return.

Joe Smith said he knew Mannion was leaving the priesthood for good — because around that time, the priest started dating his mother.

Cathleen Smith was one of three St. Agnes women who helped Mannion lead the popular youth group he founded. Joe Smith said he grew close to Mannion through that group and has struggled to square his fond memories of the man with the criminal charges he now faces.

“I’ve read what has been reported,” Joe Smith said. “It just doesn’t line up with my experience.”

One time in 1996, Joe Smith recalls traveling with Mannion and Mannion’s father to Indiana to see a Notre Dame football game. He said his parents signed off on the trip. Although the three men shared a hotel room, Joe Smith said he got his own bed.

“I spent a lot of time alone with Bill and his father on that trip, and everything was aboveboard,” Joe Smith said.

He said he remembers Mannion talking openly about struggling with alcohol, although he said he believes Mannion was sober while he worked at St. Agnes. But one month after leaving the priesthood, Mannion was pulled over on Interstate 95 and charged with driving under the influence of alcohol, court records show. He previously faced a DUI charge in 1989, the year he became a priest.

Joe Smith said his parents divorced after Mannion left St. Agnes and the priesthood, and his mother and Mannion moved in together. He says Mannion told him in 1999 that he planned to propose to his mother, and he later did. But in May 2000, alleged domestic violence would lead the relationship to unravel.

Cathleen Smith called Anne Arundel County Police to the Pasadena home she shared with Mannion and her 12-year-old daughter, requesting help removing her fiancé from the residence, according to a police report. Joe Smith said he wasn’t there because he was away at college. It was nearly midnight when police arrived, records show.

Cathleen Smith told the responding officer that her fiancé got angry and yelled at her daughter because the pizza in the oven had overcooked, according to the report. Cathleen Smith said her fiancé then grabbed her from behind in a bear hug when she tried to intervene, causing her to fall against the basement steps. Mannion wasn’t arrested because he fled before police arrived, the report says.

Joe Smith’s sister, Kate Davies, remembered the incident differently, saying Mannion wasn’t the aggressor. Her account does not appear in police reports, and she said she didn’t testify in court. Cathleen Smith declined to comment when reached by phone.

Either way, Mannion’s relationship with his mother was over, Joe Smith said. Mannion was charged with second-degree assault and received probation before judgment, just as he did after his DUI charges, records show.

Probation before judgment means a court found sufficient facts to justify a guilty finding. But instead of entering a conviction, the defendant is placed on probation, with a chance to close the case without a conviction if probation is completed successfully.

In January 2020, Joe Smith says, he got a call from an investigator with the state attorney general’s office. The man was examining allegations that Mannion had abused the former altar server he is now charged with assaulting.

‘A shining example’

After leaving the priesthood, Mannion started working for Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center as a case manager, court records show. He later became a nurse in the hospital’s psychiatric unit and has continued working there for more than two decades.

One former colleague said many patients loved Mannion, “and they don’t like all the nurses,” said the woman, who asked to remain anonymous to protect her privacy given the sensitive nature of the allegations. She said “stupid fights” among patients over control of the television remote were common, and Mannion seemed to know how to talk to the patients and diffuse the tension.

The woman said she recalls asking Mannion why he left the priesthood. She says he told her he wanted to get married. At the time, she said, she didn’t know resignation was an option for Catholic clergy. In September 2001, Mannion married Suzanne McCormick, who also worked at the hospital. However, Mannion wasn’t laicized until 2004, according to a statement from the archdiocese.

Seeing Mannion’s mugshot and learning of his arrest on sex and child abuse charges was shocking, the woman said.

“After working as a priest, he became a nurse, which is another profession where you care for vulnerable people,” the woman said. “Could he have harmed a patient?”

“And if he didn’t do it‚” she added, referring to the child sexual abuse charges Mannion now faces, “why isn’t he speaking up and trying to defend himself?

Waechter, Mannion’s attorney, said he advised him not to talk to police.

The woman said she fears the man would not have been believed if he reported his allegations against Mannion years ago when he was a boy. Back in the day, she doesn’t think many people would have believed their child over their priest.

Mannion violated the terms of his probation when he allegedly assaulted his former fiancé and was at risk of being incarcerated. In February 2001, Mannion’s supervisor at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center wrote the court a letter, seeking grace for Mannion, and filed it in court.

“I have found him to be an asset to our team and program. He works tirelessly to improve the circumstances of his members in the community,” supervisor Gregory Dorries wrote. “I would offer him my continued support and recommendation. He represents a shining example to us all.”

Mannion’s trial on sex and child abuse charges was supposed to begin in a few weeks. But on Friday, a judge postponed the trial until February, as his attorney seeks additional records through discovery. Until then, Mannion remains confined at home. If convicted, he faces up to 20 years in prison for each of the most serious charges.

Banner reporter Julie Scharper contributed to this report.