Police introduce BMS students to crime scene analysis techniques

Front row, from left, students Joe Damiano, Kendra Castle and Tyler Cott look on during Bueker Middle School's crime scene investigation day Wednesday, May 19, as teacher Anna Singer shows them what they should see when they "test" their DNA by swishing water in their mouths, pouring it into test tubes and adding soap and rubbing alcohol. (Geoff Rands/Democrat-News) [Click to enlarge]

Bueker Middle School's eighth-graders got a chance to help police identify the kidnapper of Mrs. Papreck's prized hissing cockroaches Wednesday, May 19.

The series of mock exercises included fingerprinting, chromatography, sketch artistry, voice recognition and even some degree of DNA analysis.

Marshall police officers gave instruction in crime scene photography and fingerprint and voice identification, and also spoke about the stress that appears in a person's voice when telling a lie.

Although no culprit was arrested, students said they enjoyed the exercises a great deal, and hoped that the school will continue to hold them in the future.

"I'm looking forward for my brothers to be able to do it," said Elizabeth Borges.

The exercise with DNA was Nicholas Johnson's favorite, he said.

"You put a whole bunch of different stuff in a vial, and, like, in a minute and a half, your DNA floats to the top, and it was really cool, because you could see the cloud of DNA inside the vial," he said.

Borges said of her favorite part, "It's fun, you know, how different, like, our fingerprints are from everybody else's, and, like, each fingerprint, each finger is different."

The crime scene photography was Analee Tucker's favorite station, she said.

"Whenever he goes to a crime scene, he can't really show his emotions and how he feels about everything, so he just has to keep his feelings out of it."

Contact Geoff Rands at marshallreporter@socket.net