Crime Scene Investigation

CRIME SCENE INVESTIGATION

It was September 18, 1910 on a Saturday at the Hiller home in Chicago. Clarence Hiller had spent the day painting his house. By early evening everyone was in bed asleep. The Hillers woke up in the early morning and noticed. Clarence went to investigate why a gas light near his daughter’s room had gone out. As he came to her door, a fight broke out with two gun shots fired. Mrs. Hiller got to the room to find her husband dead at the foot of the stairs with blood everywhere.

The police arrested Thomas Jennings, a convicted burglar who lived less than a mile down the street from the Hillers. There was blood on his clothes when they picked him up that he said was a result of falling off a street car. In his pocket, the police found the same kind of gun used to shoot Clarence Hiller--but they could not determine if it was the murder weapon in those days--they needed more evidence, but from where?

So the detectives returned to the Hiller’s home to search for more clues. They found that the killer came through a rear kitchen window, and there next to the window, forever imprinted in the white paint Clarence had painted earlier--they found four clear fingerprints from someone’s left hand.

What is amazing about this story is this crime was the first one where police used a fingerprint to convict a person of a crime--and it worked! Thomas Jennings was convicted of the terrible crime because of leaving his fingerprints at the scene of the crime!

Using another kind of evidence today, we are going to get at the Christology of Christmas to establish a degree of certainty that Jesus Christ is Messiah!

(From a sermon by Dave Kinney "The Christology of Christmas" 12/27/2008)