BRAY MAN RENE’S WORK IS REAL LIFE ‘BONES’
DAVID MEDCALF VISITED THE HOME OF RENÉ GAPERT, ONE OF IRELAND’S ONLY FORENSIC ANTHROPOLOGISTS
THE LOGO ON René Gapert’s business card is a picture of a grinning skull but he is no Halloween, Scooby-Doo, scares and dares merchant. The affable man with the ready smile and the cheery manner regularly deals in real skulls and is used to the sometimes grisly business of examining real bodies. Read the fine print on the card to discover that 40-year-old Dr Gapert is a forensic anthropologist, with an impressive string of initials after his name to prove it. He is the person to call whenever bones are discovered in mysterious or suspicious circumstances – just like in the TV series ‘Bones’.
His number is on the phone of An Garda Siochána and of most county coroners around the State who have him on permanent stand-by to assist in investigations into discoveries which are potentially sinister or out of the ordinary.
His is the profession in demand whenever disasters, such as the recent Grenville Tower tragedy, strike leaving the authorities facing the challenge of identifying victims.
The Bray resident with the eye-catching logo trades under the business name Human Remains Services Ireland as that seems to describe best what he does. The remains in question may be of the recently deceased or they may have been lying interred for centuries but he has to treat them all with the same objectivity and the same respect.
The Christian name sounds French but René Gapert is in fact German, a native of Wuppertal east of Dusseldorf and his accent still carries noticeable traces of the land of his birth. HowWhile attached to a hospital in Berlin, hee ever, most of the inflexions in his speech are became familiar with the routine of the 7 a.m. pure Irish as he has been living here for almost autopsy as well as attending formal lectures half of his life, blessed with an Irish wife Alison later in the day. One of his duties while in the and doting on a young Irish daughter Muireann. laboratory was the preparation of specimens – He is at a complete loss to explain how it was typically human organs such as hearts – to showw he realised from an early age that he wanted to to medical students. This practice traditionallyy follow the most unusual career path that he has involved glass jars and gallon of formaldehyde pursued – but he did. but René had the good fortune to find himself
‘I don’t know where it came from,’ he says training under the guidance of anatomist simply. ‘I suppose I was always interested in Gunther van Hagens in Heidelberg where an medicine and science.’ He reckoned he would alternative technique has been developed. Van never clock up the points in the equivalent of Hagens may not be a household name in most the Leaving Cert to become a medical doctor, houses but he is legend in certain circles for so he had to find an alternative strategy to devising plastination, using polymers to leavee pursue his natural inclinations. When still a specimens odourless and easily handled. schoolboy, he looked for a work placement in the The technology of plastination has proven pathology department of a hospital where the invaluable in medical schools and has been used mystique surroundings’deadbodieswasblowntodramaticeffectinexhibitionssuchas‘Bodies’ away for young oRené. Rather than drilling on which allow the general public an insight into some military parade ground when he enlisted anatomy. As part of his training, the young man for national service, he volunteered to spend his from Westphalia learned how to clean up skeltime working beside professional pathologists. etons and wire them back together for display.
From an early stage he was present as post He also became adept in the art of making deathh mortems were held on those who had died in masks, a strong German tradition since thee circumstance which required some explanation 1920s, and in making casts of bones. or clarification: ‘I am not squeamish.’ He beneRené Gapert’s apprenticeship concluded whenn fitted from the German apprenticeship system he was 21 years of age, time to find a full-timee which puts practical experience on a par with job. Just as he had been sure what he wanted too book learning in many crafts and profession. He do, the qualified mortuary technician had firmm became a ‘mortuary technician’ with first-hand ideas of where he wanted to do it. knowledge of anatomy and a grasp of the fun‘I had this notion that Ireland would be a damentals of forensics, backed by an academic lovely place, though I only knew Ireland from itss understanding of pathology and biology. traditional music,’ he recalls. ‘I was always in con--
tact with hospitals in n Ireland.’ If enjoying the songs of Planxty and The Dubliners was not enough, then there were always the joys of watching ‘ The Commitments’ ’ movie. He had also o visited this country, y, taking time out in n the wilds of Spiddal al after his mother died. d.
The four weekss in Co. Galway were e ‘very good healing g time’ was René recalls, adding that he took time out from the countryside to talk to anatomists in Galway city.
‘ They maybe thought me strange because I was so enthusiastic,’ he reflects.
In 1998 he spotted an advertisement for a post at Tallaght Hospital for which he was amply qualified, perhaps too much so. He flew into Dublin for the interview and, though he failed to land the job, somehow never really went home. By sheer good luck his eye was drawn to another advert, this one placed in the papers by Fanagan’s, the undertakers. They were looking for an embalmer adapted to make the loved ones of Irish family fit to be presented at wakes and in churches.
René had skills which appeared compatible, though German coffins are never presented unsealed in public. The job did not materialise but through Fanagan’s he was referred to St Vincent’s Hospital on the south side of the city where they hired him as a mortuary technician. As his standard of spoken English improved, Vincent’s led on to nearby UCD, where his talent for dissection and plastination were appreciated by the college’s school of medicine. It was a parttime post which he filled out by giving anatomy lessons which he found he enjoyed.
Once settled on campus, he was also well placed to pursue his own studies as well as assisting undergraduates in theirs – and once again, he knew the direction in which he must travel. He was attracted to the field of forensic anthropology, identifying unknown remains from skeletons, from shallow graves, from mutilated bodies, from decomposed corpses. It is a field of knowledge which has been developed in the light some of the mankind’s most shameful incidents at mass graves in Iraq and Syria. The skills of forensic anthropologists are honed on plane crash sites and in the blackened aftermath of catastrophic fires.
René was taken on as a PhD student by a college in Scotland though much of his study time was actually passed in the basement of a London church. St Bride’s was severely damaged during the Blitz of World War Two but the crypt survived, becoming an improvised laboratory for scientists with an interest in bones.
With 158 heads to work on, it was there that René was able to refine measurements which allowed members of his rare profession improve their ability to deduce the sex of the dead from the skull. René has applied such techniques – known as craniometrics – in examining specimens from Australia held by European museums before their repatriation Down Under at the request of indigenous tribes.
He graduated with his doctorate in 2009, the first member of his family to achieve such academic distinction, and he has continued since to broaden his knowledge and experience. Modern forensic analysis calls for use of three-dimensional printing and CT/MRI scans, for instance, and he must remain up-to-date. He broke away from UCD in the past year to set up on his own account.
HE is reluctant to discuss individual cases but makes no secret that in recent months, three different coroners have been in touch.
They needed to know quickly and discreetly whether remains unearthed were so old as to be archaeological or so unexplained as to need garda investigation. He has done work on the so-called Disappeared, killed during The Troubles by the IRA, some of whose bodies are now being disinterred from improvised graves.
On a less distressing note, he is delighted to be involved in a project to examine the death masks of famous 18th century satirist Dean Jonathan Swift and his friend Esther Johnson, generally remembered as Stella. He and some fellow enthusiasts have created 3-D models of the couple, with their findings to be presented in public at an event at the Science Gallery in Trinity College on November 24. It should make a fascinating evening.
I HAD THIS NOTION THAT IRELAND WOULD BE A LOVELY PLACE, THOUGH I ONLY KNEW IT FROM ITS TRADITIONAL MUSIC