Sheriff: Man confesses to killings of 2 nuns in Miss.

Suspect’s motive still not known

DURANT, Miss. — A sheriff says the man arrested in the killing of two nuns confessed to authorities.

Holmes County Sheriff Willie March said Saturday that he had been briefed by police from the town where the killing occurred and by Mississippi Bureau of Investigation officials who took part in the interrogation of Rodney Earl Sanders.

March says Sanders confessed to the killings, but gave no reason for the crimes.

The sheriff says police work and tips from the community led police to Sanders.

Sanders, 46, of Kosciusko, Miss., was charged in the deaths of Sister Margaret Held and Sister Paula Merrill, Mississippi Department of Public Safety spokesman Warren Strain said late Friday. Both women were 68.

People who knew the nuns, known for their generosity and commitment to improving health care for the poor, have been grappling with why anyone would want to kill them.

Dr. Elias Abboud, the physician who oversees the clinic in Lexington where the nuns worked, said Saturday that Sanders was not a patient there.

Sanders was also not known to the small congregation where Held and Merrill had led Bible study for years.

The Rev. Greg Plata, sacramental minister at St. Thomas Catholic Church in Lexington, said Saturday that he does not think people at the church knew Sanders.

The women’s bodies were discovered Thursday after they failed to show up for work in Lexington, about 10 miles from where they lived.

SANDERS

“Sanders was developed as a person of interest early on in the investigation,” Lt. Colonel Jimmy Jordan said.

Authorities said Sanders was being held in an undisclosed detention center pending a court appearance. They have not given any details on why they think Sanders killed the women or whether he knew them.

Authorities don’t anticipate making any other arrests. Strain said “investigators believe Sanders acted alone.”

Merrill’s nephew, David Merrill, speaking by telephone from Stoneham, Mass., said Saturday that the family was “thankful” Sanders is off the streets.

“Nobody else is threatened by this individual. So there’s some relief there,” he said.

Merrill said he wouldn’t support the death penalty if Sanders were to be convicted. The capital murder charge leaves open the possibility that Sanders would face the death penalty, but that determination would be made by prosecutors.

MERRILL HELD

The order Held belonged to — School Sisters of St. Francis — thanked law enforcement officers working on the case.

Meanwhile, in the povertystricken Mississippi county where the two nuns were slain, forgiveness for their killer is hard to find, even if forgiveness is what the victims would have wanted.

“She doesn’t deserve to die like this, doing God’s work,” said Joe Morgan Jr., a 58-yearold former factory worker who has diabetes and was a patient of Merrill’s. “There’s something wrong with the world.”

Both women worked at the clinic, where they gave flu shots, dispensed insulin and provided other medical care for children and adults who couldn’t afford it.

Their stolen car was found abandoned a mile from their home, and there were signs of a break-in.

Authorities have not said how the women were killed, but the Rev. Plata said police told him they were stabbed.

The clinic and the nuns’ home in Durant are in Holmes County, population 18,000. With 44 percent of its residents living in poverty, Holmes is the seventh-poorest county in America, according to the Census Bureau.

The nuns’ deaths leaves a gaping hole in what was already a strapped health care system.

The clinic provided about 25 percent of all medical care in the county, Abboud said.

Merrill’s sister Rosemarie, speaking by telephone from her Stoneham, Mass., home, said her sister had been in Mississippi helping the poor since 1981.

Held — impressionable and idealistic — was committed to ending racism and poverty, according to an interview she did earlier with her order’s magazine.

A former nun who knew Held said she had always been interested in working with the “poorest of the poor.”

Darlene Nicgorski said Saturday that she had recruited Held to come to Holly Springs, Miss., to work as a social worker in a program that ran schools and offered day care to help young mothers finish school.

Nicgorski said the sisters’ deaths don’t make sense. She said they would have given the suspect anything he needed.

The Kentucky-based order where Merrill belonged said Saturday the order is establishing a memorial fund to continue her work — ministering to the poor. The fund will be established through the order’s website at http:// bit.ly/2bIAee8.

Merrill and Held lived and worked together for years and were close friends. Committee.