ADMITTED PERV PRIEST FOUND SLAIN IN HIS OWN HOME

PFMLIT CLERGY, General, SEX OFFENDERS AND OTHERS IN POSITIONS OF TRUST

Joseph Pilger, a 78 year old retired Roman Catholic priest who admitted molesting three altar boys in 1995, was found beaten to death at his home.  Pilger was found dead Friday night.  An autopsy found the cause of death to be multiple blunt force injuries.  The death is being investigated as a homicide.  Pilger pleaded guilty to sexual abuse in 1995 for abusing three altar boys in 1968 and 1969, when he was their pastor in Morganfield in western Kentucky.  He was sentenced to five years' probation beginning in January 1995.  Earlier this year, Pilger was named in a sex-abuse lawsuit against the dioceses of Lexington and Covington.

(Lexington, Kentucky)