In its entirety, it contained only five pages, which purported to chronicle the priest's 32-year record of service with the diocese.

But two documents in the slim file indicated that Father Leo lived at least part of his life in shades of gray. Among the items was a letter that Heineman had written to the Most Rev. Thomas Welsh, then the Bishop of Allentown, in which Father Leo thanked the prelate for placing him in an alcohol-rehabilitation program, or, as it was referred to in passing at Heineman's funeral, "a program for troubled priests."

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There was also an anonymous letter to the bishop, according to The Morning Call, "that complained about Heineman's erratic behavior."

What's more, Dennehy said, his investigation uncovered tales about Father Leo's decades-long struggle with alcohol, a struggle, which according to an autopsy report released after the slaying, seemed to have lingered with him until the day he died.

At the time of his death, the 240-pound priest had a blood-alcohol content of 0.23, according to court records, which was then more than twice the level at which a person is deemed too drunk to drive a car in Pennsylvania. He had a blood-alcohol content of 0.85 in his stomach, all of which supported testimony that the priest who had once been sent to alcohol rehab had been drinking right up until the last few minutes of his life.

There were also suggestions, says Dennehy, that Father Leo struggled, to put it delicately, with his vow of celibacy, or at least with the concept of remaining aloof to the lures of the opposite sex. The way Dennehy puts it, "the guy had problems with getting boisterous and hitting on women," and as a result, he claims, the bishop found himself compelled to move Father Leo from parish to parish until finally, there was no place left to move him but St. Mauritius, which he described as a remote province of the diocese.

Matt Kerr, a spokesman for the Diocese of Allentown, disputes that last part. "It isn't Siberia," he says of St. Mauritius. As for the other allegations, the allegations of alcohol-fueled belligerence and inappropriate behavior with women, Kerr contends that there simply are no records to either support or refute such accusations. "That was a different era," he says, a time before sex scandals forced the church to be as scrupulous in its recordkeeping as it aspired to be in its practices.