Honolulu chief medical examiner Kanthi von Guenthner, at right holding the No. 9, helps Kamehameha Schools students interpret the scene of a mock crime at Chaminade University's Silver Sword Cafe. Jeff Widener • The Honolulu Advertiser

"It could mean 1,600 on the SATs," said Amber Lam, a Kamehameha Schools graduate, taking notes on a legal pad. "They're smart."

Her friend, Zoe Bertlemann, paused near the overturned chairs and tables when she saw what appeared to be blood spatter and, then, uh, something else. Something brown.

"It's chunky," Bertlemann said with a sour look on her face. "I think someone puked."

The mock crime scene, at the Silver Sword Cafe at Chaminade University, was set up by Court TV yesterday as part of its "Forensics in the Classroom" project for schools.

More than two dozen Kamehameha students, including many who just graduated, put on visors, lab coats and surgical gloves and tried to solve the crime.

Interest in forensic science has grown with the popularity of Court TV's "Forensic Files" and the CBS show "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" and its various spinoffs.

"It's exploded," said Goff, a nationally known forensic entomologist who also is a consultant to Honolulu police. "Television certainly hasn't hurt."

Kanthi von Guenthner, Honolulu's chief medical examiner, said the Court TV project, like morgue tours, can give students an idea of the science behind real-life crime solving. "Forensics in the Classroom" is available for free to schools online.

"They can see the science behind it," von Guenthner said. "It's like putting the pieces of a puzzle together."

Yesterday, the Kamehameha students learned the basic rules of crime-scene protocol. Always tread lightly and observe, looking for things that are odd or out of place. Photograph or document all potential evidence before touching or moving anything.

"You get one chance to actually document the crime scene and do it properly," Goff told them, explaining that physical evidence can easily be ruined by overzealous investigators. "Let the scene talk to you."

The students walked through the cafeteria, searching for clues. Footprints. A saw. A soiled stocking. A bloody handprint.

So what went down?

Lauren Fonseca, a Kamehameha graduate, thinks she knows. Vandals came into the cafeteria, which may have been purposely left unlocked, because tape was found over one of the door locks. They trashed the place and, when trying to do more damage, one of them cut themselves. Either the person who was injured, or another vandal upset by the sight of blood, pulled off the stocking they were using as a mask and threw up before fleeing.

The graffiti suggests that geeks were the culprits — including a few strange tributes to Philo Farnsworth, who invented the television as a young man but died in obscurity. The vandalism could be part of an initiation rite for an underground school club.

But the exercise was more about the process than finding out exactly who was responsible. Fonseca was not ready to point fingers at anyone just yet.

"It looks like geeks did it, but it's almost too obvious," she said. "Maybe the jocks did it to blame it on the geeks."