Janamarie Truesdell, a lecturer at UW-Parkside and a deputy at Kenosha County’s (Wisconsin) medical examiner’s office, has always been fascinated by The Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death. The 18 detailed dollhouses have played an important training role in forensic science since they were first used in 1946 at Harvard Medical School.
Although accurate representations of death scenes from court cases, the dollhouses are tiny—recreated on a 1-inch to 1-foot (1:12) scale. Truesdell was thinking bigger.
“I just thought, what if we could put the two ideas together? Why don’t we make a life-sized Nutshell?,” Truesdell explained to Forensic.
Thus, the week-long intensive “Critical Thinking in Death Scene Investigation” was born at the University of Wisconsin Parkside.
The one-of-a-kind course saw 12 criminal justice students work through the Nutshells during the week, before culminating in an interactive recreation of one of the Nutshells by the UW-Parkside theater department.
The set, a 19th century bathroom belonging to the deceased, was designed and built by students from the theater arts department.
As Truesdell watched (and graded) from above, each student was met at the front of the theater by two Parkside police officers, who established a narrative and described the scene for the student. If asked the correct questions, a witness could also fill in some of the blanks. Once “inside” the nutshell, the students had 25 minutes to investigate the death scene, which included taking photos, gathering evidence, examining the body, determining a manner of death and assigning the next course of action.
Truesdell said she inserted certain elements into the death science, such as pills the students had to look for, as well as fingerprints on the body of the deceased.
“I wanted them to look at the scene as a whole,” she said. “Is it tidy or messy? Part of that is decision-making; it is logic and reason. It also ties into overcoming biases.”
The six days before the unique final exam were filled with basic concepts and practicalities of death scene investigation, including lectures from experts in the fields of arson, accident reconstruction, medical examinations and law enforcement. The class even heard from Bruce Goldfarb, executive assistant to the Chief Medical Examiner for the State of Maryland and curator of The Nutshells, via Skype.
The many guest lecturers were a critical part of Truesdell course design as they helped reinforce the main point—collaboration. Not only was the course a lofty collaboration with the theater department, but death scene investigation itself is collaborative.
“In death investigations, you are only one part of it,” Truesdell said. “There are people around you doing other things; we don’t work in a vacuum. We need to be aware of what others are doing and how we can help them and they can help us. It’s that wider viewpoint, that sense of community that I wanted the students to experience.”
Unsurprisingly, the course was a huge success and the university plans to offer it each Winterim, with the possibility of opening it up to professionals.
“It’s good to be able to see and recognize what other people are doing around you, and make it more of a team process. As the years go on, there will be even more collaboration,” Truesdell said.
Photo: The life-sized crime scene designed by the UW Parksdie theater department. Credit: UW-Parkside/Alyssa Nepper