'Criminal Minds' forensics class launches at Milwaukee Public Schools this summer

Yellow tape with the words “CRIME SCENE DO NOT CROSS” winds across classroom 209 in the Wisconsin Conservatory of Lifelong Learning. It’s not an actual crime scene, however; Instead it's the scene of the Criminal Minds: Forensics summer school class.

Anything in the room can be used as evidence in the fictional school crimes.

After teaching in Milwaukee Public Schools for 20 years — and the forensics thematic unit in eighth grade for several years — Angela Robinson said this is her first year launching the course for high school. The summer class is taught from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. weekdays throughout the summer. The first session ran from June 6-22; the second is June 26-July 27.

“It’s all about pulling text evidence and using clues and learning how to analyze data based on only facts,” Robinson said.

She said she began teaching forensics in her own classroom because of her love for mystery, crime — and the TV show "Criminal Minds."

“I love 'Criminal minds'; I love the ‘who done it?’ mystery,” Robinson said. “Watching it … that's my second career.”

Robinson was a special education teacher with MPS for about 15 years, before she became a school support teacher, supporting both regular and special education teachers in grades kindergarten through eight, and is currently the district science coach. This is the first time she is applying her forensics curriculum to the high school level, and it's the first time the class is being offered specifically as a summer course.

She said it’s a fun way to teach DNA and forensic science, while also bringing her own interests to the classroom.

The class, with five students, had just finished learning about forensic entomology, the study of insects associated with crime, and doing a fingerprinting lab to gather DNA. After that, Robinson said, she wanted to give them a hands-on approach to solving a fictional scenario she made up herself.

The basic storyline: One person was found dead, and another in critical condition, after a recent stabbing at a neighborhood park. The second victim later died.

The students ventured across the school to find suspects — any teachers, faculty, administrators — that fit evidence they had gathered from the crime.

“We’re going to start with your right hand. Now place your right thumb firmly in the middle,” one student said, trying to get fingerprints from one of the administrators. “Hold it for a few seconds, now take it off.”

They then moved on to the interrogation process.

"What were you doing last week? Do you have any experience in the medical field? Any sickness in the family?" asked Breonnah Vann, a 10th-grade student.

"You seem a little nervous," she told one of her teachers. "Why is that?"

Van said she decided to take the class because of aspirations to become a lawyer or a coroner in the future.

“Criminal cases are something I find very interesting,” Van said. “I like the idea of being able to understand how and why a crime was committed, when it took place and I like to analyze and see what made people do it, like how it was done and stuff like that.”

Van said her favorite part about the class is getting to insert herself in the scenarios and getting to experience what other kids probably don't typically get to in school.

“It's like a once-in-a-lifetime kind of opportunity, being able to study criminology and how to determine what the victim has suffered from and what a murderer has been through that would allow them to not feel empathy towards their victims while also still feeling remorse,” Van said. “So it's kind of contradicting, but I find it very interesting.”

Van and her group used their knowledge of past lessons to determine their suspects.

"I can determine, based off their body language, what (the suspects) might have in common with the scenario, and the identity of the early warning signs of serial killers is anti-social behavior, arson, playing with fire, torturing small animals," Van said. "That's really a big one with serial killers because if you lack that empathy for a creature or animal then you might develop even less of empathy for others."

The students also measured footprints, compared work schedules and compared fingerprints to those found at the scene. They found Robinson and the math teacher guilty.

"They did it based off of the timing of the murders and fingerprint analysis," Robinson said.

Here's what the students found: A hitman was hired to kill the rich businessman by a competing company, and the young female victim was killed by a heartbroken housewife because her husband cheated on her with the woman. The businessman's murder was not personal and there was no remorse, according to the forensic evidence at the scene. The killer did not care about the body or want it found.

The female victim's murder presented as frenzied and personal, and appeared there was some remorse on the part of the killer, who later returned to put a blanket over the body.

"They matched both the math teacher's and my fingerprints to the scene. The line of questioning was intense and very personal," Robinson said. "(Van) dragged out actual real emotions with her questions. While she questioned us, Finn Brauneller (classmate) was watching for physical and visceral reactions from us and Sophia Hook (another classmate) was taking notes. It was phenomenal."

Robinson said everyone stayed for an additional 30 minutes after class to debrief.

Throughout the rest of the course, the class will continue taking a hands-on approach to solving their own classroom mysteries.

"I'm really excited about that. It seems like a big accomplishment," Van said.

Contact Skyler Chun at schun@gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter at @skylerchun_.

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: 'Criminal Minds' forensics class launches at MPS this summer