Something strange is unfolding at the Memory Diner.
There's a body cooling in the dark alley outside. The restaurant has
been robbed. And the cook isn't what you'd exactly call a solid witness.
''It all happened so fast,'' he explains to the detective.
''Folks have a hard time remembering all the details,'' the detective
responds.
Welcome to ''Whodunit? The Science of Solving Crime,'' an interactive
murder mystery exhibit that opens today at the Museum of Discovery and
Science in Fort Lauderdale and runs through May 15.
Kids -- and the adults who bring them -- will get a chance to search
for clues, check fingerprints, compare DNA, view an autopsy (if they're
not too grossed out), match a bullet to a gun and eventually solve the
crime.
Or should that be crimes? The clues are misleading, and solving the
caper will require some deft detective work.
''It's just kind of like being a Sherlock Holmes,'' said Sgt. Jim
Kammerer with the Broward Sheriff's Office Crime Scene Unit, who will
take part in opening-weekend activities.
Kim Cavendish, the museum's president and CEO, said the exhibit does
the job of presenting science in an interactive way.
''I think it's really cool, and I think it'll be a big hit,'' she
said. ``I just find it fascinating and kind of fun.''
''It's visceral. You'll get oohs and ahhs and yuck,'' said Joe
Cytacki, the museum's vice president of programs, operations and
exhibits. ``You want a science project? Here it is. A big giant pop-up
book is what it is.''
Upon entering the exhibit, which covers about 4,000 square feet,
junior sleuths can pick up a news story about the robbery and dead body,
which includes pictures of three suspects. The flip side of the page
gives a checklist of evidence to consider.
The investigation will take the detective into some shady places,
including a graffiti-covered alleyway where the body is sprawled, and a
cordoned-off room where video images of an autopsy are projected onto a
dummy. That area has warnings at the entrance about the graphic images
inside.
Kids and adults who want to skip the autopsy have plenty of other
options, and museum officials say the exhibit has activities appropriate
for all ages.
When the exhibit's creators were developing it in Fort Worth in the
1990s, they tested audiences to see how far they should go with the
realism. The answer: not too far.
The result, according to Charlie Walter, who was project manager for
the exhibit in Fort Worth, is a ``family-friendly crime scene.''
Crime-scene investigators, of course, are big stars on television
shows like CSI. But this exhibit opened at the Fort Worth Museum
of Science and History in 1993, years before the CBS show first aired.
It has since toured the country, visiting about 30 museums.
Walter, who is now chief operating officer at the Fort Worth museum,
said the team that came up with the idea knew it had to be engaging.
'We said, `It cannot read like a forensic science textbook,' '' he
said. ``This exhibit has to read like an Agatha Christie novel.''
Even the experts say the exhibit is close to reality.
''It's the kind of exhibit that adults will go through and they can't
help but learn stuff,'' said BSO's Kammerer. 'Even the adults are going
to come out and saw, `Wow, I didn't know how they did that.' ''
