Hundreds of students to participate in CSI Challenge

Hundreds of high school students with dreams of becoming crime fighters will analyze fingerprints, hair samples, tooth impressions and interview witnesses to solve a fictional murder mystery at the 10th annual CSI Challenge Monday.

Up to 500 students in forensics teams from 40 high schools from Long Island, Massachusetts and Connecticut will compete at the daylong competition at Stony Brook University.

The teams will analyze identical crime scenes and interview up to 15 actors posing as witnesses for this year's theme: "Till Death Do Us Part," a complex scenario created by David Tricamo, a Suffolk County detective who has run the program for the past 10 years.

They will use skills they learned in classes to find out who killed a member of a mock organized crime family by collecting and processing the evidence gathered at the scene in a simulated crime lab.

And their work will be evaluated by police offices, detectives and forensics scientists.

The students prepared for the event by studying the scenario two weeks in advance.