Forensics help rebuild faces
Artists hope to identify migrants who died in Arizona desert
The final moments of life for the eight border crossers whose remains were found in the Arizona desert over the last two summers will always be a mystery. What is clear is the cause of death for them, as for many migrants, recorded by the Pima County medical examiner’s office: “Heat stroke, exposure to hot environment.” “Hyperthermia due to exposure to the elements.” “Dehydration, hypotension and hyperthermia due to environmental exposure to heat in desert.” The list goes on.
The desolation of their deaths in this perilous corridor along the border is compounded by another indignity: The identities of these eight men remained unknown. The traditional tools used by medical examiners to identify human remains, including DNA and dental comparisons, had yet to yield any clues.
Now, a last-ditch effort to identify the dead and help bring closure to their families, has moved from the medical examiner’s office in Tucson to a more rarefied setting: a workshop in facial reconstruction at the New York Academy of Art.
The class, taught by Joe Mullins, a forensic artist with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, focuses on reconstructing the faces of migrants who lost their lives in the desert. The workshop reflects the growing sophistication of the field of forensic facial reconstruction — a fusion of science, art and anthropology in which the skull is used to build a face and to help investigators identify the dead. It is particularly helpful in cases of crime or mass disasters.
Young graduate students, whose rigorous classical training includes anatomy, are working with 3-D-printed replicas of the men’s skulls based on CT scans of the originals, which are considered forensic evidence.
Painstakingly rendered in clay applied onto the copied skulls, with marbles for eyes and a black Sharpie dot marking the pupils, the students’ reconstructions are being exhibited in the academy windows through March 29.
Migrant deaths along the U.S. border with Mexico rose last year despite a steep decrease in attempted crossings, according to the United Nations Migration Agency. Since 2001, the remains of roughly 2,800 migrants have been found in Pima County alone, represented by a grim sea of red circles on “death maps” produced by the Arizona OpenGIS Initiative for Deceased Migrants.
Of these, roughly 1,000 people are still unidentified. Stricter border enforcement and deportation policies have led migrants to cross at more remote and brutal terrain.
Forensic reconstruction experts like Mullins, who specializes in age progression — for example, how a missing child might look years later — seek out distinguishing features, such as scars, a broken nose, or, in one case, braces on the teeth.
He cautions students to leave artistic license at the door. “You have to have that artistic mojo flowing through your veins,” he tells them. “But if you put the wrong face on, that person is going to stay lost.”
Reconstructing a face with scientific accuracy involves rebuilding the muscles and soft tissue layer by layer, using strips of clay. Then the students use cut plastic straws placed on the clay to mark tissue depths, which are based on researchers’ averages for ages, genders and cultural backgrounds. Antonia Barolini, a 23-year-old painting specialist, said she chose the academy because of Mullins’ class, having dreamed about being an FBI agent.
The class, in its fourth year, grew out of a working relationship between Mullins and Bradley J. Adams, director of forensic anthropology for the chief medical examiner’s office in New York City, which received a grant from the National Institute of Justice to purchase a 3-D printer. “Facial reconstructions are intended to provide an investigatory lead in cases that have gone cold,” Adams said. “The hope is that someone who knew the person will see the reconstruction, recognize some similarities and notify the authorities of a potential match.”
Karen T. Taylor, considered a dean of the profession and a consultant for the television show CSI, said the complexity of her rather esoteric occupation is often underestimated, with police personnel sometimes taking on the reconstruction instead of trained artists who work in tandem with anthropologists and odontologists.
At the academy, as the faces created by students took shape, the room began to take on the feeling of a hallowed space. “It’s kind of eerie,” said Michael Fusco, 30, a student whose specialty is painting. “They become people.”
Two of the eight migrants wound up being identified independently of the class. But for Mullins, the class represents a potential to bring closure to loved ones of those who perished, perhaps while seeking a better life. “It was a gamble that cost them their lives,” Mullins said. “But it shouldn’t have to cost them their identity.”