Wife of nuns' slaying suspect: 'I pray for my husband'

DURANT - Marie Sanders has never understood so well what it means to be part of the family of God. 

The stately, dignified woman of faith and mother of three has been fighting her own battles over the last week and a half since husband Rodney Sanders, 46, was arrested and charged with two counts of capital murder in the Aug. 25 stabbing deaths of Durant nuns Sister Margaret Held and Sister Paula Merrill.

Marie went to her husband's hearing Aug. 29 not knowing what to expect. She'd never done this before.

"I didn't think I'd be able to face that family. But when I walked in, it was like I was looking at the faces of angels," she said.

She's not one to show a lot of emotion, in spite of the moment caught on camera in which she cried with Held and Merrill's church family and they comforted her. She choked up a little again as she talked about the love and support the men and women of the Catholic church showed her. She knew God's love before, but hadn't ever seen it in such living action.

"They told me they love me, they love (Rodney), they said God forgives. That was the hardest thing, I didn't think I could make it because I didn't know how to say I'm sorry to this family, because that was such a great loss. These were women of God, do you hear me?" she said.

"But for them to embrace me the way they did and tell me that they appreciate me, they love me, God loves me, they forgive, the sisters would want them to forgive ... that was a hard pill to swallow."

Childhood sweethearts

Marie and Rodney were married in 2012, but they've loved each other all their lives. They dated when they were in school, until Rodney moved to Iowa. But there are connections that years and miles can't unravel.

"I always felt like he was my soulmate because I have always wondered where he was," Marie said of the decades they spent apart. "He has my name tattooed on his arm, and it's been there since we were younger."

She said the couple still acted like newlyweds, even having "date night" every Thursday. Neither Rodney nor Marie were raised religious, but not many months after Marie joined the church in 2011, Rodney moved back and they were soon married. She encouraged him to look to God to help him with some of his demons. A felon, he also had been arrested numerous times for DUI.

She knew that helping with Rodney's broken places was beyond her ability. When Rodney was 5 years old, he saw his mother killed in front of his eyes, Marie said. He grew up feeling he had to protect his sister and brother.

"I told him, 'That was not your fault, there's nothing you could have done to prevent that from happening. You were only 5,'" she said. "He has a lot on the inside, dealing with that.

"Rodney's not a talker. You can sense when something is bothering a person, and I told him, 'No matter what, you can talk to me. I'm your wife, you're my best friend, you should be able to talk to me.' But you can't make a person talk, so buildup after buildup after buildup, he just didn't understand how to talk to people."

He wasn't outspoken about it, but Marie said Rodney and God seemed to be starting to find common ground.

"He'd say, 'Just because you don't see me on my knees, it doesn't mean I'm not praying,'" she said. "Some things are just not meant to be spoken to others, they're meant to be taken to God, because where man won't forgive you, God will forgive you. But you have to repent."

Time to repent

Marie doesn't want to talk about whether she thinks Rodney committed the brutal killings. She knows he drinks, and at some point had at least dabbled in drugs, and is quick to point out that everyone has a past.

But she remembers the words she said to him in the moments they had together on the day of his initial appearance.

"Repentance time. I told him, 'It's time to repent for this. And for whatever has been hindering you for all these years, it's repentance time.' That's all I could say. It's all that needs to be said, because he knows I love him."

The couple had a fight a few days before Merrill and Held were killed, and Rodney left their Kosciusko home to stay with family. Marie said it wasn't unusual for the two of them to take some time out from each other after they fought, and he would go stay in the shed behind a relative's home just across the street from where the sisters lived in Durant. The fight wasn't anything they weren't going to get over, Marie said, and she doesn't know what could have gone so wrong. She has replayed that night in her head.

"There was nothing I could do ... I wasn't there. I wasn't there. I beat myself and I beat myself ... if I'd have gone looking for him that Wednesday night, maybe he wouldn't be tied up in this mess," she said.

But one thing doesn't change: Those wedding vows to her soulmate. "For better or for worse, until death do us part." The way she clings to God during a time that would drive most people over the edge is a clear testimony to the truth of Philippians 4:7, which talks about "the peace that passes understanding."

"I'm still under an obligation, a vow to God. That's still my husband, and I still love my husband," she said. "What am I supposed to do? Run off to Hawaii with another? No. I turn to my Father. I have a vow, I have a commitment, and God is on my side. What else do I need?"

Faith, coping

For all the faith that holds Marie up under the circumstances, taking things one day at a time seems to be her best coping mechanism. She hasn't processed exactly what the future holds, but chooses to give it back to the one she believes holds the future.

"You know what is so hard for me? At night. When I have to walk in that room and he's not sitting in that chair to ask me, 'What did you bring me to eat? What you going to cook tonight?'" she said, laughing a little and then choking down tears. "I've even started writing him a letter about my emotions, because that's the only way I can get through. For me to even halfway think that my husband will never sit in that chair again ... But I know God is able, and I have to keep my strength in the Lord through this."

Missing her husband doesn't take away from the great loss she feels for Held's and Merrill's families, either. She is comforted by the forgiveness shown to her by their church family, but it's still a gaping wound.

"Even so, it still hurts. These were important ladies. These were lives taken, and I can't say that I'm feeling OK by them forgiving, because I don't feel OK. I'm blessed to know that they accept my apology, but I can only imagine how they feel," she said. "But it was wonderful to see the reactions, the love that they showed me, and they didn't frown when Rodney came in.

"That's God's love. That's Agape love. That's the kind of love that God wants us to show people now and that's what's wrong with the world. People don't love."

Picking up the pieces

Marie said she tries to ignore the negative things people say to her, especially over social media.

"Nobody knows how it feels until they've walked in those shoes. I tell everyone, 'Never say never,' because you never know what's going through a person's mind, never," she said. "I never thought I would be here."

She tries to find God in the little things. One night as she took a walk to try to clear her head, a cat joined her.

"He was rubbing against my legs, and I said, 'Go on now, you're going to make me fall,'" she said. "And I kept on walking and he kept on walking, and I stopped and said, 'Lord, I know you can send angels anywhere, but is there an angel in this cat?'"

The cat followed her home. He doesn't have a name yet, but he keeps her company. Meanwhile, she trusts God to keep bridging the gap between himself and her husband. She clings to that hope like an anchor in a storm.

"Whether you're in the jail for the rest of your life, or in the jail for 10 days, God is everywhere and he's going to work on you until he gets you where he wants you to be," she said. "I'm praying for my husband, and I know it's going to work out. It's not going to work out today, it's not going to work out next week. God is working on him, and he's going to be a mighty man of God and he's going to have a testimony."

Contact Therese Apel at tapel@gannett.com. Follow her on Facebook and Twitter.