In The Woman in the Wall Episode 4, Colman Akande had figured out that the church had issued fake death certificates for those kids whom they had given up for adoption. He went and met Lorna after that and told her that there was a possibility that her daughter was still alive. Lorna was ecstatic, and together with Akande, she started to go through each and every document so that they would be able to expose the truth and make the perpetrators accountable for the years of trauma that the mothers had gone through. So let’s find out what happened in The Woman in the Wall Episode 5 and if Lorna and Colman are able to get any closer to solving the mystery and getting justice for the women.
Spoiler Alert
Was Father Percy Involved In Human Trafficking?
Detective Colman Akande had brought whatever documents he could find at Father Percy’s residence, as he knew that they might get some information from them that would lead them to those who were pulling the reins from behind the curtain. They found a letter written by one of the adoptive kids to Father Percy, and there was also a photo attached to it. Lorna looked at the photograph, and she knew that the girl named Breda was actually the daughter of Clemence. Lorna and Clemence were very close when they were in the laundry together, and just before her demise, Clemence was going to tell Lorna what Aoife Cassidy had revealed to her.
Now, according to the legal records, Breda was dead, but Lorna and Colman knew that she was pretty much alive. The church didn’t want mothers to come looking for their daughters, so it was in their interest to declare them dead and get done with the hassle once and for all. It was the most inhuman and insensitive thing anybody could have done, but still, because of the lack of evidence, the perpetrators were not held accountable even after condemning hundreds and thousands of mothers to a similar fate. Lorna and Colman were not going to give up before finding out the truth, and so they figured out where Breda was staying and went to meet her.
Breda had been told back in the day that her mother had abandoned her, and when Lorna met, she told her that it was not so and that Father Percy and others had lied to her. The biggest revelation was made when Breda told Colman and Lorna that her parents had to mortgage their house because they wanted to donate to the church after they had decided to adopt her. Breda told them that they had done it because they were grateful to the church; as had the church not been there, Breda wouldn’t have come into their lives. Colman knew at that very instant that Father Percy, under the pretext of donation, was selling babies for money.
Colman checked the register that Father Percy used to maintain, and he found out that there were random sums of money that he was receiving from different people, which proved that Father Percy, together with a bunch of other people, was involved in human trafficking. Colman and Lorna knew that if they were able to prove this, it would be the biggest scam that would shake the very foundations of the country. They had waged a war against one of the most powerful institutions of the country, and they knew that now the task was to find people who were working together with Father Percy and hold them accountable for their crimes.
Why Didn’t Lorna Want To Sign The State’s Apology Letter?
Niamh gave the good news to the women that the justice department had finally agreed to acknowledge the fact that the convent of the Seven Joys of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Kilkinure was a laundry. Niamh was grateful that she had a person like James Coyle on her side, who had helped her so much throughout her journey. She knew that had he not been there, the state wouldn’t have agreed to anything. James Coyle asked Niamh to get the letter signed by all the women, and then they would be eligible to be compensated, too. Niamh told Lorna about it, and she emailed her the contract, as she was not in Kilkinure at that point in time.
Lorna went through the entire letter, and that’s when she came across the terms and conditions listed in it. The letter stated that once the women signed the settlement contract, they wouldn’t be able to press any charges against the state. Lorna realized that the state wanted to save itself, and they knew that providing compensation and giving a written apology was a very small price they had to pay in order to hide a scam of such magnitude. Lorna went and asked Niamh, Amy, and others not to sign the contract, but they were in no mood to listen to her. The women were tired, and they could no longer deal with it and carry on the battle.
An apology was enough for them, and they just wanted to bury the ghost of their past lives, move on, and live the rest of their lives peacefully. Lorna would have loved it if the women wouldn’t have signed, but she saw how they were struggling; she saw how wrecked they all were from inside, and she decided that she wouldn’t come in the way and let the ladies have it their way. She herself gave Amy the pen and asked to go ahead and sign the contract. As far as Lorna is concerned, we don’t think that she is going to sign the contract and waive her right to sue the state in the future.
Who Had Killed Father Percy?
Colman Akande had gone to his mother with Lorna because he wanted to know if she had paid money to Father Percy for adopting him, like other parents had. Colman’s mother told him that she, too, “donated” a huge amount to the church because of what the church had done for them. Colman’s family had to face a lot of racism when they came to the country, and the church was the only place that showed some kind of acceptance, though that kindness came at a price. Colman’s mother gave him all the documents she had from that time, and there was a visiting card from a man named Ignatius J. McCullen in it. Colman’s mother told him that he and Father Percy worked together back in the day, and the man had helped them during the entire adoption process.
Colman took that visiting card and went to meet Aiden at the police station and asked him to run the name in the online database and see if he could find anything about this man. Aiden had also reached a stage where he just didn’t want to sit on the sidelines but wanted to help the aggrieved. Aiden had stayed quiet for the longest time because he knew that he stood no chance in front of such powerful institutions, but now he wanted to at least give it a shot. He wanted to do it for his conscience, though he knew that he would have to pay a huge cost for it and that the people behind the scam would probably destroy his career.
Conor found out that this man, Ignatius J. McCullen, now went by the name of James, and he was the founding member of the Wisconsin Holy Cross Adoption Agency, which was formerly the House of the Holy Shepherd. This man was also listed on Interpol, and from illegal abortion clinics to running a network of human trafficking, he was involved in a lot of dubious activities. Colman looked at the photograph that was available online, and he realized that this man was none other than James Coyle, the person who had been helping Niamh all along to strike a deal with the state.
The perpetrator was working right under the noses of the women, and nobody was able to realize who he was. It could be very well possible that James Coyle was behind Father Percy’s murder, though why he would do that is not yet ascertainable at this stage. Maybe James Coyle felt threatened due to something that the Father would have done, and he would have realized that Father Percy’s existence was going to be an issue for him. But whatever it was, Colman now had an actual lead, and in the next episode of The Woman in the Wall, we would see him following up on it and making the man pay for his sins.
Is Aoife Cassidy Still Alive?
At the end of The Woman in the Wall Episode 5, another twist came when Lorna was told by Carmel, one of the women who stayed at the laundry together with Niamh’s mother, that she knew Aoife Cassidy and she wasn’t surprised that she had come to help Lorna. Carmel told Lorna that Aoife suffered from something like Lazarus syndrome, where her heart stopped beating, and people felt that she died, but she came back to life. Carmel said that the doctors had some fancy name for it, but she knew that it was a miracle. It struck Lorna that probably that is how she would have vanished from behind the walls. Lorna realized that Aoife was not dead when she found her in the house that morning, but what confused her was that if she was still alive, then why hadn’t she approached Lorna and told her whatever she wanted to reveal?
Lorna and Colman, both, had made big breakthroughs, and now we would see them going after the perpetrators and making sure that they were put behind bars. We will get to know in the next episode if Lorna is able to find Aoife and if they are able to gather enough evidence to initiate a formal investigation against lobbyist James Coyle. It won’t be an easy task for sure since James Coyle seemed to be an influential man, but we don’t think that it is going to stop Colman and Lorna from taking action against him.
