The Luzerne County Church Founded by a Murderer

 

Reverend Nikolin and family

In the early morning of April 8, 1926, Mrs. David Rowlands of Seneca Street was awakened by a strange sound. She looked out her bedroom window and across the street to the rectory of the St. Nicholas Russian Orthodox Church. A bright light emanated from a second floor widow of the rectory. The housewife didn't know much about the Russian Orthodox faith, and though it was 3:30 in the morning, her sleepy state led her to believe that Reverend Nikolin was conducting some sort of religious ritual. But then Mrs. Rowlands spotted smoke coming from the rectory. She called Reverend Nikolin on the telephone, but there was no answer. She raced across the street to the home of John Owens, who called the city fire department. When Chief Hochreiter of the Wilkes-Barre city fire department and his men arrived at the church rectory at approximately four o'clock, they had no way of knowing that they were about to step into the scene of one of the most shocking crimes in the history of Luzerne County.

 
Discovery of the Bodies

Chief Hochreiter and the driver of the fire engine, Stanley Williams, were the first to arrive at the priest's residence at 58 Seneca Street, followed closely by the arrival of a second engine. A ladder was quickly placed below the window of the front bedroom. Once inside, the firemen crawled on their hands and knees with flashlights and spotted a body on the floor of the back bedroom. It was Alexis H. Nikolin, the 43-year-old pastor of St. Nicholas Russian Orthodox Church. The reverend's 14-year-old son, Alexander, was found nearby in his bed. Chief Hochreiter, assuming the victims had been overcome by smoke, instructed Williams to call the other firemen up the ladder. 

"It looked like a pretty hot blaze to me and there was plenty of smoke when I landed at the top of these steps," said Chief Hochreiter. "I flashed my light in the front room to the right and saw the figure in the bed. I hollered to the other fellows to go in there and get the man or woman out and I turned to the left and flashed into the small room which turned out to be the boy's bedroom. I saw the man lying on the floor and shouted for help."

When the other firemen entered the house, Captain Jay Maguire located Reverend Nikolin's 32-year-old wife, Mary, in her bed on the front bedroom. While Chief Hochreiter and Stanley Williams extinguished the flames, the other firemen carried the three victims downstairs and attempted to resuscitate them, to no avail. But when the flames were extinguished and the lights turned on, the firemen were startled to discover that the nightclothes of all three victims were covered in blood.
"Our fellows told me on the way down the steps with the bodies they felt their hands were kind of clammy and wet," said Chief Hochreiter, "but they didn't know it was blood until they got down."

Realizing that a crime had been committed, Chief Hochreiter immediately notified the police. Patrolman James Duffy was the first officer to respond, and City Detectives Kittrick, Nolan and Williams arrived shortly thereafter, followed Coroner F.D. Thomas and undertaker Joseph Jendrzyjeski. The murder weapon, a .38-caliber revolver, was found on the floor where the priest's body had fallen. An examination of the bodies revealed that the boy had been shot twice; one bullet had entered his side, and another his temple. Mary had been shot in a similar manner, while the reverend had apparently taken his own life by firing a bullet in his mouth. Police believed that Reverend Nikolin had first killed his son as he slept in her bed before turning the weapon on his wife. He then set his own bed on fire and before using the fifth bullet on himself.

 

 
Searching for a Motive

After the bodies had been turned over to Deputy Coroner Wendell Richards, authorities began to look for a motive. Detectives found that nothing in the house had been moved or disturbed-- not even the bedsheets of the victims-- and they initially concluded there had been no altercation. However, a closer examination of the bodies at the morgue revealed fingernail scratches on Mary's throat. Fingernail marks were also found on the back of the reverend's hand, suggesting that Reverend Nikolin had attempted to strangle her and that she had attempted to fight off her maniacal husband. A clock in Mary's bedroom was stopped at 4:05, the heat from the fire having damaged the nickel plating. 

Oddly, Patrolman Duffy's police report disclosed a strange detail, for which he had no explanation: The mother's left arm was burnt very bad and I cannot understand how that would have happened, although the fire did go through the door leading to her room, but not far enough to reach where she was lying. 

Detectives failed to find a suicide note or any letters which might provide and explanation for Reverend Nikolin's actions. According to neighbors, the Nikolins were said to be a happy family. The reverend and his wife were not known to quarrel, and both had worked tirelessly on behalf of their church and congregation. The son, who was in his first year of junior high school at G.A.R. High School, was a talented violinist and played in the school orchestra, and was known as an exceptional artist. In fact, several of Alex's paintings were found hanging on the walls of the family home on Seneca Street. An examination of the boy's bedroom provided a glimpse of a happy and normal domestic life; a copy of a fantasy novel,The Warlord of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs, was found opened and face down on the mattress, having been put down immediately before falling asleep. A pencil sketch of a radio set, only partially complete, was found atop a bedside table.

 

Alexander Nikolin

 

There also nothing in Reverend Nikolin's past which hinted at his inner demons. A native of Austria, he had arrived in the country in 1903 and became a choir leader at a church in Jersey City. It was there he met his wife, Mary, and was later ordained as a priest in the Russian Orthodox Church. He eventually took charge of a parish in Jeannette, Westmoreland County, before being assigned to parishes in Pittsburgh and Bayonne, New Jersey (ironically, the Russian Orthodox Church in Jeannette was destroyed by fire in February of 1915; newspapers report that it was Reverend Nikolin who discovered the blaze, and raced inside to save the sacred vessels). The Nikolins arrived in Wilkes-Barre in 1924, and Reverend Nikolin was the one who organized the St. Nicholas parish and erected the church and rectory on Seneca Street.

Failing Health

Later that morning, while police continued to search the rectory and the adjoining church for clues, Patrolman John Jacobs, who lived next door, remembered that he had a church caldendar upon which were the names and phone numbers of Mary Nikolin's parents. He attempted to contact them from his home telephone. He finally reached Mary Nikolin's father, Peter Babiak, in Jersey City. The Babiaks were frantic with grief, but said they'd come to Wilkes-Barre at once to take charge of their daughter's remains. 

John Basalyga, president of the church congregation, was able to shed some light on the mysterious motive. According to Basalyga, who was interviewed by a reporter from the Wilkes-Barre Times-Leader, Reverend Nikolin has been despondent over his failing health. He had long suffered from dangerously high blood pressure and had been out on a strict diet by doctors. Yet, despite this measure, Nikolin suffered a stroke during the Christmas season of 1925 which left him partially paralyzed. His physicians advised him to go to a sanitarium for treatment and he remained at Clifton Springs, New York, for six weeks until he was deemed well enough to return home.

On Sunday, April 4, Reverend Nikolin returned to the church pulpit at St. Nicholas and conducted services the day before he murdered his wife and son. On the night of April 7, just hours before the murders, Alexander and his wife visited the family of George Jacob on Hazle Street. Jacob remarked that the reverend appeared in his normal spirits and gave no indication of being under any sort of nervous strain.

The murder house, with original St. Nicholas Church in background

 
Detectives Reach Conclusion, Others Disagree

After twelve hours of mulling over the case, police and fire officials reached the conclusion that Reverend Nikolin murdered his wife and son in a fit of insanity resulting from a protracted illness and then took his own life after attempting to hide his crimes by setting fire to his house. If this is what really happened, then it begs the question: Did Alexander Nikolin commit suicide only as a last resort, after realizing that the fire was taking too long to spread? After thirty minutes, the fire had consumed only the reverend's mattress and hardly scorched the floor and walls. Only two rooms were damaged by the fire, and this damage was minimal (aside from a few exterior renovations, the house at 58 Seneca Street is still standing and looks pretty much the same as it did back in 1926). The reverend's attempt to make the deaths of his wife and son look like an accident seems to suggest that Reverend Nikolin had fully intended to get away with murder, and he had opted for suicide after realizing that the fire department would soon arrive and discover the unburned bodies.

According to Chief of Police Michael Brown, detectives had learned of a mysterious letter regarding the removal of Reverend Nikolin as pastor of the Russian Orthodox Church and a reduction in salary. "I do not have the letter yet although I have been informed that it exists," stated Brown. "I questioned the writer, who was a president of one of the church societies, but he denied that the signature was his. He said that it was a forgery." Brown believed this demotion, coupled with the reverend's health issues, caused his mind to snap.

Others, however, clung to the theory that the Nikolin family had been murdered by someone familiar to them-- a member of their very own congregation. According to a family friend from Jersey City named George Churik, the reverend had received a threatening letter shortly before his death. Although Churik resided to divulge details, he told authorities that there had been "trouble" brewing within the church for some time.

The rectory as it appears today

Premonition of Tragedy

John Babiak, the brother of Mary Nikolin, arrived in Wilkes-Barre on the afternoon of April 9 and made arrangements to have all three bodies shipped to Jersey City. Interestingly, Babiak, who was a member of the fire department in Jersey City, had a strange premonition concerning his sister; his fire company had been called out to answer an alarm just before four o'clock on the morning of April 8-- the same exact time that the Wilkes-Barre fire department answered the alarm on Seneca Street. According to Babiak, he had a disconcerting feeling about Mary and couldn't shake the feeling that she was in danger.  

The bodies of the dead were shipped to Jersey City on the Black Diamond Express and taken to the home of Mary's parents, Mr. and Mrs. Peter Babiak, for the viewing on April 10. The following day they were buried at Jersey City Cemetery after a service at the Church of Peter and Paul on Grand Street.

The Church Today

In 1931, the St. Nicholas congregation, under Rev. Gregory Shutak, began planning a new church building to replace the one constructed under Reverend Alexis H. Nikolin. While this newer Russian Orthodox church dominates the scenery of Seneca Street, the old rectory where the three victims met their demise still stands in the shadow of the church's distinctive cobalt blue onion domes, and the congregation of St. Nicholas Russian Orthodox Church can claim to membership in perhaps the only church in Pennsylvania established by a murderer.

 

Author's Note: Reverend Nikolin wasn't the first pastor in Pennsylvania to commit a murder; in 1796, Cyriacus Spangenberg was hanged in Bedford County for the murder of a member of his own congregation. Also, the site of the Nikolin murders is just a few blocks away from the infamous Loomis Street Haunting of 1890.



Sources:

Uniontown Morning Herald, February 27, 1915.
Wilkes-Barre Times Leader, April 8, 1926.
Wilkes-Barre Times Leader, April 9, 1926.
Wilkes-Barre Times Leader, April 10, 1926.
Wilkes-Barre Evening News, April 10, 1926.
Bayonne Evening News, April 12, 1926.
Wilkes-Barre Times Leader, Nov. 21, 1931.