Photos: Frank Nicholai mourns daughter's death

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At his Anchorage home on Wednesday, April 15, 2015, Frank Nicholai is working to complete a Russian Orthodox cross, used as a gravestone, for his daughter, Megan Johnson, who was found dead April 12 outside a church less than a mile from her Anchorage home. a 45-year-old registered sex offender who was with Johnson the night before she died has been charged with sexual abuse of a minor.

No matter when, no matter where, when Frank Nicholai gets a call asking if he will build a traditional Russian Orthodox cross or coffin for someone from his home region in Western Alaska, he does it.

"I can't say no to anyone who asks," he said in his apartment in Anchorage's Muldoon neighborhood on Wednesday morning. "It comes from here," he said, patting his heart.

On Wednesday, Nicholai, who hails from the Kuskokwim River village of Napaskiak, spent the day finishing a wooden Russian Orthodox cross for his daughter, Megan Sophie Johnson, who was found dead Sunday afternoon in an alcove at Muldoon Road Baptist Church, less than half a mile from Nicholai's house.

The cross, leaning against his living room wall, painted white with delicate pink trim and blue lettering, was almost done. On it were the dates of Megan's birth and death. She died 11 days before her 15th birthday.

Read more: Man who builds crosses for Western Alaska funerals now mourns loss of teen daughter