DETROIT (MI)
MLive.com
The Associated Press
5/31/03 2:24 AM
DETROIT (AP) — After saying mass one Sunday in 1963, the Rev. Harold Depp walked away from his Michigan church and never looked back.
Archdiocese of Detroit officials lost track of Depp’s whereabouts, but in the 1980s they were notified he was serving time in an Alaska prison for child molestation.
On Friday, they were reviewing their records on the priest after the California Attorney General’s office filed a 42-count complaint against Depp, charging him with child molestation, sodomy and oral copulation of a child. He also was charged with failure to register as a sex offender.
Msgr. Walter Hurley, who handles the archdiocese’s abuse cases, told the Detroit Free Press for a Saturday story that Depp’s Detroit file shows no complaints of abuse.
Depp, 72, grew up in the Detroit area and was ordained a priest in 1959. He served during the next four years at St. Linus in Dearborn Heights; St. Athanasius in Roseville; and Church of the Madonna in Detroit.
Hurley said Depp did not request a Vatican dismissal from the priesthood and is still considered a priest, even though he might not have been working as one. The archdiocese has not financially supported Depp since 1963.
