Slain nun's vehicle found in Ariz.; FBI gets tips

Sister Marguerite Bartz, 64, was found dead in her residence at St. Berard Mission Church after she didn't show up to Sunday Mass in the small community of Navajo on the New Mexico-Arizona border.

FBI spokesman Darrin Jones said Bartz's small SUV was found abandoned in a rural area of eastern Arizona on the Navajo reservation. He declined to disclose its condition or discuss any evidence recovered. The vehicle was to be taken to Albuquerque for processing.

FBI investigators believe Bartz was killed sometime between Halloween night and early Sunday. Agents were asking anyone who spoke to Bartz on Saturday to contact them. Jones said they have received tips from people in the community.

There was nothing to indicate Bartz's death had any religious overtones, Jones said.

"I have no reason to believe she was targeted because she was a nun," he said, declining to release further details about Bartz's death. He said autopsy results were expected Wednesday.

Lee Lamb, a spokesman for the Diocese of Gallup, said other religious workers also live in remote reservation locations. He asked them to be extra vigilant — for example, to use extra lighting and identify someone knocking at a door before opening it.

"These are just steps that anyone should be taking. But especially religious people in these remote areas of our diocese, you just want to be vigilant," Lamb said.

Bartz was one of 16 Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament ministering within the Gallup Diocese, which spans 55,000 square miles in New Mexico and Arizona.

Bartz was born in Plymouth, Wis. She entered the order in 1966 from Beaumont, Texas, and professed final vows in 1974. She had ministered in Massachusetts, Louisiana and in several communities around New Mexico before ending up at St. Berard in 1999.

Lamb said those at the parish were shaken up about her death.

There is usually another sister who lives at the residence with Bartz, but she was out of state at a meeting and Bartz was alone.

Sister Patricia Suchalski, president of the 118-year-old Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament, said Bartz was a woman of deep faith, which gave her focus and energy.

Suchalski said she trained to be a sister with Bartz, who chose to work with oppressed black and Native American people.

"She was a woman from the very beginning who was very zealous. Big smile and had a great, great love of God," Suchalski said. "Her love of God was proven in action."

Suchalski said she is traveling to New Mexico to attend Bartz's funeral and meet with the other sisters in the order.

A rosary will be held at St. Michael Indian School student chapel in St. Michael's, Ariz., on Friday. The funeral Mass will be Saturday at Sacred Heart Cathedral in Gallup.