CANTON -- The SUNY Canton College Foundation helped 20 students learn how to crack cold cases and unravel the mysteries of complex crimes.

The College Foundation recently contributed nearly $6,000, or about 75 percent of the cost for each student to participate in a two-day symposium with Laura G. Pettler, Ph.D., a noted authority on physical and behavioral evidence. Pettler is an expert on crime scene staging, or the manipulation of evidence to misdirect an investigation, according to Elizabeth A. Brown, Ph.D., an associate professor who teaches in the Criminal Investigation program.

The training was previously reserved for law enforcement professionals. It was offered to a college-level audience for the first time at SUNY Canton. "Students would not have been able to access this professional-level training without assistance from the College Foundation," Brown said.

Pettler's approach is geared toward modern police investigation and interview techniques and employs the scientific method to focus on examining crime and the offenders who commit the acts.

"When our students analyze crime scenes, either in class or in real life, they can never discount the idea that the evidence has been altered," said Brown. "Dr. Pettler illustrated examples where the evidence had been moved to suggest something else had happened. Such manipulation could point to the wrong suspect or even make the case unsolvable."

Students said that the symposium used actual police files to help them establish the nature of a crime. "We actually got to solve a case and determine whether it was staged or not," said Marissa O. Woodworth of Malone. "This is exactly what I want to do when I graduate."