As I approached the front door of this two-story house, I was struck by how ordinary it looked and how easily it blended into the surrounding houses on the street. There was an accessibility ramp that led inside and, entering the building, I was greeted by a post office counter. What was out of the ordinary was that the plexiglass was smashed, and I could see feet sticking out from behind the counter. Someone appeared to be on the floor and, given the state of the glass, they may have been hurt. But there was no need to panic. In fact, this was exactly what I was there to see. Welcome to Keele University’s Forensic Science Simulation Centre.
This newly opened and unassuming building is found in the middle of a university campus located in Staffordshire, England. This past summer, IFLScience got to explore this fascinating building that stages crime scenes for future crime scene investigators. No real person was harmed in the making of this facility, the feet that we originally saw were that of a mannequin – and there were plenty dotted throughout the building as “victims” of various scenes.
These simulation spaces create the context for the crime that they’re investigating.
Dr David Thompson
These simulated environments offer students a place to practice various forensic techniques in more realistic – and gory – settings than just being taught in a lecture theater and laboratory.
“These simulation spaces create the context for the crime that they’re investigating”, Dr David Thompson, Senior Lecturer in Forensic Science and Analytical Chemistry at Keele University, told IFLScience.
Normally, forensic science students get taught the theory of different test methods in a lecture theater and then practice the techniques in a clean open laboratory setting. Now, Keele University has added another training element to the forensic student’s skillset – working in a practice crime scene. The purpose is to teach students in both an isolated way (i.e. how to dust for fingerprints or assess blood spatter patterns) and a more contextual space that tests multiple techniques and is spatially more awkward to work in than a laboratory. This means it presents more realistic challenges that forensic scientists would operate around at a crime scene.
We too were surprised to wander behind the post office desk and be greeted by this mannequin.
Image credit: IFLScience
The post office is not the only setup in this facility. Other rooms have been artistically decorated on the upper floor to portray a pub and more domestic settings like bedrooms and living rooms. These rooms have been decorated using materials that would have been thrown out from food outlets and bars, so they are given a second life.
What techniques are the students shown?
These recycled items allow students to practice on real-life surfaces. For example, some of the bar surfaces contain glitter flakes and this can make fingerprinting very difficult because you often need a contrast between the print and the surface. Typically, on a light surface, you would use a dark powder and on a dark surface, you would use a light powder. Glitter surfaces can be a bit difficult as normal contrasting powders lose information. In this scenario, the students use a fluorescent powder, which, when you shine a particular sort of wavelength of light, the print fluoresces.
Along with fingerprinting, students can conduct toxicological investigations. Toxicology is the discipline of science that helps us understand the effects of substances, situations, and chemicals on animals, the environment, and people. In the crime scene house, the students may find powders or liquids at the scenes that they can then extract and analyze later.
“They’ll have to go back into the lab, they’re going to do some analytical work, and they have to figure out… not only what [the substance] is but what is the molecule that’s there? What is the actual sort of toxin? What’s the sort of drug that’s there? How much is there? Is it actually relevant? Is it trace amount? Or is it, somebody’s put something into something to cause harm to somebody else,” Thompson said.
Students can also collect trace evidence at the site. This is evidence that can be transferred between people, objects, or the environment during a crime. Examples include soil, wood, hair, fibers, and pollen that can be carried into a scene on the person’s clothes or shoes. It is used to potentially link a suspect and a victim to a mutual location.
Digital forensics is another discipline that can be practiced in this space. This is where students can investigate different digital devices, like phones, laptops, and satellite navigation systems.
Investigating the whole crime scene
“When the students are writing [their findings] up as a report, they can interpret the data. So they can say, right, okay, we found this fiber. We found it in this particular location, and we think it’s got there because this has happened. And that’s the important thing about these particular spaces,” said Thompson.
…. And this guy!
Image credit: IFLScience
At Keele University, a Crime Scene to Court module is offered. The students come into the building not knowing the scene they will have to work on, they enter dressed in the appropriate PPE (the all-white disposable suits and foot covers), carry out an initial evaluation of the scene, and then recover the evidence they think is appropriate.
Once the students have done this, they will take it into the laboratory and take on the role of laboratory analytical staff. They analyze and evaluate the samples before writing a report. After this, there is one final step: the courtroom. This is where the forensic students have to go into the mock courtroom set up in the School of Law and be cross-examined on their findings.
From on-site crime scene investigator and laboratory technician to expert witness, the students experience the entirety of the crime scene investigation experience. This training is conducted from a forensic scientist’s point of view.
More than just the crime scene house
We’ve got … colleagues that are going out on the lake with sonar to try and find a body that’s submerged in water and things that have been submerged.
Dr David Thompson
Along with the crime scene house, budding forensic scientists also conduct outside investigations. These contexts offer different challenges to indoor settings, as students must battle with the elements where materials are more likely to blow into the environment.
“We’re very lucky here at Keele that we do have the campus, and … we’ve got settings like this where we can use more sort of domestic build,” Thompson added. “We’ve got areas where we can do our anthropology type work and sort of decomposition studies and those sorts of things that we have on campus as well. We’ve also got access to the lakes. We’ve got access to the woods. So we’ve got, for example, colleagues that are going out on the lake with sonar to try and find a body that’s submerged in water and things that have been submerged. We can go and teach the students things like excavation, because, again, we’ve got the woods.”
The department has also just bought thermal imaging drones that can be sent up into the air and investigate outside settings. “Colleagues told me that they can actually see the squirrels in the trees,” Thompson concluded.
Overall, Keele’s crime scene house offers students a fun way to engage with some serious work. It combines realistic settings with controlled conditions that can let them hone their analytical skills in preparation for the real thing.
