Hamline University’s annual After Hours Crime Scene grew in scope this year, as forensic science students were called out near midnight on Wednesday, Nov. 20 to investigate two staged homicides as part of Dr. Jamie Spaulding’s Crime Scene and Death investigation course.
Dr. Spaulding, Hamline’s assistant professor of forensic science and a graduate of the nationally-recognized West Virginia University forensic science program, initiates the exercise with very little notice in order to most closely simulate actual casework.
Students received a call at about 11 p.m. last Wednesday to an on-campus crime scene, hours after a snow shower coated St. Paul and elements of the crime scene. Over the following pre-dawn hours, students investigate a staged murder outside Hamline – complete with mannequin victims, gunshot wounds, footprints, bullet casings, St. Paul Police assistance and a media presence from KMSP Fox. Students were tasked with collecting evidence, taking photos, documenting the scene and ultimately authoring a crime scene report.
"There are very, very few places that have students in the middle of the night out there actually doing the real world work, which is the only way I think I can appropriately train students to do this work,” Dr. Spaulding said.
Hamline students prepared for the experience all semester by participating in weekly labs, culminating in the AHCS, which used elements from all the labs to build a complete crime scene scenario. Last year, a Hamline-owned property on Holton Street near campus was repurposed as a lab for Dr. Jamie Spaulding’s Crime Scene and Death Investigation course.
“The house allows us to create very realistic scenarios for students, giving them the opportunity to hone their investigation skills in a low-stakes environment rather than encounter these challenges for the first time at actual crime scenes,” Dr. Spaulding said. “I need them to make their mistakes here and learn from them so that they can be fully prepared in the real world.”
The AHCS and the crime lab house, along with Hamline’s overall breadth of forensics science courses, are a true rarity in the Midwest, as Hamline is the only Minnesota university with a forensic science major – and has one of the few forensics programs in the Upper Midwest.
