PIONEER

‘Nun With a Gun’ Dead at 83

She made history as one of the FBI’s first women special agents, and her religious calling earned her the nickname “Nun With a Gun.”

Joanne Pierce Misko, a Roman Catholic nun who was one of the first women sworn into the FBI as a special agent, has died at 83. Misko died in a hospital in Wheatfield, New York, from a lung infection, according to her brother. She made history as one of two women sworn in as special agents for the FBI in 1972, becoming known as the “Nun With a Gun” by media. She joined the FBI as a researcher in 1970, one of the few jobs a woman could serve in at the time. Misko had assignments at Wounded Knee, South Dakota, Pittsburgh, Washington, D.C. and Miami. According to The New York Times, Misko and the other woman, Susan Roley Malone, roomed together during training, and became friends. Misko won the Lifetime Law Enforcement Achievement Award from the American Police Hall of Fame in 1995, having retired a year earlier.