“They Died Near the Border. Art Students Hope to Bring Them Back.” By, Patricia Leigh Brown

Maggie Miller

April 18th, 2018

Forensics A/B Odd

Current Event 22

“They Died Near the Border. Art Students Hope to Bring Them Back.” By, Patricia Leigh Brown

Brown, Patricia Leigh. “They Died Near the Border. Art Students Hope to Bring Them Back.”The New York Times, The New York Times, 2 Mar. 2018, www.nytimes.com/2018/03/02/arts/design/new-york-academy-of-art-arizona-border.html?rref=collection%2Ftimestopic%2FForensic%2BScience&action=click&contentCollection=timestopics®ion=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=5&pgtype=collection.

This article tells the story of the bodies of eight individuals found in the emptiness of the Arizona desert, assumed to have died during their journey to escape across the Mexico Border. According to the Pima County medical examiner’s office the individuals died from; “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” as well as a number of other causes. The traditional tools medical examiners usually use to identify human remains, such as DNA and dental comparisons were inconclusive. The mysterious identities of the eight men remained unknown, which struck the curiosity of art students at The New York Academy of Art, who are working to create facial constructions of the individuals in order to identify them. The remains were left in the students hands at a facial reconstruction workshop, taught by Joe Mullins, a forensic artist with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. The process to create such a project is completed as followed; “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.” Since 2001, thousands of bodies found in the Pima County alone remain unidentified, the harsh environment leaves traveling individuals lost to the desert.

The work of these students is heroic, in hopes that their efforts in recreating the faces of these individuals can reunite with their families to bring them closure after the deaths. It is an incredibly strenuous and creative process that required the unique focus of these “visual creators.” If the students are successful, they could be impacting the future of traditional protocol for medical examiners when identifying human remains. It is not uncommon for the DNA and dental comparisons to lack any conclusions, so to have this art as a backup to those methods would be life changings.

This article was extremely interesting not only because I find both Art and Forensic studies fascinating, but because it is a unique combination of two completely different work forces. The author, Patricia Leigh Brown, did an excellent job with the flow of the article and included a good use of facts to support her story. I found every aspect of her writing to be crucial to the article and have almost no critiques. The one aspect I felt could have been interesting is if Patricia was able to include the identities of the art students working on this project, it would be very interesting to hear their point of view on the investigation.