HIGH-SCHOOLERS QUEUING FOR CLUES TEENS EXAMINE MOCK CRIME SCENES.

Byline: Amy Raisin Staff Writer

VALENCIA - The red-headed victim known as Jane Doe has been stabbed, shot, run over and clubbed in recent weeks. Her clothes are stuffed with blankets and her head is made of Styrofoam, but she's a wealth of valuable clues.

The crime scene is staged and the investigators are barely old enough to drive, but the students enrolled in the Hart school district's forensics class are learning the same techniques that help the real crime scene investigators preserve evidence and solve homicides.

``I'm really looking into some sort of criminology as a career,'' said Brooke Horton, a senior at Canyon High. ``This class is helping me get a better concept of what criminology is.''

Detective John Mundell of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department teaches the class two nights a week at the Santa Clarita sheriff's station. The latest crime, a drive-by shooting, went down in a parking lot, conveniently behind the station.

Mundell draws on actual crimes for inspiration and arrives early for class to set up the detailed scene.

``This is what a drive-by actually looks like. They don't just shoot one time,'' Mundell said to his students last week as they began marking evidence, including dozens of spent shells strewed on the pavement.

``And don't step on the evidence,'' he yells as the students scatter with their clipboards and flashlights. ``We've gone over that a hundred times.''

The William S. Hart Union High School District offered the course for the first time this semester, through its Regional Occupational Program. The immense popularity of the television hit ``CSI: Crime Scene Investigation'' had students rushing to enroll.

Pretty impressive for a class rooted in mathematics, writing and scientific analysis.

``I love `CSI.' And 'Forensic Files,''' said Stacy Warner, a Saugus High senior. ``Those are my favorite shows. What we do out here, it teaches us how to develop a crime scene instead of just going in blind sided.''

While the students work the crime scene in teams, each teen is required to draw a sketch of the scene and write a report, which Mundell later collects.

Rather than riddle the parking lot wall with bullets, Mundell had three students fire fuchsia paint balls at more than a dozen office file folders, which were then tacked to the wall to serve as bullet holes.

To accurately re-create the physical evidence, the students must measure the location of every shell casing and the spot where each bullet pierced an object, whether it's a building, a tree, a car or flesh.

``You have to mark evidence at at least two points,'' Mundell said. ``It's not enough to just say where the piece of evidence was found. You have to know exactly where it was in relation to, for example, that curb and that tire.''

The victim's bullet wounds are essential clues too, of course. However, the woman with rubber Halloween hands - both right - and the long raven wig has left some of the teenage investigators slightly indifferent to her unfortunate fate.

As one student measured the victim, he found an inaccuracy that would only be noticed when working with the same victim week after week.

``I've got 5 (feet) 4,'' he said. ``She got shorter since last week. How'd she get shorter?''

CAPTION(S):

3 photos

Photo:

(1) Andrew Hebert, 17, left, of Saugus High, and David Cameron, 18, of Hart High, examine fake bullet holes for their forensics course.

(2) A student measures a bullet casing at the scene of a staged drive-by shooting. Each teen is also required to sketch the scene and write a report.

(3) Forensics students examine the mannequin Jane Doe, splayed to represent a drive-by shooting victim.

Tom Mendoza/Staff Photographer