Strain, whose department includes the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation, would neither confirm nor deny the confession.
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The bodies of Held and Sister Paul Merrill of the Sisters of Charity of Nazareth were found Thursday in their MS home. This undated photo provided by Sisters of Charity of Nazareth shows Sister Paula Merrill.
Both nuns were found stabbed to death inside their Durant home.
(AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis).
Sisters Paula Merrill and Margaret Held were known and beloved for their service to the poor and the needy, those close to the women said.
The final hymn, described as Sister Margaret Held’s favorite, was “How Can I Keep from Singing?”
Merrill’s sister Rosemarie, speaking by telephone from her Stoneham, Massachusetts, home, said her sister had been in MS helping the poor since 1981 and had previously worked in Holly Springs, where she used to ride around on a moped and was instrumental in locating the source of a tuberculosis outbreak. She said they would have given the suspect anything he needed.
As he prepares to say goodbye to his aunt this weekend, the nephew of a nun slain in MS said the arrest of 46-year-old man in her killing has given him a “very small sense of relief”.
A wake Sunday evening was scheduled at St. Thomas Church in Lexington where the nuns led Bible study.
A mass will also be held Monday in Jackson.
“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”.
“Sanders was developed as a person of interest early on in the investigation”, Lieutenant Colonel Jimmy Jordan, director of the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation, said in the statement.
State Department of Public Safety spokesman Warren Strain tells The Associated Press that as of Saturday, “investigators believe Sanders acted alone”.
Sanders confessed in the interrogation to the killings but gave no reason for the crimes, Mr March said.
A spokeswoman for the Mississippi Department of Corrections says Sanders was out on probation after being convicted a year ago of felony DUI.
It’s reported Sanders was convicted a year ago of a driving under the influence offence but was released from prison and is now on probation.
She says he was also convicted of armed robbery and served six years.
People who knew the nuns, known for their generosity and commitment to improving health care for the poor, have been grappling with why anyone would want to kill them.
Authorities said Sanders was being held in a detention centre pending a court appearance.
As ABC News previously reported, Strain said Sanders is “not quite homeless”, but is “nomadic”.
Authorities have not released information on how he was implicated or what his connection to Merrill and Held might have been, but Holmes County Sheriff Willie March said Saturday he had been brief on the interrogation.
But the family still has to deal with the loss.
David Merrill says he agrees with the idea of forgiveness and trying to forgive the person who killed his aunt and her fellow nun.
Although Sanders could face the death penalty if convicted, David Merrill said his aunt would have wanted to help Sanders and wouldn’t have wanted him put to death.
The order Held belonged to – School Sisters of St. Francis – thanked law enforcement officers working on the case and thanked people who offered prayers and support in the wake of the sisters’ deaths.
In the poverty-stricken MS county where the two nuns were slain, many people were still mourning their loss.
The bodies of Held and Merrill were found Thursday in their home in Durant, Mississippi.
Genette Pierce, who works at a home health and hospice business a few doors down from the clinic, said: “Their patients – all of them – they’re going to be lost without them right now”.
The women gave flu shots, dispensed insulin and provided other medical care for children and adults – people who knew the nuns don’t know why anyone would kill them.
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Their deaths have left a gaping hole in the community.
