Police are searching for clues this week after someone broke into a Grandin-area church, leaving behind a trail of blood and shattered glass.
St. Albert RCMP officers took pictures, dusted for prints and swabbed for DNA at the Christian Reformed Church Thursday morning after church staff reported a possible break-in. The church is located across from the Village Landing bus depot on Gate Ave.
John Luth, pastor of the church since 1999, says he had locked the church at 9 p.m. Wednesday and returned at 9 a.m. Thursday. When he arrived, he found that someone had broken a basement window facing the nearby bike path and rifled through the church’s kitchen.
“Whomever did this seemed to have cut themselves,” he says, as there were drops of blood scattered on the floor, walls and light switches. “This person left a rabbit trail of blood across the basement.”
The suspect, or suspects, then entered the church through the window and roamed throughout it, says Cst. Dominic Laflamme. “They basically went almost everywhere.”
Eventually, the suspect broke into the main-floor offices of the pastor and his assistant, breaking a second window in the pastor’s door in the process.
All the drawers in those offices had been pulled open, Luth says, with some of their contents scattered about. “They just kind of ransacked my office and my administrative assistant’s office.”
Nothing was apparently stolen, not even the computers or musical instruments in the building. No one was in the building when he arrived.
Police are treating this as a break-and-enter, Laflamme says, as they are uncertain if anything was actually stolen. They are still working to determine how the window was broken, how many people entered the building or when one of them was injured. Police did recover a pair of black leather gloves from the scene that church staff did not recognize, but aren’t certain if the gloves are linked to this crime.
The church does not keep any valuables on site, Luth says, so he’s not sure why anyone would want to break in. “It’s extremely rare that anything like this happens around here,” he says.
The last break-in was many years ago. The church does not keep any offering receipts in the building, and uses non-alcoholic sacramental wine.
It will cost the church about $600 to repair the windows, Luth says, which they planned to do before this weekend. Any stains will also be removed.
Luth says the church is concerned about the person who did this, as he or she was leading a life of crime. “I would encourage him to turn around, follow Jesus and come worship with us on Sunday.”
Anyone with information on this crime should contact Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477.
