Two Nuns Margaret Held And Paula Merrill Stabbed To Death In Mississippi

Two nuns working as nurses and helping the poor in rural Mississippi have been found murdered in their home.

Although the cause of the deaths was not officially revealed, a local priest said the women had been stabbed.

The Reverend Greg Plata said Sister Margaret Held and Sister Paula Merrill, both 68, were "two of the sweetest, most gentle women you can imagine".

"Their vocation was helping the poor," he said.

The women's bodies were found on Thursday morning after they failed to appear at a nearby clinic where they provided flu jabs, insulin and other medical care for children and adults who cannot afford to pay for medicine.

Police said they may have been killed during a break-in and theft of their car. The blue Toyota Corolla was found later in the evening abandoned and undamaged on a nearby street.

Dr Elias Abboud, who worked with the sisters for years and helped build the Lexington Medical Clinic, said he did not know what will happen to the facility following 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," Dr Abboud said.

"For somebody to come and do this horrible act, we are all shocked," he added.

Dr Abboud said the clinic provided about one quarter of all the medical care in the county.

The two nuns provided almost all the care at the clinic and cultivated relationships with drug company representatives, who often left extra free samples, the clinic's manager Lisa Dew said.

Sister Merrill, who was from Massachusetts and had joined the Sisters of Charity of Nazareth in Kentucky order in 1979, had worked in Mississippi for more than 30 years.

When asked about her ministry for an article, she said: "We simply do what we can wherever God places us."

Sister 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.

She moved to Mississippi in the 1980s.

The sisters were involved in caring for the community after Hurricane Katrina in 2005 left much of the town without power for weeks.

They shared their house and cooking facilities with those left with nothing, because their gas stove still worked.

Local supporter Sam Sample said the nuns could stretch resources and routinely produced great food from what seemed like a very small home garden.

"These ladies didn't require any fanfare, any bells and whistles. They would just keep their nose to the grindstone, doing what had to be done," he said.

The Roman Catholic community in Mississippi is relatively small with some 108,000 following the faith in a population of almost three million people.