Sheriff: Suspect confesses in killings of Mississippi nuns
DURANT, Miss. — A man suspected in the slayings of two nuns found dead in their Mississippi home confessed to the killings, a sheriff said Saturday, in the latest twist to a crime that has horrified people in the small communities where the women served.
Rodney Earl Sanders, 46, of Kosciusko, Miss., was arrested and 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.
Willie March, the sheriff of Holmes County where the killings occurred, said Saturday he had been briefed by police from the town where the killings occurred and Mississippi Bureau of Investigation officials who took part in Sanders’ interrogation.
Sanders confessed in the interrogation to the killings and gave no reason for the crimes, March said.
The sheriff said police work and tips from the community led police to Sanders, and the investigation is ongoing.
Durant police could not be reached for comment. Strain, whose department includes the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation, said the organization would neither confirm nor deny Sanders confessed.
Sanders was convicted last year of a felony DUI, said Grace Simmons Fisher, a spokeswoman for the Mississippi Department of Corrections. He was later released from prison and is currently on probation.
Sanders was convicted of armed robbery in Holmes County, sentenced in 1986 and served six years, Fisher said.
Dr. Elias Abboud, the physician who oversees the clinic where the nuns worked as nurse practitioners, said Sanders was not a patient. The minister at St. Thomas Catholic Church, where the nuns led Bible study, said he does not think people at the church knew Sanders.