CSI Huntington Beach

Coming back to school on Jan. 8 after the weekend break, students at the Hebrew Academy in Huntington Beach were met with yellow caution tape around what appeared to be the scene of a crime.

No police could be seen on campus, and all the teachers behaved as if nothing happened, Sarah Danziger said. There was no body, but there were plenty of clues.

The crime was only make-believe. It had been staged as part of a forensic science project in Lordes Wheatley’s eighth-grade physical science class.

Here’s the story the students were told:

A young man was found dead in his home, and police had located four suspects — all with grudges against the victim. Within the yellow tape, a number of clues waited to be discovered by the amateur investigators.

What lay ahead for these students was a classic whodunit where they would focus on deducing what took place at the imaginary crime scene and locating the suspect through lab experiments.

Students spent the first day combing through the scene, noting where clues were found and in what condition. Soda cans, white yarn, footprints, sunglasses, an ice cube tray, a discarded earring — any one of these would help student teams best determine the person responsible for the imaginary homicide.

“The crime scene was really catchy,” Wheatley said. “Everyone wondered what was happening.”

The mug shots of four imaginary suspects were taped on the wall outside the door of Wheatley’s class. Bios were written below the photos of Vera Cruise, Gene Poole, Kendra Goode and Alfredo Fettuccine, all who supposedly knew the victim, the students said. All the suspects saw the victim near the time of the crime, and all the suspects have weird alibis, student Taraneh Daghighian said.

Holes in each of the suspects’ stories, along with clues found at the scene, led Taraneh’s group to believe that all four were guilty of foul play, working together to get money left to them in the victim’s will. Group members Sarah Danziger, Hannah Peterson, Shaina Gollub, Paris Bazerman and Taraneh — all 13 — told Wheatley that they had found overwhelming evidence pointing toward all four suspects.

“They’re all really engaged, excited and all coming up with very good reasons for the suspects, why they may have done it,” Wheatley said. “I think that’s how the kids learn.”

Although intrigued by the idea, Wheatley told the girls they should focus on one suspect.

Reaching a dead end with their conspiracy theory, the girls explored other theories on who did it.

“It was not just about hearing someone tell you how to do something,” Sarah said. “You really have to do it.”

“You can have your own answer or idea,” she said.

“As long as you have good reasons to back it up,” Taraneh added.

The class spent the subsequent days conducting lab experiments and testing evidence such as hair and in .

Everything wrapped up Friday with a mock grand jury to indict a suspect. The students felt the evidence leaned heavily toward either Goode or Fettuccine, but that is as far as it got, Wheatley said.

So who really did it? Nobody knows, but that was not the main purpose, Wheatley said. “It’s the process that counts here, and they all did a great job. It’s just like a real crime — sometimes they can go unsolved for years and you can have more than one suspect.”

The idea behind the exercise was to use the lab techniques the girls learned earlier in the year and get them engaged in the scientific method, she said.

“They did a great job,” she said. “The majority [of the class] nailed it.”