CSI Academy in the spotlight

ALACHUA – Television makes their job look easy, but for forensic investigators, finding the right evidence isn’t always elementary.

A film crew went to the CSI Academy in Alachua last November to make a documentary about the influence the character of Sherlock Holmes had on the field of forensic science.

“How Sherlock Changed the World” is a new two-hour documentary that premiered Tuesday, Dec. 17 on PBS. The film shows how investigators protect crime scenes from contamination and search for evidence invisible to the naked eye, and how Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s books changed the way people think about solving crime.  

“Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s contributions to forensic science through Sherlock Holmes are pretty well established,” said Tony Falsetti, dean of the CSI Academy. “It’s always a good reference point for the students.”

The books got people thinking about ways to link suspects to a crime other than witness testimony, details such as fingerprints, blood patterns and even looking at the soil composition on someone’s clothes, he said.

At least one development in forensic science was predicted by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

In the first book, “A Study in Scarlet,” Holmes develops a test to determine if a stain is actually blood, or if it is some other substance. Forensic investigator Karen Smith said that influenced scientists to develop such a test within several years of the book being published.

The documentary was filmed partly in Alachua County due to the academy’s size and space available to recreate scenarios, Falsetti said.

“The one thing we have here is a tremendous hands-on approach,” he said. “All of our training is scenario-based.”

Smith, who was an instructor at the CSI academy, was the catalyst who brought the film producers and the Alachua institution together.

When she saw a flyer from the film crew advertising the search for a good location, she reached out to Robert Rush, CEO of the academy, to ask him if he would be willing to let them use the facility.

Rush was thrilled at the opportunity, Smith said.

“Overall, it was a win-win for everybody,” she said. “The facility, bar none, was perfect for filming this documentary.”

For the film, Smith recreated the crime scene of a murder that took place in Jacksonville in 2005 to showcase her investigative techniques.

After the fatal stabbing of Linda Volum, her team inadvertently discovered a bloody toe print linking Donald Banks to the crime. Banks was sentenced to death in 2008 and is currently on death row.

“Sherlock used a lot of deductive reasoning, taking pieces and making a whole out of it,” Smith said. “That’s what we do at crime scenes.”

The film is a good chance to clear up misconceptions about forensic science, she said.

“Sometimes, you’re not going to get the evidence you want,” Smith said. Fingerprints aren’t always on the weapon and DNA isn’t always easily found on the scene of the crime, she said.

“There’s not always a smoking gun,” she said.

By educating the public through documentaries like this, society will have better-educated juries who will make more informed decisions, Smith said.

Though the film premiered on Tuesday, Dec. 17 from 9 p.m. to 11 p.m., Smith got an advance copy on DVD.

“It was really fun to watch and the Victorian recreations are really well done,” she said.

“Any time we can bring education to the general public about what we do, I think that’s a really good thing,” Smith said.

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