Man charged in deaths of two Mississippi nuns
JACKSON, Miss. — Authorities in Mississippi arrested a man in connection with the murders of two 68-year-old nuns in Holmes County on Friday night.
Rodney Earl Sanders, 46, was charged with two counts of capital murder in the deaths of Sister Paula Merrill and Sister Margaret Held.
The nuns were the victims of what authorities have described as a brutal and personal crime. Although the women were stabbed, the cause of their deaths is pending autopsies.
“Sanders was developed as a person of interest early on in the investigation,” MBI Lt. Colonel Jimmy Jordan said in a released statement. “With the cooperation of the Durant and Kosciusko Police Departments, Holmes County Sheriff’s Department and the Attorney General Office this heinous crime has been resolved.”
Sander, who is being held at an undisclosed detention center, awaits his initial court appearance.
Sister Paula, a nurse practitioner with the Sisters of Charity of Nazareth in Kentucky, and Sister Margaret, a nurse practitioner with the School Sisters of St. Francis in Milwaukee, were found dead Thursday in their home in Durant, a town of roughly 2,600 north of Jackson.
A $2,500 Crime Stoppers reward was increased to $22,500 Friday by the Mississippi Department of Public Safety.
"A small town like this, it's devastating our community," Durant Assistant Police Chief James Lee said. "People are concerned, but to our credit, it takes a tragedy to outline heroes. People from all denominations, all faiths, all races have pulled together in Durant and they're helping each other."
While the citizens deal with the fear and the sadness, the authorities deal with that as well as the details.
When asked how this case compares with others he's worked on, Holmes County Coroner Dexter Howard said, "It's one of the worst I've seen."
Authorities said that after both women failed to show up for work Thursday morning, an officer went to check on them and discovered their bodies at around 10:04 a.m. Lee and other officers secured the scene and called for the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation to assist.
Howard was called to the scene by Durant Police Department at 11:02 a.m.
Police are mum about whether the women's work with the church is related to the attack. Authorities have said robbery could be a motive given that the women worked at the Lexington Medical Clinic, where they treated thousands of patients a year, regardless of their ability to pay.
"There are a number of potential motives that have not been ruled out," MBI spokesman Warren Strain said. "To say definitively that robbery is the motive would be premature."
Holmes County Sheriff Willie March said he can't remember anything like this in Holmes County.
"We've had a number of killings in Holmes County, but two people at the same time. ..."
March said even as officers and deputies canvas the community for information, there's not a lot of street chatter about the crime and who the killer or killers might be.
"It's hard to say if it was one person or more than one," he said. "I almost want to say it's one because not too many people are talking about it. When it's one person, it's harder to track down than when it's two or three people."
Authorities are attempting to find any possible connections between the killer or killers and the victims.
"I think he knew them, and he's a local person," March said, adding that the violent nature of the crime doesn't mean that the intent was to kill the women.
"If they didn't give up what (the attacker) wanted, it could turn violent," he said.
Several items recovered at the crime scene have been submitted to the state crime lab for processing, Strain said.
Contributed: Charles Ventura.
Follow Therese Apel on Twitter: @TRex21