Man Says He Burglarized Churches

Saying he was moved by the Easter season, a 34-year-old man told Los Angeles police this week that he committed 50 to 100 church burglaries over several years, authorities said.

After hearing his confession and confirming his connection to five burglaries in North Hollywood, detectives arrested Henry Nolkemper, said Det. Joe Suarez of the LAPD’s North Hollywood Division.

At his arraignment in Van Nuys Municipal Court on Thursday, Nolkemper pleaded guilty to five burglaries. Because of prior convictions, he could face a maximum sentence of 129 years, Suarez said.

“He said that over the weekend he was at a meeting with some friends and he came to terms with himself. He said it had to do with repenting over Easter,” Suarez said. “Can you imagine just wanting to clear your soul and all of a sudden you have 129 years to serve?”

Nolkemper, who has tattoos of a demon on his chest and a cross on his pelvis, has a history of convictions dating back to 1985 for robbery, assault with a deadly weapon and burglary in Los Angeles. He was also convicted of felony battery.

Suarez said that Nolkemper had moved around a great deal, but that he had spent the last three weeks in North Hollywood.

Nolkemper implicated an accomplice, Brett Webster, who was also charged in the North Hollywood burglaries, according to Suarez, and is now out on bail.

Although Nolkemper told police he had burglarized 50 to 100 churches, Suarez said, the process of confirming his claims would take some time. Detectives with various police departments are investigating.

But Suarez said that so far, detectives in Burbank had connected him to 10 church break-ins in that city, and other LAPD divisions have come up with five additional burglaries that he might have committed. Authorities in Douglas County, Nev., where Nolkemper has lived at times, have made more matches, Suarez said.

Nolkemper pleaded guilty to breaking into Christ Chapel on Vineland, Valley Seventh-day Adventist Church on Tujunga and the Thirty-Eighth Church of Christ, Scientist on Whitsett in April 1997. The following month, he broke into the First Presbyterian Church of North Hollywood on Colfax Avenue twice.

He admitted stealing an amplifier and speakers worth $950 at the Seventh-day Adventist Church and $2,160 worth of sound equipment from the Christian Science church. He said he sold the items.

Gerrall Walls, pastor of Christ Chapel, said Nolkemper broke a window trying to burgle his church. He was surprised that anyone would even try to break into small churches such as his because there is so little to take.

But Nolkemper’s confession didn’t surprise him. “I grew up in the church and things like this happen all the time,” Walls said. “God does the work.”

Suarez said Nolkemper initially walked into the LAPD’s Hollywood station on Tuesday to confess his crimes. Detectives there did not have any open church burglaries, so they called North Hollywood detectives.

Suarez and his partner, Det. Victor Brown, drove Nolkemper around North Hollywood, asking him to pick out churches he had burgled. Suarez said Nolkemper bragged about the crimes.

“He liked to talk,” Suarez said. “He said people were copying him because of his high-quality work.”

When he accurately described how the churches were burglarized and items taken, they booked him, Suarez said.

“I don’t know what this guy thought,” Suarez said, “but he’s going to be in jail for a lot of Easters, so he’ll have a lot of time to repent.”