Artists give homicide victim a face, now police hope for a name
Clay model created in search of clues to Bensalem Jane Doe.

Morning Call, The (Allentown, PA) - June 3, 2004
Author: Pamela Lehman Of The Morning Call

Her remains were found wrapped in plastic and dumped behind a Bensalem Township diner in 1995. Only a skeleton and a few clumps of brown hair remained. She was nude, had been dead for at least a year and was murdered.

On Wednesday, authorities revealed a clay model of what her face might have looked like in hopes of giving her a name. "She's someone's daughter, mother or sister," said Chris McMullin, a Bensalem Township Police Department detective. "She is someone a family member is waiting to find out about."

The woman's remains, which were buried in a grave in Telford marked "Unknown Jane Doe" before being exhumed last month, were found by children playing behind the diner along Route 132. Two shirts, a small pair of pants and a wooden-beaded seat cushion were found nearby.

Police also found two crucifixes and a chain. Investigators determined she was white, probably 35 to 45 years old and about 5 feet 2 inches tall.

The cause of the woman's death couldn't be determined, but because her body was wrapped in plastic and dumped, her death was listed as a homicide, said Diane Gibbons, Bucks County district attorney.

Other than those details, police had nothing else to go on. In February 2002, McMullin contacted The Doe Network , an agency dedicated to finding names for unidentified bodies or helping in missing person cases. The network posted the information on its Web site.

Two years later, McMullin was contacted by Nancy Monahan of The Doe Network . She asked if detectives wanted a forensic sculptor and artist to complete a rendering of the woman at no cost.

"No one likes the idea of an unsolved homicide, especially police," Gibbons said. "We were thrilled to be offered their services."

The $1,600 cost to exhume the woman's remains on May 4 was split between the Bucks County district attorney's office and Bensalem Township Police Department.

Two reconstructions of the woman's face were released. One was a sketch completed by Dan Sollitti, a New Jersey police officer and forensic artist with Project Everyone Deserves a Name.

A three-dimensional model of the woman's face also was completed by artist Seth Wolfson. Watching the woman's face come to life was an amazing experience, McMullin said.

Sollitti marked the woman's skull to measure the depth of tissue on her face. The markers told him where the woman's lips would curve, how her nose would turn down and the length of her chin.

Wolfson worked separately from Sollitti, but used the depth markers to lay clay strips to shape the woman's face.

"The width of her nostrils, her overbite, the shape of her mouth; those are all things we can learn from her skull," Wolfson said.

McMullin said he thinks the reconstructions of the woman's face are a good representation of what she looked like when she was alive.

"We're keeping our fingers crossed," he said.

McMullin said DNA samples will be taken from the woman's remains before she is reburied. This time, McMullin said, authorities hope the woman can be be placed in a grave with a marked headstone.

Anyone with information about the woman may contact McMullin at 215-633-3719.

pamela.lehman@mcall.com

215-529-2614 or 610-278-1862