Sister Karen Klimczak, Requiescat in pace.

A beloved servant of God has been murdered by one of those she tried to help. Cry for his soul, not hers. She now rests in the arms of God.

Buffalo News: Missing nun dead; man charged
PAROLEE LIVED IN HER SHELTER

Just as 600 people prayed for a miracle that a missing nun who devoted her life to nonviolence would be found alive, authorities made the devastating announcement Monday evening that her body had been recovered and that an ex-convict she tried to help was arrested in her murder.

"We've lost a tireless champion of the people," said Mayor Byron W. Brown while flanked by the detectives who solved the tragic case.

Police said Sister Karen Klimczak, 62, who had lived and worked at Bissonette House - a halfway house on 335 Grider St. named for the Rev. A Joseph Bissonette, a priest brutally murdered in the same building in 1987 - was killed by one of the parolees staying there.

"It is a tremendous tragedy that this repeats itself 19 years later," Brown said.

Authorities identified the suspect in Sister Karen's murder as Craig M. Lynch, 36, who was released from Wyoming Correctional Facility in January after serving a sentence for an auto theft conviction.

Lynch led police to the nun's body Monday afternoon, police said, while a massive search by more than 50 local and federal law enforcement officers and 100 volunteers was under way in the streets surrounding the East Side halfway house.

Sister Karen was last seen alive at about 9:45 p.m. on Good Friday at the halfway house, authorities said.

Police say they now believe that Lynch had broken into Sister Karen's upstairs room at Bissonette House to try to steal her cell phone when he heard her coming to the door.

Detective Sgt. James P. Lonergan, who headed the investigation, said Lynch hid behind the door, then grabbed the nun from behind and attacked her.

Police believe she was suffocated but were awaiting the results of an autopsy to say for sure how she was killed.