NAVAJO, N.M. (AP) - Investigators say a vehicle belonging to a nun slain on the Navajo Indian reservation has been recovered in Arizona. A colleague found Sister Marguerite Bartz's body after she didn't show up to Sunday Mass in the community of Navajo on the Arizona-New Mexico border.
Investigators believe the 64-year-old was killed sometime between Halloween night and Sunday morning. FBI spokesman Darrin Jones said Tuesday he can't disclose where in Arizona the vehicle was located. He says authorities hope to release additional details about the case later in the day.
On Monday, authorities asked for the public's help finding Bartz's vehicle, a beige 2005 Honda CR-V with New Jersey license plates. FBI agents also want anyone who spoke with Bartz on Halloween night to contact them.
'Passionate'
The diocese said Bartz was born in Plymouth, Wisconsin, in 1945. 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.
The diocese said there is usually another sister who lives at the residence with Bartz, but she was out of the state at a meeting and Bartz was alone.
"She was known to be a woman always passionate for justice and peace, and the life she lived would tell us that she would respond to this incident with a spirit of forgiveness towards whoever is responsible for these acts," the diocese said in a statement released Monday.