From the archive: Re-creating a face to put a name to

This article was published in the Inquirer on Feb. 5, 1989.

When the partially decomposed body of a woman was found in Lower Gwynedd three months ago, it posed a frustrating problem to local police and county detectives.

The body was found in a patch of underbrush off Route 309, near McKean Road, by a motorist who was taking a roadside walk after a vehicle breakdown.

To date, all attempts to identify the woman, who police think was murdered, have failed.  The body had deteriorated beyond recognition.

That's why Montgomery County detectives brought Philadelphia sculptor Frank Bender in on the case.

Bender, 47, is a forensic sculptor,  mixing art and science to reconstruct a bust of an unidentified body, using the skull and information supplied by scientists.

Police call Bender when they find a body that has deteriorated beyond recognition.  When every other method of identification has failed, he is often their last hope.

"Some of the work he does is just astonishing.  You have to catch your breath when you see the work he produces," said Dr. Halbert E. Fillinger, a consultant for the Montgomery County Coroner's Office and deputy chief of the Bucks County Coroner's Office.

"I think this is a very unselfish thing for him to help society," added Delaware County Detective Paul Schneider, who has worked with Bender.  "He's got a heart of gold. "

His services are contracted by the Montgomery County Coroner's or Detectives Offices, as well as by authorities in Philadelphia and other counties.

In July 1986, Schneider walked into Bender's studio and recognized a bust of Edward G. Myers, 21, whose body was found in a cornfield in Paradise Township, about 10 miles east of Lancaster.  Myers, of Upper Darby, had been shot in the head several times,  and he had been missing since November 1985.  His body was found in May 1986.  The case is under investigation.

"The likeness was so good," said Schneider.  "I wasn't on that case, but I had just seen a photograph of him in Upper Darby. "

In February 1982 two PennDOT employees found the badly decomposed body of 5-year-old Aliyah Davis  inside a steamer trunk in the shadow of the Platt Memorial Bridge in Southwest Philadelphia.  The Philadelphia Medical Examiner's Office determined the girl had been beaten to death.  The homicide remained unsolved for six years - until Philadelphia Detective James McNesby of the special investigations unit got a break in the case.

In May, McNesby showed a photograph of Bender's reconstruction to Aliyah's father, who recognized it.

Aliyah's stepfather, Charles Fox, and her mother, Maria Davis Fox, were arrested later that month in Virginia and charged in connection with Aliyah's death.

McNesby said Wednesday  that Charles Fox was charged with first-degree murder, and  Maria Davis Fox was charged with voluntary manslaughter.   Trial is set for next month, McNesby said.

"It was really amazing how much of a likeness it was.  It was really amazing how much alike the daughter and mother were," he said.

Bender declined to disclose how much he is paid for each reconstruction.  However, he said it was not enough to pay the bills.

The free-lance commercial artist described his forensic work as an ''avocation. "

In his Center City studio, Bender  begins a reconstruction by applying clay directly to the skull, guided by information and scientific charts supplied by forensic dental experts and forensic anthropologists.

As he works to mold a bust from clay, he refers to photographs taken of the skull from all angles.   He then makes a mold of the sculpture and casts a bust in durable plaster from the mold.

Then he sands the face, paints it and either adds a wig or sculpts hair onto the head.  The sex, age and race of the person are determined by a forensic anthropologist before Bender starts working, but he must use his artistic intuition for many details of a victim's appearance.

"It's like working on a person from life," said Bender.  "You work at it, and get into the form, and then all of a sudden you have an individual in front of you. "

Bender sometimes goes to a hair stylist for information about how a woman may have worn her hair.  Information about a victim's weight and taste in fashion is often gleaned from any clothing found on the body, he said.

A forensic dentist and an anthropologist supply him with information about the nutritional health of the body at the time of death, which can help determine specific peculiarities or the "character" of the reconstructed face.

It is a painstaking process.

Although the scientific information is useful, he said, the more useful tool for creating a likeness from a skull is his experience sculpting and painting live subjects.  Bender said half of the 30 forensic reconstructions he has done during the last 12 years have contributed to an identification.

Fillinger said recently  that Bender's success rate was extraordinary.

"A 50 percent (solution rate) is astronomical.  . . .  I happen to like the guy personally," Fillinger said.  "He has been a good friend.  He's the kind of guy who desperately wants to help you with your problem."

*

Bender is more than halfway through the six-week process of reconstructing the face of the woman found in Lower Gwynedd.  The face is "roughed out," Bender said  Wednesday, but the project will take about two more weeks of fine-tuning before he gets a likeness that satisfies him.  A forensic anthropologist who works with Bender has determined little more than that the woman was black.

The scientific formulas referred to by Bender as he works are technical.  For example, the length and thickness of the nose are based on the width and length of the nasal aperture on the skull.  Other technical formulas, based on measurements of the skull, determine the width and thickness of the mouth.

"It all goes by the skull.  The skull tells you everything but the person's name," Bender said.

In the end, he said, he has no doubt he will make a recognizable representation of the victim.

"After awhile, you get a feeling for the form of a face," he said.  "I think that's more important than all the (scientific) charts.  This is a situation where art supplements science . . ."

*

A month ago, at the request of the Montgomery County detectives, Bender completed a bust  of a young woman whose skeletal remains were found Oct. 9 by a group on horseback  in a wooded area on the property of the Green Lane Reservoir in Marlborough Township.  County detectives and local police have been unable to identify her.

Lt. John P. Durante, director of the county's forensic science unit, said that the woman had been shot  with a .32 caliber revolver and her body burned after it was doused with a flammable liquid.

Bender said that as he worked on the reconstruction, he felt that he got to know the woman, as he does in each of the cases.

"I think this girl is cared for.  She has parents or friends who really care about her," he said.  "Somewhere out there someone is wondering whatever happened to her. "

Bender is certain he achieved a good likeness of the woman.

"They don't go out of here unless I'm secure with them," he said.  "I put a lot into them.  They are my babies.  They've got to be right. "

There is an element of artistic pride and a bit of Sherlock Holmes in Bender's motives for the practice of his highly exclusive craft.

Bender and Fillinger met in 1976 while Bender was on a tour of the Philadelphia Medical Examiner's Office.  Fillinger is a former Philadelphia assistant medical examiner, and he retired in September 1988.

"(Fillinger) showed me this body and asked me if I could reconstruct the face," Bender said.

With Bender's help, the body was identified as that of Anna Duvall, 62, a Phoenix woman whose body was found near the Philadelphia International Airport in summer 1976.

Bender was trained in painting and sculpture at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia.

"He's a homegrown treasure . . .  Frankly, I haven't seen anyone yet who is better," Fillinger said.  "I say to the guys (police authorities), you can take it to whom you want but if you take my advice, you'll take it to Frank. "

Fillinger, who owns a consulting business called Forensic Associates of Philadelphia and Horsham, said he knew of only six other forensic sculptors in the country.

Betty Pat Gatliff of Norman, Okla.,  is a nationally recognized forensic sculptor, but she said she was uncertain how many others there might be.

Gatliff, who said she has worked on 138 cases in the last 21 years,   works as a forensic sculptor on a free-lance basis for police departments across the country and in Canada.

"I've seen some of Frank's work," she said in a recent telephone interview.  "He does fine work.  He's a marvelous sculptor, a very talented man."