For four years, the Wilde Collection stood out amid the coursing traffic on Yale Street in the Heights — a windowless facade painted black with a hip-looking modern hearse that promised oddities, taxidermy, antiques and art.

Inside the former auto parts shop, the co-owners had created a dark, otherworldly gift shop and gallery set up to provide an immersive experience. Customers returned again and again, sometimes to show out-of-town guests or friends the shifting displays of Victorian artifacts and religious iconography from around the globe as well as critters in jars, outdated medical devices and an atrium populated by majestic white and Indian blue peafowl.

The shop became the stage of a bizarre tragedy during work hours Friday when an arsonist walked in, dumped gasoline on the floor and lit the building on fire. An employee reportedly walked through fire to apprehend the suspect, a man who had previously dated a store employee, and held him with the help of others until police arrested him.

Jonathan Jindra, 34, repeatedly said that God told him to do it, according to witnesses. A hearing officer on Saturday ordered he be detained based on the initial finding that in the year prior to his arrest he was identified with a suspected mental illness or intellectual disability.

Jindra was charged with arson of an occupied building. He remained at the Harris County Jail Sunday and was expected to appear on Monday before a judge.

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The owners lost untold treasures, as well as three of the store’s beloved pets, a three-legged black cat called Nevermore, a hognose snake called Nidhog and a quail named Buttons. Co-owner Lawyer B. Douglas II, his partner and 19-year-old son were displaced by the blaze, which also damaged the three-bedroom home they lived in at back of the store.

Five peafowl, four quails, five Lady Amherst pheasants and one cat — all rescues — survived the blaze and more than a dozen humans escaped, including two relatives of Douglas who escaped the home. Two were briefly treated for smoke inhalation, said co-owner Tyler G. Zottarelle, who was among the survivors who scrambled out. Farrel Sharp, the employee, tackled Jindra as his clothing caught fire. He suffered burns on his hands and some of his hair was singed, Douglas said.

Douglas and his partner were in Salem, Massachusetts when they got the news. Douglas said he could barely stand when he entered the store on Saturday and saw his collection charred.

Community members left flowers and cards at the entrance and dropped off baked goods and casseroles throughout the weekend. They pulled over their cars and came over to give bear hugs to Douglas and Zottarelle, who were standing in the parking lot beside a pile of charred rubble Saturday.

Hundreds sent texts and condolence messages to the store, which was designed in homage to Douglas’ favorite author, Oscar Wilde, and Zottarelle’s, Edgar Allan Poe. A Go Fund Me campaign by fans collected nearly $48,000 in two days.

Patrons mourned the loss of a “one in a million” place that they called “an escape” and “absolute treasure.” One noted it had “a special corner in my heart.”

Douglas, who wears a Salvador Dali-style mustache and dresses in vintage royal Victorian garb, said part of the reason people loved the shop was that it was welcoming, with items priced as low as $1.

“Everybody has always been amazed because they got what we were trying to do and they were happy to have a place like this because there’s not a place like this around, Douglas said.

“It was just a place for people to be exposed to things like different religions and to see them harmoniously next to each other and to see different things from all over the world from different races and nationalities living side by side in one location,” said Douglas, who is an artist and interior designer, as well as a collector. “I’m shocked when I read the messages to hear how much we meant to them about how they felt included they felt welcome in our place, how they felt it was their home, how happy they were with our shop.”

‘The Wilde Collection is dead’

Jindra, a videographer chosen by the Houston Press in 2011 among its “100 Creatives,” was apparently a fan of the collection until recently. Jindra had dated an employee at the Wilde, Zottarelle said. When the couple broke up earlier this year, Jindra wrote Douglas a couple of emails saying how he loved the shop and wanted to befriend the owner.

“They were very nice letters but there was a sort of urgency, a desperation for my friendship, which of course, I didn’t ignore because he seemed like a very nice guy,” Douglas said. That was the last he heard from Jindra until Friday.

But online posts associated with Jindra’s name indicate he was bubbling over with religious visions. On Oct. 28, one said, “I have been commanded by God to kill at least 7 million people. I must become a terror worse than Hitler.”

Jindra posted a Google business message to the collection at 12:21 a.m. Friday stating, “This is John. I will kill you.” The message went on to say, “Lawyer’s death by the execution of my knife will be a glorious beacon to all the nations.” It went on to threaten Douglas’ family members.

Jindra’s Twitter account also posted an ominous message 14 hours before the blaze, reading, “The Wilde Collection is dead. By my own hand and wrath I say this.”

Two employees were in the store, and Zottarelle was in a back room, when they saw Jindra enter the store with gas canisters and a bat with a rag wrapped around the shaft. Witnesses said he walked about 10 feet into the store and looked a shopper directly in the face as he poured the gas. Everybody started running and panicking, Douglas said.

Sharp, an employee, yelled at him, “Don’t do that.”

That’s when Jindra allegedly lit the gasoline and, Douglas said, “Sharp had to run through the fire to catch the guy and hold him down for the police to come.”

Sharp grabbed him and held him on the ground, witnesses said. A staffer at the nearby Blue Line Bike Lab said he saw the smoke and took over holding Jindra while Sharp called 911. An off-duty police officer who’d been shopping at the bike store brought over handcuffs and detained Jindra until squad cars arrived and police made an arrest.

Bryon Myers was visiting the store for the first time with his father and brother in the room looking out on the peacocks, when he saw the suspect enter the lobby.

He posted on Reddit, “I see the guy walk in with the gas cans. Idk why, but I didn’t think anything of it until he had already dumped the cans and lit them on fire. Room filled with smoke so fast, we lost visibility in about 5 seconds.” Myers said he opened the window before it was impossible to breathe.

Myers continued, “Heard him yelling, ‘I didn’t mean to hurt anyone.’ Some hollered back something like, ‘Then why’d you do it?!’ To which he responded, ‘God told me to do it!’”

The District Attorney requested the court set a higher than usual bond, checking a box on the form stating the defendant appeared to be suffering from a mental breakdown and was a clear and present danger to citizens of Harris County because he was apparently hearing voices that told him to set an occupied building on fire.

Jindra’s public defender did not respond to a request Sunday for comment.

Rebuilding the Wilde

The owners said they will begin formally assessing the damages, but they said much of what they lost can never be replaced, including a Byzantine lamp and iconography and carvings from the 15th and 16th centuries recovered from Cuban, Chilean and Indonesian churches. The owners traveled around the world to find these objects, many of which they inherited from other collectors.

They will rise up from this regardless, Douglas said, in homage to the collectors that entrusted them with their treasures.

“Often times objects live longer than people and I felt that they were mine to guard while I’m here,” Douglas said. “It’s quite devastating.”

He added, “I have to rebuild.”

gabrielle.banks@chron.com