There was an artist who played with skeletons all day, but in the end he helped the police solve many major cases.

Criminal investigation and art sound like two unrelated beings, but Forensic Sculpture is a magical combination of criminal investigation and art after marriage. Today, Bian Xiao will introduce you to the "special functions" of forensic sculptors, who can use their artistic talents to catch bad guys.

An artist played with skeletons all day, but in the end he helped the police solve a big case.

Last year, new york Art Institute opened a forensic sculpture studio. The tutor is Joe Mullins, a forensic painter of the National Center for Missing and Abused Children. He will instruct students to reconstruct the head of the deceased with clay on the replica of the deceased's skull according to the known information of the deceased, such as age, height, sex, race, bullet hole position, fracture, etc.

Forensic sculpture

These dead people are all victims of cold cases in reality. They all have one thing in common, that is, they have lost their identities, and the task of these forensic sculptors is to help them find their identities. Usually, when DNA testing and fingerprint testing are not applicable, investigators will use forensic sculptures to help solve the case. For the dead who were found with only skeletons or rotting bodies, this is their only hope of finding identity.

These sculptures are designed to help people identify the dead more accurately and help the police solve the case. Therefore, for forensic sculptors, their carved heads don't have to be perfect. It is important to be as close as possible to the real facial features of the deceased.

Forensic sculpture

Finally, the sculptures of the deceased made by these students were displayed in the school window, and the photos were uploaded to the national missing persons system.

It is still unknown whether the students' works will help the police to successfully find the missing persons or solve the headless unsolved cases. But in the United States, not only in American TV series, there are indeed many cases because of the help of forensic sculptors, and the police can close the case quickly.

Forensic sculpture

In 2007, two vagrants found the harmonica with the key in the picture above on a narrow street in Chicago, which contained an unrecognizable rotting female body.

Forensic sculpture

Karen Taylor's personal homepage

After a year, the police still failed to confirm the identity of the deceased, so they had to ask Karen Taylor, a famous forensic artist, to help solve the case.

Forensic sculpture

It is said that the above picture is a sketch of the deceased given by the police before ... good ... After seeing this picture, Dajun suddenly felt that it was reasonable not to solve the case for one year. ...

Forensic sculpture

After the police took the victim's skull to Karen, the victim's teeth caught her attention. Obviously, there is orthodontic cement and cable in the tooth, and a lateral incisor is broken.

According to other information provided by the police, including hair samples, Karen drew a two-dimensional head of the deceased on the front and side. She drew a ponytail in the image because there was a rubber band next to the body to tie her hair.

Forensic sculpture

Karen's photo is still very different from that in front of the police. ...

Forensic sculpture

Karen made a three-dimensional head sculpture on the skull model with clay according to the two-dimensional head.

Forensic sculpture

This facial reconstruction sculpture even appeared on a program called "America Wanted" and its official website. The police also published new head photos in various dental magazines. Finally, a staff member of the dental clinic recognized the identity of the girl and informed the police in time.

Forensic sculpture

In addition to Karen, there is also a master of forensic sculpture in the United States named Frank Bender. Unfortunately, 20 1 1 passed away. However, during his lifetime, he worked for Philadelphia Police Department, FBI, Scotland Yard, Mexican government and Egyptian government, and also participated in the "American Wanted Order" program in the United States, which made him famous. Frank made about 40 sculptures of the dead in his life, and it is said that 85% of them finally confirmed the identity of the dead.

Forensic sculpture

Although Frank is a big bull in the field of forensic sculpture, he was actually a photographer at first. He has never studied sculpture. It is a coincidence that he entered the field of forensic sculpture.

Forensic sculpture

Anna Duval

1976 because he has always been interested in anatomy, he entered a morgue in Philadelphia under the guidance of a friend. When he passed a rotting female corpse, he boasted to his friends that he knew the original appearance of the female corpse. As a result, a coroner asked him to keep his promise on the spot, so Frank carved a female corpse. Later, this sculpture really helped the police identify the deceased as 62-year-old Anna Duval, the government secretary of Phoenix.

Besides making sculptures for the dead, Frank also made the head of the murderer to help the police catch the murderer. 1972, a banker named John Liszt in West Jersey killed his mother, wife and children at home, and then he got away with it 18 years. Later, Frank cooperated with psychologists and made a statue of a murderer with the help of computer imaging technology. The statue appeared on the "National Wanted Notice" on May 2 11,and the murderer was arrested by the police.

Forensic sculpture

From 18, Frank was able to analyze the appearance changes of the deceased, and the degree of restoration was surprisingly high, which exceeded the talent of an artist.

In addition to the unique talent of sculptors, with the continuous development of science and technology, forensic sculptors can also get more scientific and technological support to restore the heads of the dead or murderers more realistically.

Forensic sculpture

Joe Mullins, a forensic painter mentioned by Dajun before, introduced 3D printing technology into the field of forensic sculpture. Due to the limitations of science, ethics and law, sculptors and students studying forensic sculpture often cannot take out the real skull of the deceased, but by printing the skull in 3D, sculptors can restore and create it on an accurate skull model. Joe Mullins thinks that this can make the whole process easier and make the final incarnation more realistic than traditional methods.

An artist played with skeletons all day, but in the end he helped the police solve a big case.

Forensic sculptors are such magical beings. They seem to have a special function, turning an unrecognizable skull into a lifelike portrait sculpture, as if bringing the dead back to life.