Mason students gain valuable forensic experience at new Crime Scene House

Television shows like “CSI” and “NCIS” make it look easy, but George Mason University graduate student Taylor McGee said that making sense out of a real crime scene isn’t quite that simple.

McGee, who is studying biology,  recently joined a group of her fellow first-year classmates from Mason’s Forensic Science Program in getting a real look at what processing a crime scene entails when they made the trek to Mason’s new Crime Scene House.

“Shows like [CSI and NCIS] that are interesting, but they’re not in any way indicative of what really goes on,” McGee said.

Located on Kelley Drive in a quiet, residential neighborhood adjacent to campus, the Mason Crime Scene House has eight rooms that have each been carefully set up to recreate all the details of the very real crime scenes that Forensic Science Program Director Mary Ellen O’Toole and her experienced team of crime scene investigators have worked in the past.

“We’ve made every effort to make this as close to real life as we can,” said O’Toole, a former FBI profiler. “The idea was to give our kids the experience of entering a real home crime scene.”

That will eventually include  (mannequin) bodies and (fake) blood-spattered walls and learning to meticulously process hair fibers, fingerprints and everything else that goes with such a grisly scenario. An SUV was added so students can learn how to process a crime scene in a vehicle as well.

Cameras are set up throughout the house so that O’Toole and other faculty can carefully monitor and evaluate each group’s progress.

Being analytical without rushing to judgment and paying strict attention to the slightest detail and crime scene protocols are imperative if the students are to get to the bottom of the mystery and accurately chronicle evidence that could be critical to solving a crime, according to their instructors.

It’s the kind of hands-on, experiential learning Mason forensic students will need to break into a competitive field.

“It’s important they take what I taught them in class, and they’re able to perform it,” said Emily Rancourt, assistant director of the Forensic Science Program.

A permanent Crime Scene House will eventually be built on Mason’s Science and Technology Campus in Manassas.

“It was definitely a learning experience,” said Georgia Williams,, whose concentration is in biology. “I liked that we got to do things that are practical. As we saw, it doesn’t happen in 45 minutes [like on the TV shows].”

For example, observing that a victim’s bloody shirt remained undisturbed on the living room floor just a few feet away from a suspected weapon sitting atop a nearby table isn’t enough.

Now it’s up to the Mason students to quickly learn and adhere to the many strict protocols and begin making sense of it all.

“It’s definitely going to be an all-day or all-night thing,” said Kim Lillard, whose concentration is in chemistry.