MS law enforcement officers are investigating the stabbing death of two nuns.
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They were found dead Thursday morning after 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. The Mississippi Department of Public Safety increased the reward by $20,000 on Friday, August 26th – on top of the $2,500 reward put up by the Holmes County Crime Stoppers. The nuns worked as nurses at the Lexington Medical Clinic, where Dew was the office manager. Dew.
The sisters’ violent death, a stark contrast to the compassion they displayed in life, spent decades helping the poor.
According to Durant Police Department, the nuns’ vehicle went missing from the home they shared on Castalian Springs Road, following the killing. These faithful nuns worked tirelessly at the Lexington Medical Clinic to make the Holmes County community and MS a better place to live.
The School Sisters of St. Francis here in Milwaukee, say a service will first be held for both nuns in MS before they’ll be brought to their respective homes.
They were identified as Sister Margaret Held and Sister Paula Merrill.
Sister Paula Merrill, a nurse practitioner with the Sisters of Charity of Nazareth, in Kentucky, and Sister Margaret Held, a nurse practitioner with the School Sisters of St. Francis, in Milwaukee, were stabbed to death, authorities said.
A manhunt is underway in rural MS for the killer of two nuns who were found dead in their home Thursday morning in the town of Durant. Asked about people’s struggles to forgive, the priest said: “Forgiveness is at the heart of being a Christian”.
On Friday, a handwritten sign on the front door of Lexington Medical Clinic said it was closed until Monday. With 44 percent of its residents living in poverty, Holmes is the seventh-poorest county in America, according to the Census Bureau. “They came here to MS to outreach to the poor using their medical services”, said Father Gregory Plata, who knew the women well and was a friend to the victims.
In 2011 she told the School Sisters publication Alive that “a dream and a cause” brought her to MS but that she “stayed because of the people”. He said his aunt had worked with Held for many years.
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 word “sister” has many meanings, and they fulfilled all of them”.
Two years later, she moved 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.
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“It’s just going to be a disaster”, she said.
