'CSI: The Experience' Interactive exhibit opens at Witte Museum

“CSI: The Experience,” an interactive exhibit opening at the Witte Museum, gives visitors a chance to investigate faux crime scenes. “CSI: The Experience,” an interactive exhibit opening at the Witte Museum, gives visitors a chance to investigate faux crime scenes. Photo: Courtesy Witte Museum Photo: Courtesy Witte Museum Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close 'CSI: The Experience' 1 / 1 Back to Gallery

Eagle-eyed regulars at the Witte Museum may notice something vaguely familiar about one of the mannequins in “CSI: The Experience.”

That's because it was modeled after Randall Webster, the museum's vice president of exhibitions. Before he came to work at the Witte, he was an independent designer, and he worked on developing the “CSI” TV show.

The interactive exhibit, which is based on the CBS procedural and opens Saturday, is built around three crime scenes. Visitors become investigators as soon as they step across the threshold. They are assigned to a scene — one of which offers a kid-friendly scenario — that they scour for clues. (They are advised, via video, by characters from the TV show and by real-life investigators.)

Then they head into a lab and work through the physical evidence. Two of the cases include an autopsy. And that's where Webster's double comes in.

“They took a cast of my head to put on the mannequin (in the autopsy room),” he said. “I have a picture with me next to my autopsy body.

“It's probably the strangest thing I've ever done as an exhibit designer.”

It also has sparked some double takes. When it opened at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago, he said, some folks recognized him: “They said, 'Wait; we're solving your murder right now!'”

His faux doppelganger seems to have met an unfortunate end, though Webster won't share the nature of “his” demise.

“Part of the fun is to figure out, is it an accident, is it a murder, is it a coincidence?” he said.

The exhibit has crisscrossed the country, proving popular enough to inspire a European edition and one at the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas.

“Our show is the original and has a lot more details,” Webster said.

More Information CSI: The Experience When: Opens Saturday; runs through Jan. 26 Where: Witte Museum, 3801 Broadway. Admission: $6-$8 surcharge on top of regular Witte admission ($7-$10). Info: 210-357-1900,; witte museum.org



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“CSI: The Experience”

The pop-culture connection definitely gets some folks in the door, he said, though he's hoping the exhibit inspires something more lasting than an interest in the TV show.

“I hope that our visitors have a chance to learn something about the importance of this CSI field and the forensic sciences,” he said. “And, hopefully, it will inspire some young person to go into that field.

“I think, especially for the Witte, we are kind of the first place young people visit when they start going to museums. It's important that we give them a wonderful introduction to what I hope will become a lifelong habit of museum-going.”

dlmartin@express-news.net