Processing the BMW Crime Scene
Solving a crime is like putting together the pieces of a very large jigsaw puzzle. Crime
investigators gather hundreds, sometimes thousands of pieces of information from interviews,
evidence, examination of the crime scene, and much more.
Investigators work in teams to review crime scene reports, conduct interviews of crime
suspects and witnesses, analyze evidence in the lab, bring charges against the criminal[s], and
use their knowledge to plan for future action.
For the next three days you are a BMW CSI investigator. You will be a part of an investigative
team conducting your investigations. You will also need to rely on the work of all the other
BMW CSI teams in order to “solve” our crime.
To help put together this crime puzzle, you, the investigators, will keep a personal notebook
and use a wiki to record information about everything you do on the case and any questions
you may have. This information may include things like:
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notes from interviews
sketches of the crime scene
evidence seen and collected
questions that need to be answered
witness lists
lab investigations and reports
ideas about connections among crime puzzle pieces
You will use the personal notes from your individual notebooks to complete team reports on
your team page on the CSI Wiki and share findings with other teams working to solve the crime.
In this BMW crime investigation you will keep all of your Team Investigation Reports on your
individual team’s page on the BMW CSI WEB 2.0 PBwiki. The BMW CSI WEB 2.0 PBwiki will
assist your team to organize their actions, discoveries, questions, and ideas. Since individuals
can edit and share wiki pages your team page will be a place for you to collaborate and
communicate with team members during the three days of the BMW CSI. At the beginning of
each day your team should edit the wiki and define what you plan to do that day, what
questions you hope to answer, and who is going to be responsible for what? At the end of the
day you should summarize what your team did and learned. You should write at least one
question that you need answered the next day and note any problems or successes. It should
be the responsibility of all team members to edit the team page throughout the day and post
comments for your team members.
The BMW CSI WEB 2.0 PBwiki will host:
1. Team pages where you will house all your findings, reports, and communications with
team members,
2. Initial Crime Reports and Templates for you to record your evidence findings, witness
information, interview assignments, Lab reports, and Final Case Reports. The templates
directions will be housed in a document repository on the CSI Resources page.
3. Evidence Labs. Your team will be involved in conducting forensic lab investigations to
gather data that will help you determine what evidence is or is not relevant to the case.
Completing the information from the forensic lab templates should be recorded directly
on the wiki lab pages. You will use the data to eliminate suspects. Your team will need
to share your lab reports with all other teams in order to develop a complete case of
evidence findings.
In order to solve the crime your team will need to determine what evidence is important to
solving the crime and finding the “proof” to support your conclusions. As you work through
the investigation your team should make sure to answer all of the following questions on
your team page for your Final Case Report:
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What was the crime?
What was the timeline of events?
Who is the suspect?
Who is the victim?
What laws were broken?
What evidence proves this?
What evidence is irrelevant to the case?
Your team should begin by generating a team name, login and complete Task 1 on the BMW CSI
WEB 2.0 PBwiki. The address is http://csiweb2.pbwiki.com .