Abduction of nuns sparks manhunt

NORFOLK, Va. -- The mutilated body of a nun was found Wednesday in a parking lot here Wednesday, three days after she and another nun were abducted in Georgia by a man suspected of slaying his father, authorities said.

The second nun was located in a motel Tuesday, shaken but unharmed, Norfolk police said.

Adrian O'Neill Robinson, 25, was last seen early Wednesday when Norfolk police spotted him driving alone on a dead-end street in the nuns' car. He fled on foot into a marshy area and a search was under way.

Police said human remains were discovered in the car, but did not describe what they were.

A half-hour later in nearby Virginia Beach, the body of Sister Philomena Fogarty, who was in her 60s, was found in an office building parking lot. Authorities said her head, hands and feet had been cut off.

The other nun, 72-year-old Lucie Kristofik, was found Tuesday at a Norfolk hotel. She told authorities Robinson had left the motel sometime Tuesday with Fogarty.

Norfolk police spokesman Chris Amos said no additional murder charges had been filed against Robinson, but said he is the primary suspect in Fogarty's slaying.

He also said a rifle was found in the hotel room.

Police have searched for Robinson since Sunday, when he allegedly shot his 56-year-old father, Henry, at the home they shared in the western Georgia town of Hamilton.

Family members told authorities that Robinson accused his father of sexually assaulting him before shooting him 16 times. He then allegedly abducted the nuns, apparently to use their car.

Kristofik told investigators that the two women came home Sunday to find Robinson inside their home. She said he took $900 in cash, bound and gagged them, put them in their car and drove to Norfolk, some 570 miles away.

"We don't know if there are any indications that he knew two old ladies would pull up or if this was a sheer crime of opportunity on his part," Amos said.

The search for Robinson focused on the wooded marsh where he was last seen, an area less than a mile from Norfolk State University.

University administrators closed the campus while police searched building to building. No one was to be allowed on campus without proper identification until early Thursday.

Police issued national alerts for Robinson's capture and went through Norfolk streets distributing brightly colored flyers with his picture.

Amos said Robinson is familiar with southeastern Virginia because he briefly attended Old Dominion University in 1997. He also is wanted in Norfolk on a 1998 forgery charge.

The FBI said in a statement that Robinson could be traveling to Stamford, Conn., with the intention of killing his estranged wife. Police said Robinson faces pending assault and burglary charges in Stamford.

The Rev. Ronnie Madden said the nuns lived alone in a mobile home near Christ the King Catholic Church. Both were members of the order of the Franciscan Missionaries of Mary.

Kristofik was a missionary in Pakistan and has lived in Hamilton for about 12 years, he said. Fogarty was from Ireland and was a missionary in Japan. She had lived in Hamilton about 16 years and was well-known in the community, Madden said.

"Sister Philomena was a saint," he said. "She is probably one of the greatest women I have ever met in my life."

Fogarty would have celebrated her 50th anniversary as a nun this year. Residents said she worked to feed the hungry, sold clothes to pay for senior citizens' utility bills and counseled inmates.

"She was considered the Mother Teresa of Harris County," said police Chief Dan Colberg.