Hundreds of people turned out on Monday to remember two nuns who were murdered last week in Mississippi.
A service in the Cathedral of St Peter in Jackson followed another on Sunday in Lexington where the two nuns had lived and worked as nurse practitioners. The bodies of Sister Margaret Held and Sister Paula Merrill, both 68, were found in their home last Thursday where they had been stabbed to death.
Rodney Earl Sanders, 46, has been charged with two counts of capital murder. Police say he has confessed to the killings but did not give a reason for the crimes.
The charge is punishable by execution or life in prison but the sisters' religious orders have issued a joint statement appealing against the death penalty.
"We are going to consider the heinous nature of the crime and their wishes," district attorney Akillie Malone-Oliver said on Monday, referring to the families of the sisters and their religious orders.
At the cathedral service on Monday, Fr Greg Plata, from the sisters' church in Lexington, praised them for their lives of service. He also appealed against the death penalty.
"Justice for a heinous crime demands punishment, but it does not demand revenge," Plata said, according to the Catholic Herald.
In the service attended by Bishop Joseph Kopacz and at least 20 other priests from the diocese of Jackson, Plata said the nuns had devoted themselves to the poor. Merrill and Held worked as nurse practitioners at Lexington Medical Clinic where they often treated people without insurance who had diabetes and other chronic conditions.
