“Putting a Living Face on the Nameless Dead”
By Shoshanaa Walter
Two farmers at Watsonville Farm stopped to find an anonymous body found in a ditch. The body was expected to be an illegal immigrant who was killed and then put on this road. The only identifiable body parts were the skull and some teeth. Investigators wanted to know who this body was so they called a forensic artist, Gloria Nusse, to draw his face. In order to make this man’s face, Ms. Nusse formed a resin casting over its face. His face was now visible; the man was John Doe. Ms. Nusse then worked on three other unknown Hispanic bodies. To begin identifying the faces, she places 20 needles in different locations of the skull to indicate the tissue depth, measures the angle of the nasal spine and cavity to determine the protrusion of the nose, and measures the width of the lips by their proportion of their eyes sockets. Ms. Nusse says it’s all about reading the skull in order to remake the face. One of the bodies was Yesenia Nungaray, a 16 year old girl who left her town with an older man. How Ms. Nusse displayed Ms. Nungray was incredible accurate to what she actually looked like. A way in which she tries to make the bodies easily identifiable is by extenuating their unique features.
These sculptures of the unknown bodies are very helpful for identifying the bodies that may never have been identified if it weren’t for these sculptures. Since the United States does not have DNA or any way of identifying illegal immigrants, this is really the best way of figuring out who these people are. They send the sculptures down to the country where they are presumably from and then hope for someone, a relative or friend, to come up and identify them.
One critique I have for this article is that it is way too boring. I thought the topic would be interesting originally, but more I read on, there was no real direction in the topic. I wish it was either more directed towards this sculpture technique and the three bodies or more on Ms. Nusse and other success she has had with these sculptures.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/05/us/05bcclay.html?_r=1&ref=forensic_science
1 comment:
Recently, two farmers at Watsonville Farm discovered an anonymous body in a ditch. The people, who discovered the body, stated that the body was of an illegal immigrant who was killed and the put on the side of the road. Eventually, the body was put in a ditch. Recently, a forensic artist by the name of Gloria Nusse, was able to reconstruct a picture of what the deceased face looks like. Devon presented good points on how the face was reconstructed. When Devon stated “To begin identifying the faces, she places 20 needles in different locations of the skull to indicate the tissue depth, measures the angle of the nasal spine and cavity to determine the protrusion of the nose, and measures the width of the lips by their proportion of their eyes sockets. Ms. Nusse says it’s all about reading the skull in order to remake the face.” This shows the complexity of the job of a forensic artist. This article review was well – written and provided good examples to make the reader further understand the case. I don’t think that this review would need to be critiqued. I was surprised when the article was talking about this newly developed sculpture technique used in forensic science. I was not aware of this sculpture technique. Overall, I think that this review was well – written and provide good examples to make the reader further understand the case of this deceased illegal immigrant.
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