The two women were found when workers at the clinic called police when they did not show up Thursday morning, the Catholic Diocese of Jackson confirmed in a statement.
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Durant Assistant Police Chief James Lee sad it’s too early to say how the nuns died, but it does not appear that they were shot.
Police said there were signs of a break-in at the property in Durant, Holmes County, and that their vehicle was missing.
A Mississippi Bureau of Investigation agent takes a bag with evidence from the Durant, Miss., home of two slain Catholic nuns who worked as nurses at the Lexington Medical Clinic, to her vehicle, Thursday, Aug. 25, 2016.
While it is believed the nuns were homicide victims, it is not clear whether their religious work had anything do with their deaths.
“I have an terrible feeling in the pit of my stomach”, said Lee, the assistant police chief, who is Catholic.
Sister Held was a nurse practitioner, and was a part of the School Sisters of Saint Francis, an global congregation based in Milwaukee.
Held, 68, 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.
“Holmes County will really miss her and Sister Margaret”, she said. “They would just keep their nose to the grindstone, doing what had to be done”, he said. CBS affiliate WJTV in Jackson, MS said Sisters Margaret Held and Paula Merrill were found stabbed inside their home. “These faithful nuns worked tirelessly at the Lexington Medical Clinic to make the Holmes County community and MS a better place to live”. “They challenge and inspire me”, Held says in the video.
“She was planning a trip here next month and we were talking about what we were going to do”, Rosemarie Merrill, 74, said.
Archbishop Joseph E. Kurtz, who released a statement late August 25, said the sisters “leave a legacy of dedication to their consecrated life and deep compassion for those they served”. Both were nurse practitioners.
Sister of Charity of Nazareth Paula Merrill is pictured in her medical clinic in rural MS in this undated photo.
A native of Massachusetts, Merrill moved in 1981 to MS, where she has lived and worked since.
Michael O’Loughlin with the School Sisters of St. Francis met Sister Held during a visit to Wisconsin. “They absolutely loved the people in their community”, Bishop Joseph Kopacz of the Catholic Diocese of Jackson tells the Clarion-Ledger. Merrill was a member of Sisters of Charity.
Many patients come to them from surrounding counties because “we are the only ones that will see them”, she said.
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“Pray in gratitude for the precious lives of Sisters Paula and Margaret … they served the poor so well”. The other is part of the School Sisters of St. Francis in Milwaukee.
