Police: Suspect confesses in killings of two 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 the small communities the women served.

Rodney Earl 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.

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.

He said police work and tips from the community led police to Sanders.

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 also convicted of armed robbery in Holmes County, sentenced in 1986 and served six years, Fisher said.

The nuns were known for their generosity and commitment to improving health care for the poor, and people who knew them have been grappling with the question of 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 at St. Thomas Catholic Church in Lexington where Held and Merrill led Bible study for years, said the Rev. Greg Plata, sacramental minister at St. Thomas.

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

Authorities said Sanders was being held pending a court appearance.

Strain said he did not know whether Sanders had an attorney. He said authorities 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.

But the family still has to deal with the loss. Merrill said his aunt would want forgiveness for whoever killed her, but it’s not that easy.

“I’m not as strong as my aunt. I don’t know if I’m capable of completely forgiving. I can have sympathy,” he said.

Merrill said he would not support the death penalty if Sanders were to be convicted, but that decision will ultimately be made by the people in Mississippi.

In the poverty-stricken county where the 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-year-old former factory worker who has diabetes and was a patient of Merrill’s. “There’s something wrong with the world.”

Held said in an interview with her order’s magazine that she was committed to ending racism and poverty.

ROGELIO V. SOLIS / ASSOCIATED PRESS A verse of Scripture, a cross, three candles and some faded flowers lay on a tree root across from the Durant, Miss., home of Sister Margaret Held and Sister Paula Merrill, on Friday.

Authorities believe Rodney Earl Sanders allegedly acted alone.