The wife of a Mississippi man charged with killing two nuns says she and her husband argued and he left their home a few days before Sisters Paula Merrill and Margaret Held were found stabbed to death in a nearby town.

Marie Sanders told The Clarion-Ledger her faith is sustaining her as 46-year-old Rodney Earl Sanders faces capital murder charges.

In an interview published on Monday, Sanders said her husband left their Kosciusko home after their argument and it wasn't unusual for him to stay in a shed behind a relative's home across the street from the nuns house in Durant.