News

Many have called with questions about the events after the service last Sunday. Here is an excerpt from the Seattle Pacific student newspaper The Falcon, written in part by Grace Baptist intern David Kelter, outlining the events as best we currently know them:

Man Killed at Popular Local Church
^{by Jane Harriot (and David Kelter! -GBC)}

Sunday morning, the corpse of an apparently murdered man was found at Grace Baptist Church, the church home of many Seattle Pacific students. The body of Chuck Smith was found by SPU senior David Kelter and Sandra Madsen, a regular attender of Grace Baptist. They found the body in the church office, during a potluck after the service.

Kelter is doing an internship at the church for credit at SPU. "I was going into the office to do some paperwork," Kelter explained, "and when I opened the door, there was Chuck, slumped over in a pool of his own blood. It looked pretty clear that he had been murdered."

The police agree, and are treating the case as a homicide. "Mr. Smith was killed by a sharp blow to the head with an object in the church office," explained Seattle Police Detective Kent Anderson. "It is obviously very early in the investigation, but we do not believe that anyone else at the church is in danger, and we are confident that we will bring the murderer to justice soon."

The church's pastor, Rick Bradley, says the congregation is shaken by what has happened, but they are treating it as an opportunity. "We do not know why God has allowed this terrible thing to happen in our midst," Bradley said, "but we pray that He will use it to make us more and more the church He desires us to be, just as we pray that whoever did this will seek forgiveness and submit to justice."

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