ST. LOUIS (AP) – Victims of clergy sexual abuse are calling for a wide-scale investigation of sex crime allegations against Catholic priests in Missouri, and whether the church participated in a cover-up.

A victim of clergy abuse, a woman whose son committed suicide after being abused as a teenager, and an attorney for victims spoke Wednesday outside the St. Louis office of Missouri Attorney General Josh Hawley. They called for a grand jury investigation similar to one in Pennsylvania that uncovered more than 1,000 cases of abuse.

David Clohessy of St. Louis, a longtime victims’ rights advocate who was abused as a child, says more than 170 priests in Missouri have been accused in recent decades.

Hawley’s office has said it doesn’t have jurisdiction to launch an investigation, but the victims’ advocates disagree.

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KANSAS CITY (AP) – Priest sex abuse victims are demanding that Missouri and Kansas officials conduct a comprehensive investigation into clergy misconduct and cover-ups similar to the one that revealed widespread problems in Pennsylvania.

Rebecca Randles, who has represented hundreds of victims in priest sexual abuse lawsuits, made the case for the investigation at a news conference Monday with four men who said they had been sexually abused.

Randles said the findings of the Pennsylvania investigation were “shocking” and led her to sit down to try to figure out how many priests in the Kansas City and St. Louis areas had been similarly abusive. She came up with 230 names. But she said only a handful of priests have been charged and one bishop punished.