The FBI is set to exhume the body of Joyce Malecki, a young woman whose unsolved murder was highlighted in the Netflix documentary series "The Keepers." Malecki, 20 years old at the time of her death, went Christmas shopping near Baltimore in November 1969 and never returned. Her body was discovered on a nearby military base a few days later, and an autopsy revealed that she had been strangled. The case gained renewed attention after “The Keepers” was released in 2017, as it raised questions about a potential connection between Malecki's disappearance and the murder of Sister Cathy Cesnik.

Sister Cathy Cesnik, a Baltimore nun, was found dead from blunt force trauma after she went shopping and never returned. The documentary explored the possibility that Father Joseph Maskell, a Catholic priest at the school where both Cesnik and Malecki worked, murdered Cesnik because she knew about his sexual abuse of students. In 2017, investigators exhumed Maskell's body to compare his DNA with evidence from Cesnik's murder scene, but no match was found, leaving the case unsolved.

Earlier this year, authorities announced a breakthrough in another cold case from the same time period: the murder of 16-year-old Pamela Conyers, who disappeared in 1970 from the same shopping mall where Malecki was last seen. Conyers was also strangled to death. Investigators used advanced DNA technology and genealogy research to identify a suspect, Forrest Clyde Williams III, who passed away in 2018 of natural causes. However, there is no known evidence directly linking Williams to Malecki's or Cesnik's cases.

Now, investigators are looking to extract DNA from Malecki's body, according to Kurt Wolfgang, the executive director of the Maryland Crime Victims Resource Center. Though it is unclear what specific information they hope to uncover, the timing suggests a potential connection to Williams. Wolfgang emphasized the desire for justice among Malecki's family, who will be allowed to attend the exhumation process. The exhumation is tentatively scheduled for Thursday, but the FBI's Baltimore Field Office declined to comment further due to the ongoing investigation.

Malecki's case is intertwined with the broader issue of child sexual abuse within the Archdiocese of Baltimore. Malecki's family attended a Catholic church where Maskell served as a priest, and Malecki reportedly expressed her distrust of him. However, the family does not have concrete evidence that Malecki was one of Maskell's victims, and they are cautious about making connections between the various cases. “The Keepers” includes an interview with a woman who claimed that Maskell showed her Cesnik's body shortly after the nun's disappearance. Maskell has been identified as one of the most prolific abusers within the archdiocese, with at least 39 victims, according to a report released earlier this year by the Maryland Attorney General's Office.

As the investigation into Malecki's murder continues, the hope is that the examination of her body will provide new leads or answers that will bring justice after more than 50 years of unsolved mystery.