Frank Bender, a world famous forensic sculptor has been working in the field or years. His career began as a fluke when he entered a medical examiner’s office for a quick anatomy lesson during his time working as a photographer and artist on the side. Growing up in Phili, has made a name for himself because of his natural talent to recreate a badly damaged face in various circumstances out of clay.
Some of his two most memorable career achievements have been: John List was a wealthy, religious man who in 1971 killed his whole family. When Bender got the case, List had been at large for 18 years. Frank constructed the bust of List from old photos aging the man by 18 years. List was apprehended eleven days after the sculpted bust was aired on America's Most Wanted. As well as Rossella Atkins, who in the late 1987, The Philadelphia Police Department asked Frank Bender for help with an unidentified body found in a field behind a high school. He imagined this young woman as someone looking for something better in life. When he created a bust of her head, he had her looking up with her head tilted back. After two years of canvassing the neighborhood with the bust, the police had got no leads so they handed the bust back to Bender who donated it to the Philadelphia College of Physicians where they put it on display. Three weeks later a woman felt drawn to the display – the clay bust turned out to be her grand niece, Rosella Atkins. He has also assisted in the capture of six of America’s Most Wanted including including Alphonse Perisco, the Colombo crime family boss; Robert Nauss, convicted murderer and former head of the Warlocks motorcycle gang; and Hans Vorhauer, a convicted methamphetamine manufacturer and burglar.
Bender’s work was fascinating to me because of his ability. The story mentioned in the article took me by surprise because of the incredible skills he has, and his capability to construct a person’s facial features when he has so little talent and when the person has become nearly unrecognizable. I was also intrigued because of his talents because I think it is exciting to know there are people in the world who have this ability to identify criminals when in many cases, those connected to the victim might give up hope on a case until Frank Bender changes everything.
http://www.suite101.com/content/forensic-sculptor-a37550
posted for A. Sher
9 comments:
I really enjoyed reading this review on the article. I found it very informative and it seemed as if Mr. Ippolito thoroughly enjoyed learning about Frank Bender. I also like how he really focused and outlined the importance of his job and what his life was leading up to his success. Lastly, I think he chose an excellent article that was both interesting, to the point, and unique.
A way in which Mr. Ippolito could have improved this review is if he had separated it into three distinct paragraphs: a summary of the article, explanation on how it is relevant, and a critique of the article. There was no critique and I also felt as if he focused more on how fascinating it was rather than how relevant the article is to humanity.
One thing I was really impressed about is the ability to sculpt a human out of clay. It seems like a very difficult task and to read about Bender recreating these faces out of pictures and off of basic forensic understanding, as to why a face is the way it is after a crime and being able to then recreate the face before the crime.
There were a few things that I liked about this article response. First, how the beginning starts with how John List was a wealthy, religious man who in 1971 killed his whole family being a “memorable achievement”. I like how The Philadelphia Police Department asked Frank Bender for help with an unidentified body found in a field behind a high school. He imagined this young woman as someone looking for something better in life. Also, I like how the information was organized well with paragraph form.
There were two things that could have been done to make this response better. First, it was not a strong critique of the article but more of a summary of interesting facts. Second, I feel there could have been a little more information/ reflection given on the article.
One thing that surprised me was how a human body can be sculpted out of clay.
I liked all the detail in his summary it was long but still interesting. It included several interesting stories about his involvement in cases and his career. I also liked the way he explained why he liked this article. It was a very through and thoughtful description of why this person is interesting. Another good thing was that the article was that he told us how the sculptor started his career and what he was doing before he started on forensics.
I thought that there should have been a critical part. There was nothing about whether the article is well written or what problems it had. He could have added something the article actually did wrong. I’m sure that there were a few things he could have criticized. There was also not much about why the article was important to the world.
I was impressed by the fact that ceramics can be so important. I didn’t realize how many people are identified by sculptures or how important those identifications can be, especially in connection with finding
I thought that this article was very interesting. I thought that it had a lot of information and was well done. There was a clear description of how Frank Bender became so successful in his field. It was very interesting to learn how Bender was able to solve many difficult cases. I was very interested in how Bender and other forensic scientists are able to sculpt humans out of clay. The recreating of human bodies after finding them at a crime scene must be extremely difficult. I think this article could have been improved if it was broken up more. The information was put into one large paragraph and it would have been easier to follow if it was broken up more. Also, there should have been more about his personal opinion on the article and he could have critiqued it a little.
Overall, I thought that this was a very well done article. There was many interesting facts provided that caught my attention.
I think that Mr. Ippolito chose a great article, I found it very cool how Frank Bender was able to use his artistic abilities to help benefit the forensic world. One thing that I found to be very interesting was how he was able to take a picture of a man and add on eighteen years to his image. Not only did he just add on eighteen years but he also was accurate in the image of the man. Also, I think that Mr. Ippolito did a great job in summing up the article he made it a very interesting.
There were a few things that could have been done to improve the article. First off there was no critique paragraph, and I think that you could have gone into a little more detail about how Benders skill influenced forensic science. Over all though I think that this was a great article and a great report.
I thought this article did a good job at describing who Frank Bender is. It tells us that he made a name for himself because of his natural talent to recreate a badly damaged face in various circumstances out of clay. I liked how the review stated that when Frank Bender was given an unidentified person he imagined this young woman as someone looking for something better in life. I also liked that the article stated that Frank Bender assisted in the capture of six of America’s Most Wanted including Alphonse Perisco, the Colombo crime family boss; Robert Nauss, convicted murderer and former head of the Warlocks motorcycle gang; and Hans Vorhauer, a convicted methamphetamine manufacturer and burglar.
The review could have done a better job at describing how Frank Bender was able to construct the bust of John List from old photos aging the man by 18 years. I also believe that this review could have been better if there was a critique paragraph.
One thing that surprised me about this review is that someone can make a bust from an 18 year old picture.
this review provided a nice introduction paragraph introducing the topic of the article, along with a thorough summarization of facts. Also, the last paragraph provides the author's perspective on the article and why he chose to write about this specific topic and explained what about it & why he found it interesting. It would have been even better if the summary section of the article were split into even smaller paragraphs, each representing a different aspect of the article's facts. Overall , this was an excellent review and i learned that these busts could lend a hand in investigations.
I thought that the summary of this article was informative as well as interesting. Mr. Ippolito clearly knows quite a lot about Frank Bender and his accomplishments. Three things I enjoyed about this article was the fact that It was very interesting to read, I felt the need to keep reading because Bender's talent and breakthrough in forensics is clearly something worth being told. I think that Mr. Ippolito did a good job by not choosing a new technology or discovery to write about. He chose a person and commemorated their contribution to forensics.
Two suggestions I could make about the article would have to be if Mr. Ippolito could have connected this story to what is happening in the world right now. In addition, a critique of the article could have been added.
One aspect of this article that really impressed me was the sheer talent of Frank Bender. Most people cannot even create a bust of a person, let alone that of someone whos face is disfigured, or aged.
I thought that this article review was well – written. She provided a review with a lot of detail. There were a few examples that were said in the assessment that were very interesting. One thing that was interesting was that she said in the review how the sculptor began his career. I think that this article could have been better if there were fewer ideas in each paragraph. It was a little hard to follow because there was so much information in the one main paragraph. I think that this article could have been benefited more if there was a personal opinion to this particular story.
One thing that surprised me was that Frank Bender could sculpt the crime scene including the bodies found at the crime scene. This must have been a complicated task.
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