Sister Margaret Held, a nurse with the School Sisters of St. Francis in Milwaukee, and Sister Paula Merrill, also a nurse with the Sisters of Charity of Nazareth in Kentucky were found stabbed to death in their home in rural Mississippi.
Investigators have charged Rodney Earl Sanders, 46, in connection with their deaths, saying robbery could be a motive, but haven’t drawn a definitive conclusion.
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports:
“Authorities in Mississippi have charged a man with capital murder in the killings this week of two nuns, one of them from Milwaukee.
Law enforcement officials said late Friday night that Rodney Earl Sanders, 46, was developed as a suspect after “an exhaustive interview Friday evening.”
Sanders is charged in the deaths of Sister Margaret Held, a nurse practitioner with the School Sisters of St. Francis in Milwaukee, and Sister Paula Merrill, a nurse practitioner with the Sisters of Charity of Nazareth in Kentucky. They were found dead Thursday in their home on Castalian Springs Road in Durant, a town of roughly 2,600 people, about 60 miles north of Jackson.
Investigators have said robbery could be a motive but it was premature to make a definitive conclusion. Sanders lived in Kosciusko, a city about 15 miles east of Durant.
The two women were stabbed, coroner Dexter Howard said, but a cause of death won’t be determined until the autopsies are complete. Howard called the homicide scene “one of the worst I’ve seen.”
Held grew up in Slinger, where she attended St. Peter’s Catholic School, said her cousin Irene Wolf.”
For more, visit, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
