Man faces capital murder charges in deaths of two Mississippi nuns

A man has been arrested and charged with two counts of capital murder in connection with the deaths of two nuns who were slain in Mississippi, police said.

Rodney Earl Sanders, 46, of Kosciusko, was charged in the deaths of Sister Margaret Held and Sister Paula Merrill, both 68, Mississippi Department of Public Safety spokesman Warren Strain said in a statement released late Friday night.

Their bodies were discovered Thursday after the women, both nurse practioners, failed to show up for work at a medical clinic in Lexington, about 10 miles from where they lived.

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

Sanders was being held in an undisclosed detention center awaiting his initial court appearance.

Meanwhile, in the poverty-stricken Mississippi county where the two nuns were slain, forgiveness for their killer is hard to find.

Held and Merrill dedicated their lives to providing healthcare to people in the poorest county in the state. And as authorities sought the killer, many residents wondered how they will fill the absence the women’s deaths have left.

“Right now, I don’t see no forgiveness on my heart,” said Joe Morgan Jr., a 58-year-old former factory worker who has diabetes and was a patient of Merrill’s at Lexington Medical Clinic.

He said Merrill would want him to forgive whomever killed the women, but he hopes the perpetrator is arrested, convicted and executed.

“She doesn’t deserve to die like this, doing God’s work,” Morgan said, shaking his head. “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, but police haven’t disclosed a motive.

Authorities have not said how the women were killed, but the Rev. Greg Plata of St. Thomas Catholic Church in Lexington, where the nuns led Bible study for years, said police told him they were stabbed.

The state posted a reward of $20,000 for information leading to an arrest and conviction.

Plata said both nuns’ religious communities have asked that people pray for the killer or killers. Asked about people’s struggles to forgive, the priest said: “Forgiveness is at the heart of being a Christian. Look at Jesus on the cross: `Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.’”

On Friday, a handwritten sign on the front door of Lexington Medical Clinic said it was closed until Monday.

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

The slayings did more than shock people and plunge the county into mourning. They leave a gaping hole in what was already a strapped healthcare system.

Dr. Elias Abboud, who worked with the sisters for years and helped build the clinic, said it provided about 25% of all medical care in the county.

The two nuns cultivated relationships with drug company representatives, who often left extra free samples, according to clinic manager Lisa Dew.

“This is a poor area, and they dignified those who are poor with outreach and respect for them,” Plata said. “They treated each person as a child of God.”

Merrill’s sister Rosemarie, speaking by telephone from her Stoneham, Mass., home, said her sister had been in Mississippi helping the poor since 1981 and had previously worked in Holly Springs, where she used to ride around on a moped and was instrumental in locating the source of a tuberculosis outbreak.

Merrill was raised in the suburbs of Boston and came from a working-class family, her father a laborer and her mother a bookkeeper, her nephew David said. He said his aunt had worked with Held for many years.

“We always considered Margaret just part of the family,” he said. “The word `sister’ has many meanings, and they fulfilled all of them.”

Rosemarie Merrill said she doesn’t know what will happen to the clinic now and worries about the effect on healthcare in Holmes County. She said her sister and Held would often go into the clinic on Sundays after Mass or on their days off.

“It’s just going to be a disaster,” she said.

Genette Pierce, who works at a home health and hospice business a few doors down from the clinic, said: “Their patients — all of them — they’re going to be lost without them right now.”

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UPDATES:

10:55 p.m.: Updated with new information.

This article was first posted at 10:35 p.m.