TOLEDO, Ohio — The afternoon before her brutal murder, a Catholic nun expressed anger that an important religious service had been cut short, a witness testified Friday at the trial of the priest accused in the 1980 killing.

The witness, a hospital housekeeper, said Sr. Margaret Ann Pahl, a conservative, no-nonsense nun, seemed annoyed that the liturgy in the hospital chapel on Good Friday, the most solemn day in the church year, had been curtailed.

"Why do they cheat God on what belongs to him?" the housekeeper, Shirley Lucas, quoted the 71-year-old nun as telling her as they stood outside the chapel. "She squeezed my hand and turned around and walked away," Lucas testified.

Prosecutors have suggested that Sr. Margaret Ann, a strong-willed, devout nun, clashed with the Rev. Gerald Robinson, a hospital chaplain, over the way he conducted the afternoon service and that he killed her the next morning as she prepared the chapel for Easter mass.

Lucas testified that she was cleaning the convent at the time of the service and did not know whether Robinson or a second chaplain presided at the service.

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Robinson, 68, is charged with one count of murder in the April 5, 1980, and could face a life sentence if convicted. He maintains his innocence.

Prosecutor wrapped up the first week of testimony in the trial with a string of witnesses who established a time line for the killing. Sr. Margaret Ann's body was found in the chapel sacristy by another nun at 7:45 a.m. on Holy Saturday. A security guard said he walked past the chapel at 6:55 a.m. and saw nothing unusual.

"The doors were propped open and the lights were on," Robert Wodarski testified.

A nursing supervisor testified Thursday that when she tried to enter the chapel to pray at 7 a.m. the doors were unaccountably locked.

A hospital janitor testified Friday that shortly after 7:30 a.m., he heard "running feet" in a hallway that led from the building that housed the chapel to a hallway in the section of the hospital where Robinson lived.

Wardell Langston II said he and a receptionist sitting near him were both struck by the rapid footsteps at 7:30 a.m. on a Saturday of a holiday weekend.

"It was kind of odd because most of the building was empty," he said. Asked if he investigated the noise, Langston said, "I am not a hero."

"My feeling was that there was something wrong and I'm just not a person who will try to fight anything," he explained.

In his opening statement, prosecutor Dean Mandros suggested that the footsteps led straight to Robinson's door, but on the stand, the witness indicated they stopped at the top of the hall, near a stairwell, and not outside the priest's quarters at the end of the hall.