Trail of Bones: More Cases from the Files of a Forensic Anthropologist

13. Imaging Resources, Cold Cases, and the IDA Database

Imaging Resources, Cold Cases, and the IDA Database OME of the services the FACES Laboratory provides to agencies all across the country include efforts to clear up images captured on video cameras. One such image was brought to our laboratory by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF). A suspected arsonist was setting fires in abandoned houses. Though no one had been hurt yet, the ATF was very concerned that someone might end up dying if the perpetrator were not identified and stopped. Bureau agents brought a video to our lab, and imaging specialist Eileen Barrow provided assistance in clearing up the frame that included a somewhat blurred image of the alleged perpetrator. A video camera had been placed at a strategic point in the neighborhood where the fires had been occurring and had captured someone setting a fire and then walking away from it. However, his face was not clear enough to publicize because of the distance involved . Eileen provided the ATF agents with an enhanced image. That image was shown on television stations in the area when an acquaintance of the perpetrator was watching TV in a local establishment. The alleged perpetrator just happened to walk through the door, and the acquaintance recognized him as the person on TV, saying, "Hey, man, that's you." The alleged perpetrator bolted, but with the help of concerned citizens hewas caught, at which time he confessed to setting the fires. Eileen's image of him was close enough for the acquaintance to recognize him. We left the rest up to the law. FIGURE 27 shows the video frame, Eileen's enhancement , and the perpetrator's photo. As illustrated earlier, one service offered by our laboratory is three-dimensional clay facial reconstruction to identify someone when all other efs 13 F I G U R E 27. Enhancement of arsonist's video image 104 T R A I L OF BONES FIGURE 28. Facial reconstruction and photograph of identified man forts have failed. One such case from out of state provides an example of how such images can be successful in identifying someone. FIGURE 28 shows the facial reconstruction that Eileen Barrow prepared for Nevada authorities in 2001 and the person who was eventually identified. Nevada law enforcement groups publicized the image throughout their general area, but they had no positive results. In the summer of 2003, they decided to revisit the cold case and publicized it once again. Immediately, two women called the authorities and said they thought that the image looked like their brother who had been missing for several years. When asked why they had not responded to the publicity of the image in 2001, they explained that they had been out of the country at the time. The sisters had held onto an old baseball cap that their brother had loved. Analysts extracted DNA from the sweat stains on the cap and matched it to the DNA recovered from his bones. A positive match proved the man's identity, and his sisters were able to bury their brother and go on with their lives. Publicizing the three-dimensional reconstructions for such cases is of utmost importance. We are still hoping that such publicity works in one of the oldest cases for which we have developed a three-dimensional image. In 1986, the body of a young white female was found floating in Lake Imaging Resources, Cold Cases, and the IDA Database 105 Pontchartrain in St. Tammany Parish in southeastern Louisiana close to New Orleans. She had a plastic bag over her head and was weighted down with several pounds of material. She was not identified at the time and was buried as a Jane Doe in the paupers' section of a local cemetery. Detective Marco Dema asked for our help in exhuming her body in 2003. An inquiry had come from out of state on this cold case, and the possibility existed that we might get a positive identification. That possibility led to the judge's order to exhume the victim's body. We arrived at the cemetery early that summer morning and watched as the backhoe operator removed the soil foot by foot and then inch by inch as he got closer and closer to the body. Records suggested that no casket had been provided and her body had been buried in a body bag. About three and a half feet down into the...