CHS students learn about FSU's Underwater CSI program (with photos)

Crestview High School students learned about academic coursework they can really dive into last week when faculty from the Florida State University at Panama City Underwater Crime Scene Investigation program visited the school.

“We’re going outside the Bay County community to schools in the area,” explained Michael Zinszer, director of the FSU PC advanced science diving program. “In spite of what people say about our youth today, what we see on our campus and in high schools around the state are bright, intelligent students who would be a perfect match for our program.”

Added Dr. Thomas Kelley, director of the UCSI program, “We’re also surprised at how many goal-directed kids we see.”

Both agreed the spate of TV programs about crime scene investigations has benefited their program and inspired many of their graduates.

“You have to find something that’s going to turn the light on for these kids,” Kelley said.

With FSU recruiter Kathleen Branch, the UCSI program reps visited Crestview High Friday morning, visiting with students in the school’s media center, where they screened an episode of a Discovery Channel program on which they were profiled.

“We’ve actually helped Hollywood with some of their CSI series,” Kelley said.

More seriously, the program is frequently called upon by the defense and law enforcement communities for their expertise, both for evaluating new technologies and for assistance in solving cases.

“This program is one where they’ll have a marketable skill when they walk out the door,” Zinszer said. He said UCSI students are frequently placed in internships with governmental departments including NOAA, NASA and the FBI. While in the program, they might work on cases anywhere in the country.

“We take kids on cases and a lot of the time, they’re the ones who find the clues,” Zinszer said.

“We’re part of a national response network,” Kelley explained, adding that the UCSI program is also under contract with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. Investigations often include searching for everything from sunken aircraft and shipwrecks down to bombs and underwater weapons.

“Every nitwit out there wants to get rid of the evidence by throwing it in the creek or pond,” Kelley said.

Cutting edge technology, however, makes it possible for the program’s experts to find evidence of a crime without even getting their feet wet.

“The best dive for us is no dive at all,” he said.

Recently the school was involved in investigating the high-profile disappearance of a young American woman who vanished off the Dutch island nation of Aruba.

“The Aruba case was one of the major cases in the United States at the time,” Kelley said.

FSU’s investigators, including several students, searched in several coastal locations off Aruba, including investigating an undersea cave.

“We came to the conclusion that she was taken off shore,” Kelley said, adding they even had a confession from the suspected abductor, but, “under Aruba law, if you have no body, you have no crime.”

Almost every law enforcement diving team in the state trained at FSU UCSI, Kelley said. Training also includes networking the various dive teams so they can meld together during an investigation.

“These guys are trained enough to act together as a team,” Kelley said.

The program offers students the small-town campus feel while they gain a Florida State University degree, Zinszer said. Kelley encouraged parents of students who are interested in the program to tour the campus in Panama City to ease any concerns they may have.

“It’s the diving part that worries some parents,” Kelly said with a smile. “We want them to see that we’ll take good care of their kids.”

For more information about the Florida State University-Panama City Underwater Crime Scene Investigation program, call 850.770.2205 or visit http://ucsi.pc.fsu.edu.