Students on the scene

Caution tape and nearly a dozen people surrounded two vehicles near the Bigfork football field last Friday afternoon. Pieces of evidence were clearly marked with numbered yellow signs, handprints were visible on the back windows and multiple law enforcement personnel were on scene.

No, it wasn’t the set of “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation,” but rather a special hands-on activity as part of Vicki Heupel’s forensics class. In the weeks leading up to the mock crime scene exercise, students learned how to log evidence, process fingerprints, measure the scene and more with help from guest lecturers, School Resource Officer Paula Sullivan and Flathead County Sheriff’s Office Crime Scene Team Leader Kate Mason. Last Friday, they put what they’d learned in the classroom into action. Students were assigned to scenes based on one of two scenarios: a homicide or a kidnapping and worked as a team to process the evidence.

The blood may have been fake, but their duties mirrored those of real-life crime scene investigators. Some students measured the location of evidence so the scene could be recreated after the fact if the case went to trial. Others took photographs, dusted for fingerprints and logged evidence with guidance from Sullivan and Mason.

Junior Aden Ruiz said the crime scene activity was his favorite part of the class.

“I didn’t realize how much work and how much time it actually takes,” Ruiz said. “There’s a specialty for arson, ballistics, photography — everything.”

Cassidy Reichenbach said she enjoyed putting her evidence collection skills into practice while Logan Livingston liked working with fingerprints.

“Ink prints were hard to do. I thought it would be easy, watching people do it, but it takes a long time to get it done,” he said.

Heupel said she wanted her students to experience as much hands-on learning as possible so they’d get an accurate feel for the real job of forensic scientist or crime scene investigator. The field is full of specialties, ranging from ballistics to profiling and students were able to select the area of forensics that appealed to them the most to explore in depth.

“They get a lot of different avenues for them to have agency in what they’re learning,” said Heupel, who has been teaching the elective course for about 10 years. Typically, she sets up a mock crime scenes in her classroom, but this year partnered with actual law enforcement personnel. Mason and Sullivan each visited Heupels class to present on various topics in forensics and created a more realistic scene for the class to explore.

“They’re working as a team well,” Sullivan said during the exercise. “They’ve split up and they’re all doing their jobs. They’re starting to pick up on the documentation and taking their time on the details.”

Paying attention to the details, Mason, explained, is a vital part of a crime scene investigator’s job. Measuring where items are located in relation to each other is important because the position of a firearm, for example, can indcate whether or not the deceased died by suicide or was shot by another individual. Logging things down accurately can have major repercussions in the future — if a case went to trial, an expert in crime scene reconstruction would rely on the data gathered at the scene to determine a sequence of events.

As the crime scene team leader, Mason heads up a team of seven individuals who are dispatched to more serious scenes like homicides or officer-involved shootings. While she and the other members have additional roles within the department, they participate in monthly trainings, specific to crime scene processing.

“It’s always different, which I love,” Mason said. “No two scenes are ever the same. And it’s a way to help bring justice to victims.”

Mason didn’t always feel called to forensics. She originally planned to pursue a career in art, but one night while watching “Forensic Files,” something clicked.

“A light went off — that’s what I want to do,” she recalled.

Mason got her feet wet as a volunteer at the Phoenix Police Department crime lab before she was hired in 2008 on the crime scene investigation team.

“The first year I worked there we had over 300 homicides. I got a ton of experience there,” she said.

One of the cases that sticks out in her mind involved the death of a pregnant woman whose boyfriend set her apartment on fire. While not all cases go to trial, this one did.

“He ended up getting convicted. It was just so sad with her being pregnant,” Mason said. “But some justice was done.”

After 10 years in Phoenix she and her husband relocated to an area just outside of Whitefish. She works as a warrants clerk with the Flathead County Sheriff’s Office in addition to her role as crime scene team leader.

Another incident that has stayed with her was the triple homicide that occurred in Olney last June. According to law enforcement, Kameron Chad Barge, 39, stabbed to death his ex-wife, Emily Lynn Barge, 42, her 3-year-old daughter Piper Jocelyn Barge, and Cody Brian Nevins, 41, at their home on Old Church Road.

“I told everyone before we went in there that if you can’t do this, I’m good with that. I’m not going to kick you off the team ... there are certain things that can trigger certain reactions in people,” Mason said. “We’re human. You still have emotion.”

While the job can be difficult, with great challenges come great rewards. Knowing she has a part in helping victims keeps Mason motivated. The work is also varied and interesting, she added.

“Even if one of these 15 students is super excited and ends up pursuing this as a career, that would just be awesome,” she said. “I played a little part in this person becoming a forensic artist or a firearms examiner.”