When 17-year-old Agoura High senior Faith Webb walked into her hotel room on Tuesday morning, she shrieked to find investigators standing over a dead body.
Fortunately, the officers investigating the murder in room 169 were actually 12- to 14-year-old local students attending a one-week CSI Teen Camp put on by the City of Agoura Hills. Camp counselor Faith Webb was playing the role of the suspect's girlfriend.
The teen CSIs were given a crime to solve, complete with a "dead" dummy, disheveled furniture, and "bloody" footprints. If they followed the clues properly, the campers were expected to find the suspect and book him or her into custody at the Malibu/Los Hills Sheriff Station at the end of the week.
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"We teach the kids proper procedure, but make the case solvable," said Scott Rule, a deputy at the station and the head of CSI Teen Camp. "This is a really smart bunch of kids. If they've been paying attention, they should be able to solve the crime."
On Monday, the first day of CSI Teen Camp, Rule, along with forensic identification specialist Gil Trujillo, instructed campers on how to trace and collect evidence, secure a crime scene, and conduct interviews. Tuesday was the day the campers would put what they learned to practice.
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Firemen from squads 89 and 65 responded to a call from a hotel employee. Upon arriving at the scene of the crime, deputies declared the "bloody" dummy "dead."
The clever investigators dusted for fingerprints and found footprints leading them to a car in the parking lot. After examining the vehicle, the campers spotted Rec Center counselor Matt Bohner with a bloody shirt, and an arrest was made.
Vince DeFalco, 13, was on the fingerprint squad led by technician Sharona Kay. "This camp is really cool," said the Lindero Canyon Middle Schooler eighth-grader.
At camp on Wednesday, the teen investigators learned how to administer a polygraph test. Thursday, an attorney demonstrated the procedure for filing search and arrest warrants, and how to present a case to the district attorney.
Francis Martyn, a 14-year-old entering Thousand Oaks High School as a freshman in the fall, said that he found the camp while going through different catalogs last month. "This camp is definitely different from all the other camps out there," Martyn said. "I'm really having a great time."
On Friday, the junior officers will tour the Lost Hills Sheriff Station's jail, and book their suspect.