In the rural Mississippi community they served, two nuns found slain in their home “would do anything for anybody,” friends said.
Did that cost them their lives?
The women, both 68 and nurse practitioners, were found dead Thursday morning when they didn’t report to work at the nearby clinic where they provided flu shots, insulin and other medical care for children and adults who couldn’t afford it.
They were identified as Sister Margaret Held and Sister Paula Merrill.
Dr. Elias Abboud, who worked with the sisters for years and helped build the Lexington Medical Clinic, said he’s not sure what will happen to the facility in light of their deaths.
“I think the community is going to be different after this. You need somebody with that passion to love the people and work in the underserved area,” Abboud said.
“For somebody to come and do this horrible act, we are all shocked,” he added.
Authorities did not release a cause of death, but the Rev. Greg Plata said police told him the nuns were stabbed. Their bodies were taken to a state crime lab for autopsies.
“They were two of the sweetest, most gentle women you can imagine. Their vocation was helping the poor,” said Plata, who oversees a 35-member Catholic church the sisters attended.
Maureen Smith, a spokeswoman for the Catholic Diocese of Jackson, said there were signs of a break-in at the home in Durant and the nuns’ car was taken.
The abandoned Toyota Corolla was found undamaged late Thursday barely a mile from the home and was being towed to the state crime lab near Jackson, Mississippi’s capital city, according to Mississippi Department of Public Safety spokesman Warren Strain. Durant is about 64 miles north of Jackson.
Abboud said the clinic provided about 25 percent of all the medical care in the county, which has a population of about 18,000, according to U.S. Census Bureau estimates for July 2015.
The two nuns provided almost all the care at the clinic and cultivated relationships with drug company representatives, who often left extra free samples, according to clinic manager Lisa Dew.
“I think their absence is going to be felt for a long, long time. Holmes County, it’s one of the poorest in the state,” Dew said. “There’s a lot of people here who depended on them for their care and their medicines. It’s going to be rough.”
Authorities didn’t release a motive and it wasn’t clear if the nuns’ religious work had anything to do with the slayings.
Police Chief John Haynes said officers were canvassing the area and trying to look at video from surveillance cameras in town to see if they spot anything unusual.
The Catholic community in Mississippi is relatively small. Of nearly 3 million people, the diocese said there are about 108,000 Catholics.
Held had been a member of the School Sisters of St. Francis in Milwaukee for 49 years “and lived her ministry caring for and healing the poor,” a statement from the order said.
Milwaukee Archbishop Jerome Listecki said whoever killed Held “robbed not only the School Sisters of St. Francis, but also the entire Church of a woman whose life was spent in service.”
Merrill had worked in Mississippi for more than 30 years, according to the Sisters of Charity of Nazareth in Kentucky. She was from Massachusetts and joined the order in 1979.
Two years later, she moved to the South and found her calling in the Mississippi Delta community, according to a 2010 article in The Journey, a publication by the Sisters of Charity of Nazareth.
During an early part of her career, she helped bring a tuberculosis outbreak under control in the region, Dew said.
Merrill saw children and adults, and helped in other ways.
“We do more social work than medicine sometimes,” Merrill told The Journey. “Sometimes patients are looking for a counselor.”
After Hurricane Katrina left much of the town without power for weeks in 2005, the sisters allowed people to come to their house to cook because they had a gas stove, neighbor Patricia Wyatt-Weatherly said.
They were skilled in stretching resources, and routinely produced amazing dishes out of what seemed like a very small garden at their home, said Sam Sample, lay leader of St. Thomas Catholic Church in Lexington, where the sisters were members. The small congregation called off its weekly Bible study and meal Thursday night.
“They would do anything for anybody. Folks in Holmes County don’t realize the impact it will have without them being here,” Sample said.
The Associated Press contributed to this article
The nuns were an easy hit.for some punk or punks. They let themselves, through their charity work, become too familiar and available to the community they served. The thief or thieves “borrowed” their car for awhile. That behavior usually comes from young punks. This is a shame!
There was no reason for these murders except pure evil. The thieves could have demanded the keys and taken the car without any problems, these were elder women who couldn’t have put up any struggle.
America needs a Renaissance, a cleansing, a spiritual lift up. There are too many bad and sad things going on here. We used to be a kind and compassionate people. It seems to have started to melt down during the turmoil of the Vietnam war demonstrations..
How discusting. When they catch them , they should be drawn n quartered ! We need Trump as president an put a stop to all these killings . A real president that loves America.
There is a struggle no doubt going on; especially at the spiritual level that where it leaves an eternal mark and conversation upon all it meets. May you find “the way” to work in harmony with the Spirit that can divide the marrow from the bone. I take that to be the brain, heart and soul from the bony skull and other thick insensitive shells. God will rectify everything. Our soul (the word in related to desire in Hebrew) is the concern, though. Will that one be happy with what God does, and will keep doing forever?
Sharon your a 100% right I just hope they catch these LOWLIVES SUMGBAGS & BURN THEM TO DEATH
Yes, it is disgusting.
This is a very sad thing that has happened to two fine women. They lived their live’s iin the service of the poor and needy.
Today they are at home in the presence of their Lord. I am sure they will here the words “well done” my good faithful servants.
It is hard to understand how someone could take the life of such caring and loving people.
EVIL people do evil things, but one day, all the evil will be over. soon i hope, im so tired of all the evil
EVIL people do evil things, but one day, all the evil will be over. soon i hope, im so tired of all the evil
I’m an older guy who was schooled by Catholic Nuns…..One could NOT find sweeter, more charitable people.
The BASTARD(S) who did this should be taken out and HUNG….My heart breaks for their loss and the loss to their community…
So very, sad.
Gungadin: Are you ok ? You seem to be having very upsetting highs and lows there son ! ” …….One could NOT find sweeter…….” “The BASTARD(S)………………..should be taken out and HUNG…..My heart breaks……………” You need to pray more and read what Jesus says about these situations in your Bible me thinks !
Shove it Marc , your an idiot 100%
Who ever did this is lower than a snake I was raised at St Francis Orphanage in Pa by the Franciscan nuns I just hope & pray they catch these low lives & not give them life but burn them in the chair they don’t need to take one breath & die a slow death..
When they find the ones who did this cowardly act and prove without a reasonable doubt they did it then they should get the death penalty!!
God will take care of who did this! Maybe not in this world but in the next! To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord and I pray the sisters are smiling down on us from heaven!
Dollars to donuts the perps were BLACK.
They will do nothing if they are black. There has never been so much trouble in America since Obama was made President.