NewsThursday, December 22, 2005 12:42 PM CST

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Forensics put to test in final

By Michele Steinbacher
msteinbacher@pantagraph.com

BLOOMINGTON -- Joe Broucek spent this week analyzing victim's thumbprints, blood spatter patterns and the handwriting style of a ransom note.

He wasn't in a crime lab, though. And no one's life depended on this detective work.

Here, it was Broucek's grade on the line. The work was part of a final exam in an Illinois Wesleyan University forensic biology course.

The 12 students in Francesca Catalano's Human Heredity and Forensic Biology didn't get a multiple-choice form or even a blank essay booklet for the final.

"I gave them each an evidence packet," said Catalano, a visiting professor in IWU's biology department.

Students worked independently from Dec. 8 to Wednesday to solve a made-for-class crime. A dog thief had struck campus, and biology department Chairman Given Harper's beloved pet was missing.

"One student called it the coolest final ever," said Catalano.

The professor earned doctorates in both law and molecular biology, and she developed the course as a marriage between the fields. She taught a similar course for beginning college students last year at Lewis University.

The topic has gained popularity with such television shows as the "CSI" franchise and "Crossing Jordan." But Catalano said she always spends time with students discussing the absurdity of some of the show's elements.

"You wouldn't wear high heels to a crime scene," she said. And the beautiful people acting the parts don't necessarily represent the high level of education needed to work in the field, she said.

Although the TV shows frequently use DNA analysis and other scientific tests, those are expensive and time consuming. "They are only used in a few cases," she said.

Because this class's enrollment turned out to be senior biology majors, she added challenges, such as arson investigation, handwriting analysis, and ballistics research of shooting ranges and bullet comparisons.

On Thursday, Broucek said he was confident he'd solved the crime correctly.

His grade, he said, would be based on more than naming the suspect. Students also had to redraw a crime scene, examine hair samples and paper fibers and more.

His report told Catalano when he'd use DNA tests, what fingerprints showed him, and why a person's handwriting mattered in a ransom note.

"There was a lot of the legal process -- looking at chain of custody, for example," he said.

The "chain of custody" refers to how evidence is bagged, sealed and signed off each time it's examined, said Catalano.

The U.S. government predicts a 13 percent increase in people choosing careers in forensics by 2010. Some of those may come from Catalano's classrooms.

Earlier this fall, her class took a field trip to the Illinois State Police crime lab in Morton, and one student now plans an internship there.

For Broucek, the course sparked a burgeoning interest in the legal process.

He's been assisting Catalano on a research project focusing on parents who murder their children.

And though he's planned to become a doctor, he's now also considering law school as well.

Catalano will teach another forensic biology course this summer at IWU.

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