An Investigator Examines the Resurrection
Ross Hickling, a member of the Ratio Christi team is a retired investigator. He takes a look at the evidence for the resurrection of Jesus.
Tracking Down a Fugitive
I was confident that if we were patient enough, we would snag our fugitive in a mobile home located on the outskirts of the Piedmont-Triad area of North Carolina. I had been tipped off by an out of town Deputy U.S. Marshal that a “case” he was working was most likely in our area. After looking over the documents sent to me from my out of town partner, I began developing my own sources of information. Not only did I look at documentary sources, but I also began interviewing witnesses that I believed knew the fugitive.
Now it was time to conduct the surveillance. After playing a ruse on the fugitive, I was certain he was in the mobile home we had under surveillance. After a little back and forth conversation through the front door of the trailer, my investigation came to fruition. I came face to face with the fugitive after gaining entry into the home. We took the fugitive into custody even though he had tried to get out of the web we had woven for him.
Using Accepted Principles of Evidence
In working my case, I had used principles of evidence to uncover the location of this non-compliant sex offender. I had relied upon documents to develop other leads which led to interviews. In turn, after conducting interviews of persons associated with the fugitive, I was able to come up with certain information that gave me a likely address and telephone number for him. After obtaining the likely address, I began my surveillance of the mobile home. Eventually, after gaining entry into the house, I visually identified the fugitive.
Corroboration
All along, even though I was not consciously thinking about each step of the investigation, I was using accepted prinicples of evidence to hone in on my target. I was using documents to gain valuable information. I was employing the principle of corroboration from these documents as I strengthened my evidence not just from one source, but from many sources. I further corroborated the documentary evidence for the location of the fugitive by interviewing witnesses who told me about their relationship with him. They informed me about the type of vehicle he drove and other pertinent information as well.