If you listened to the Friday Buzz when producer Beatrice Lawrence guest-hosted last month, you’re familiar with the Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death and their recently-retired curator, Bruce Goldfarb. You may also remember that he revealed a connection between the Nutshells and our home state of Wisconsin: UW-Parkside’s Winterim Death Scene Investigation seminar, whose final exam features an exclusive life-sized recreation of one of the morbid dioramas.
Beatrice decided to take Goldfarb up on his offer, and headed out to Kenosha to join him in seeing the one-of-a-kind piece of forensic science history—before it’s shipped off the Glessner House museum in Chicago. She also talked to the students tasked with solving the crime, the members of the theater department who built the set, and the professor who made it all happen. In doing so, she got a look into the past, present, and future of death scene investigation.
Special thanks to Bruce Goldfarb, Dr. Janamarie Truesdell and the UW-Parkside theater department: Josh Christoffersen, J Lofty, Aria Johnson, and Bianca Gonzalez. Additional thanks to the students of CRJM490: Critical Thinking in Death Scene Investigation.
Photo courtesy of Beatrice Lawrence / WORT
