Untitled Document

Metro students stage mock murder
By Birgit Moran
moranb@mscd.edu

    Robert Whitsom, a retired Boulder Police detective teaching Metro’s crime scene investigations class entered the room with a plastic trash bag containing a dummy’s head tucked under his arm.
    After Whitsom gave a short briefing about a mock murder scene, the class grabbed cotton swabs, distilled water, and the bagged head, and headed outside to hunt for evidence. It’s their fifth mock crime scene investigation this semester. The class is one of a two-semester-long crime scene investigation class.
    The class and its teacher are considerably different from the popular “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation” TV series. Whitsom, who has two master’s degrees, is mild-mannered, grey haired, dressed comfortably in Merrells and a green pullover shirt, appears atypical from Horatio Caruso, Mac Taylor or Gil Grisson, of the TV shows.
    Once outside at one of the two crime scene locations, Whitsom asked, “Alright, what do we have?”
    Student criminologists, a little hesitant at first, combed the suspect Cadillac SUV in quadrants. Questions about procedures and findings intermingled as students pulled things out of the car’s nooks and crannies.
    The inspecting students took about 15 minutes to build a cache of clues: an opened condom wrapper, a dress stuffed into a rear storage compartment, a well-hidden blonde wig, a bullet casing, a bag of fake cocaine, women’s shoes and some dirt clods on the driver’s side floor mat.
    Earlier, Whitsom told the class that real crime scenes typically don’t offer so many clues.
    Some in the group noticed the aroma of marijuana in the breeze, but Whitsom had nothing to do with it. A true investigator, he held a blade of grass to the wind to see if he could locate the source.
    “ Drugs and sex are related to all crime scenes,” Whitsom said, half jokingly.
    Whitsom and some of his students said, in real life, crime scenes are dirty and sometimes reek. In real life, detectives wouldn’t take a case from crime scene to solution.
    “ What’s your hypothesis at this point?” he asked the class.
    Metro student Amberleigh Hammond, 23, took a guess: the suspect professor killed his student girlfriend because she was going to tell about their affair, then reported his car stolen and donned a wig as he drove away. Whitsom said it’s juicy and kind of like a TV show, but that’s where the similarity ended.
    Criminologist and lab attire includes layers of heavy plastic and vinyl protective gear.
    DNA evidence isn’t available the same day; it can take weeks, even months. Investigations involve volumes of paperwork, coordination with various jurisdictions, division of duties to various specialists and usually take more time than the quick resolutions portrayed in the TV shows.
    Metro student Denette Bechler, 33, said scouring for and finding evidence is an intense, arduous and lengthy process.
    “ No one is gagging and puking,” Bechler said, “No one even acknowledged the smell,” she remarked about a “CSI: Las Vegas” episode where a body is found in a car in 114-degree heat.
    Metro student Roxanne Johnson, 46, commented on how unrealistic the TV show “Crossing Jordan,” can be. The star waltzes onto a crime scene and talks about the body in ways that just aren’t real. To know how long a person has been dead requires more than a glance; it takes hours of lab work.
    Whitsom said these shows help perpetrators learn how to avoid getting caught.
    He’s witnessed the technologies of crime scene investigation split into highly evolved specialties during his 30 years with the Boulder Police Department. Crime lab concentrations include ballistics, photography, fingerprints, hair and fiber, blood spatter, footwear, diagramming, even entomology (insects), to name a few. The number of specialists varies depending on the size of the jurisdiction, Whitsom said.
    There are three different types of DNA: RFLP, PCR and STR. In the past, using different types caused matching problems. Now, all states use the STR type of DNA to provide consistency. New technology helped the Boulder police solve two cases from over a decade ago. In one case, they used old evidence—skin cells found in a glove—to solve a case dating back to 1992, Whitsom said.
    CODIS, or the coordinated DNA identification system, is a nationwide lab that collects and maintains DNA profiles. Many states now require convicted felons to submit DNA samples, which go into the CODIS database, Whitsom said.
    The Automated Fingerprint Identification System, or AFIS, provides a nationwide print-matching system and could provide a dozen or so possible matches to any set of fingerprints. Lab fingerprint specialists narrow down and verify if a print is close enough to be a match.
    Fancy, top-of-the-line equipment seen on the shows usually isn’t available at most labs.
    The Metro CSI class looks different from the cast of the popular T.V. shows. Jeans, t-shirts, walking shoes, and backpacks replace the slick heels, well-coiffed heads and suits on the programs.
    The class smirks when Whitsom mentions the CSI shows. Real people, real dirt, real smells, long waits and tons of paperwork. In unison several students said, “Don’t believe everything you see on TV”