Mother Knows Death Presents External Exams with Nicole and Jimmy.
Hi everyone, welcome to this week's External Exam on Mother nos Death. Since we started our podcast, we've had multiple stories in the news relating to skulls being found. And I'm always curious who works on these cases. How when they're found, where does the skull go? Who determines who this person is that has either been missing or is a victim of a crime. And today we are going to talk to a forensic artist. Her name is Lisa Baily, and she's coming out with a new book actually today
called Clay and Bones. So welcome to the show. Lisa, Thanks so much.
This is the true because I've been following you the moment I got on Instagram. Yeah, Ie, So.
That that's awesome because I've been a huge fan of your work as well. So I'm so glad we finally get to meet in person. It's great. Let So, I like to start off my interviews just trying to get a basis of how people got into their field and what their life has been like, their whole entire life, not just their career. So for me, people always think that I was this. They look at me and they think I have tattoos and I was some goth kid that just was obsessed with death and slept in a
coffin or something, and I obviously I wasn't. Do you when people find out that that you work with human skulls for a living, do they ever ask you if you were obsessed with death when you were a kid and grown up?
Yeah, it's like, well, oh my god, how did you get that job? And yeah, you know were you were? You wearing black all the time and you know all that dothor. I was the absolute opposite. Yeah, I was always drawing as a kid. I loved artwork, but I was painfully shy, Like just everybody ignore me. I would not. I was painfully shy. So and I didn't like anything
blood cuts and gore and anything gross. So it was kind of surprising like some of the things that I've seen in my life then, But yeah, I was complete opposite this. Any anybody that knew me as a kid would be like, what it's like, you up. I wouldn't even dissect I couldn't dissect the throb and science class. I have my partner that.
It's really interesting though, because I'm starting to ask this question to funeral directors and other people that kind of work in a similar feel to ours, and everyone says the same thing. They they weren't. They weren't into it. There was no there was no indication that this is what they were going to do when they grew up. So you're saying that you were artistic when you were a kid, were you Were you also interested in science?
Now, well, I hated science. I did. I did everything to get No.
This is great to hear because kids get frustrated in school because they don't they don't understand science, or they're not good at math. And then you look and see these adults became scientists when they got older, So it's.
A good stalory. Yeah. I was absolutely anytime I could make a science project into an art project, I would do that. So I was a kid who was building volcanoes with baking soda instead of writing on a report about volcanoes. So yeah, I was completely not interested in science. But well, one thing, if I can say this, I remember when I was about thirteen fourteen, I used to watch all the police shows with my dad and so on.
One of them, maybe it was Quincy, they had somebody doing a facial approximation, and I thought that is so cool. I would love to do that. But this was the seventies and nobody knew how you would go about that, and then or would be really cool to be a composite artists. You know, I watched you know, I'm aging myself the WI five things like that, so so that would be the coolest job on earth. But nobody knew.
This was way before computers, and even if I had been computers there at that time, there's very little information about how to become a friends of artists. It's a very odd ball, niche field. So it's really kind of odd that all these years later, it's exactly what I ended up doing. I wasn't aiming for it. It was living my life doing you know, joining the Navy, all those things that I guess we'll talk about. I ended up unwittingly being perfectly prepared to be a friends of
artist at the FBI. When when I saw the job posting, it was like they had my resume was crazy. Yeah, it was crazy.
That's that's awesome. So let's let's first talk about the military, because I want everyone to get an understanding of how you ended up at the FBI as a forensic artist. So you come from a family that is military, correct, And so when you were growing up, was that just like I'll be joining the military when I get older or when did you decide you were going to join the military.
I figured when I was about seventeen, that's probably where it's going to go. There were five kids in our family, and college was just never talked about, like there are It was like that was something the officer's kids went to college. Like, you know, my dad was a master sergeant wonderful gem you know dad. So yeah, I have the best father in the world. I have to have the best father anyway. So college just wasn't an option. So it was like there was nothing in Dove I
lived in. You know, that's for the Dover Air Force Space in Delaware. That's if people have heard of that. That's when they bring the remains from my proceeds of soldiers. They had the more there out of Dover Air Force Space, and there was just really there were no other There was really nothing there. So the military was really the best option to get out and get the job, be trained in something, get college benefits, and it was the best thing for me. I mean, I stopped being shy.
I learned how to stand up for myself because if you don't, you'll get loaded down. And obviously the militarians male, male dominated, you know, And but it was the best thing for me. So best thing for me.
And you're so your dad in Air Force twenty six years and and what made you decide that you were going to go into the me.
So my dad was in the Air Force, my mother was in the Women's Army Air Corps in the fifties. My oldest brother and my sister were in the Air Force, and another brother was in the Marines. And I thought, well, I have to do the maybe so I can, you know, round it out, And they honestly and please take my agentto account. I was eighteen. They had the cutest uniforms, So that was serious. Serious, that's what eighteen year olds think about. It's like, oh my god, it's uniforms. But yeah,
it just appealed to me. It just appealed to me. Yeah.
So when I don't I'm not one hundred percent familiar. I know, I sound like an idiot to people that are in military families. I just don't. I'm not familiar with how it works really. So you join the Navy and while you're there, what what are you doing as a job?
Do you do?
They try to find something that you're good at, or they just give you any kind of task and you.
Have you, uh, you figure out what you want to be before you join. So you take a test which is a general Placement test kind of you know, sort of an IQ. But so you get a general placement test and then they take out this you know, big book. They're they're the recruiters trying to get you to join something that they need. Like they tried to talk me into becoming going to nukes, and I was like, I don't. I don't do nath, I can't into news. And I
guess I scored well enough for the intelligence field. And so one of the recruiters said, wow, I ought to be a linguist and I'd never taken a language before. So eighteen years old, I joined as a Russian linguist and they But so the thing is any military kid noses you do not join the military unless you have a guaranteed school, because otherwise you were at their mercy and they can do whatever they want with you. So when you join, you join you go through your boot
camp and then you go to your school. And I was immersed in Russian for eight hours a day, forty five days a week, forty seven weeks. And that was just the one part of school. And there was another section after four more months. But if I had, if I had flunked out of that, then they could have that. I'd be chipping paint. I'd be peeling potatoes. They can do they can do anything they want with you, well, whatever they need. It's true. I mean, it's it's true.
And so I joined as a Russian linguist and had no idea, but and I was, you know, they would say, oh my god, you're can have to study four or five hours a night. There's a fifty percent nutrition rate, and I don't know. I took to it like a duck to water. It was no problem. It's I think it's an artist and a visual To me, Russian was a very organized language and it made sense to me. And I could just see the words, so I couldn't
think of a word. I would remember seeing it in my textbook and then I would go, oh, okay, I could read it in my mind and answer, so that's it.
Yeah, My girlfriend, And how long did you do that? How long did you do that?
Seven weeks. That was in Monterey, California, a beautiful place to be stationed, by the way, it's gorgeous.
So you're in the Navy doing this as a career for her.
I ended up doing six years. The typical endlessman is four years, but because my school was basically a year and a half, they wanted you to have It wasn't mandatory, but they all for a bonus if you extended for two years. So that's what I did. So I was in for six years total. That was the perfect time, a correct amount of time because I was ready to get out.
And from there, you started working at Johns Hopkins, right, And what did you do there?
I did administrative work. I was a contractor there at the Applied Physics Laboratory. Because the one great thing is I had a very high clearance, so I was very marketable in the DC area. Data processing. Hated it to the depth of my soul. I am, I hate it, hate it. But they had a really good education program, so that's when they started. I had gotten some college credits while I was in the Navy, and then I just started going to college part time while work in
full time. And I did that for a total of seven years. It took forever. And then a positioned open Nuxbroo graphic artist at Hopkins, and I lied and I got it and it was just a trans So when I was, you know, doing the data processing, yeah, you know, so I heard about an opening and that's how I that's how I transition. It's like all of a sudden, I was, I was a graphic artist and I loved it. I loved it.
So you're working as a graphic artist and you what kind of graphic art were you doing for the for the hospital or the.
School since this is for the Applying Physics laboratory, which is ironic because I hated physics in high school. But
you know, they were they called them Beltway bandits. But all the contractors that worked for the military, for Washington d C. I mean, they're they're based Hopkins is based in Maryland, but you would have, like I worked in the Submarine Technology department, so some of them would be you know, scenarios of you know, here are you know, planes flying and they're shooting was radar and so or whatever. It's very technical and all I had to do is illustrated.
So we're using these three D software and Soto Shop to basically do like the artist depiction of technology that they wanted to get funding for. That was part of it. I mean, that was part of it. It might be doing doing an illustration of something that somebody was inventing and the and it wasn't even actually all military because in the sudden wing technology, they were using that technology
for for medical for like, uh, heart problems. I won't be able to speak intelligently about it because I'm.
No, but the brother laws. It's cool though, because I a lot of people don't think about all those different things that go into college programs and things that there's artists that are helping out with that, and that's really cool. So how did you hear about this job that came up at the FBI? And what was it?
As an illustrator? So it was they had what they called GS levels in the federal government. So this was a GS ten, which is a good but you know, a good kind of rank, and it was an illustrator. I was, actually I was. I loved my job at Hopkins. I loved everybody I worked with, but I just happened to be at the dunkin Donuts looking through a Washington Post that somebody had left on the table, and I looked flipped up in the classifieds and I saw an
FBI seal and I was like, what's that? And then I read it and I was just like, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god. And this sounds so cool. And there was nothing in that because it was a junior position, nothing about skulls or anything then. But it was doing demonstrative evidence for courtroom trials, you know, things like that and composite sketches that you could work your way into if you got promoted. So I didn't think I would get it. I thought there's going to be
hundreds of people applying for this. I don't have a chance. But maybe I'll get to see the inside of the FBI because they'll have to interview me. Because literally they wanted and this actually I want to remember this for for later in the conversation, but they wanted be able to like draw with kencil, no computers, no three D software, no design software, and my degree was in design, so they wanted they wanted everything. And at Hopkins, I did all that. I did design I did three d illustrations
and stuff. So I applied and this was before this was nineteen ninety seven, so it was I nailed in my resume, you know paper I sent up FedEx because that was terrified it would get lost. And I heard nothing for like six months or something, and I thought, well they I thought they felt like everybody asked, you know, my sister would ask me was like, I guess somebody else got it. And then one day I was working on a rest job and I got a phone call and somebody said I'm from the FBI, and my heart
stopped and he said, we've got trapplication. We'd like to interview you. So, oh my god, I loved I slipped. So we said it's down to you and three other people, and I had a phone interview. A couple of days later. I thought that was the preliminary interview. It wasn't. It was the interview. So a couple of days after the phone interview, he called me back at work and he said the job is yours if you wanted, and lost my mind. I nearly lost my mind. Yeah, that was so.
How So, from the time you sent in your resume until the time you got the job. How long was it was.
An unusual situation. It was three years, and so it was during Okay, I applied to ninety seven, so they were trying to get me in before a rumored hiring freeze. And you know, September the end of the fiscal year, so September thirtyth yes, hiring freeze. Congress couldn't decide on the budget, so all hiring has stopped. So then for two years sitting around going you know, somebody like approve of the budget. And this was during the Bush and
War presidential thing, and nothing could get figured out. So it was finally in. It was September two thousand and one. I remember the day. It was a Friday, and the agent came into the office and said, everything's done. Welcome to the FBI. But I didn't get to. I didn't start till two months later.
So you get So you get hired in September of two thousand and one, and then what happens four days after you get hired.
I still wasn't in yet. Like I was hired. They I had the offer letter, I had everything, but there was still you know, the wheels of the government most slowly, so of course when nine to eleven happened, I thought I was desperate to get in there because the artists there were working twelve hour shifts, were just working around the clock, and it still took some time. So I wasn't able to actually physically walk in the door until November,
until two months later. But still they were back to a normal schedule, and I was still working on everything for you know a lot of things for nine to eleven.
So there is this act, So what kind of things, like what kind of things would a person in your position do as it relates to nine to eleven?
Okay, what did we do? Oh? So we had to We scanned, you know, all of the Dictum's photos. You would think that they were the most beautiful digital copy somewhere, but again it's two thousand and one. Not everybody had all that stuff. So we were scanning, scanning, cleaning up
photos of all the victims. We were making presentations for Director Molar and for the White House of We were doing interactive presentations, like one of the ones I was there was a lead artist because I was brand new, but some of the senior artists would be doing you know, layout diagrams of the planes and where every person was sitting and there would be a link to the voice calls, like some of the phone calls from people. It was it was trust me, it was something to walk into.
And actually one of when on a co worker, but a scientist that had worked at Hopkins was actually killed during during that. I found that out the day later, the day after, so when I went, when I was at the bureau, it was just very surreal. It's like un scanning pictures and then there's a picture of the person that I knew, Like I know, many people after nine eleven is like they wanted to do something like
what can I do? And at least I felt like, well, I'm here, I'm doing something, you know, helping with the presentations for it because they were gonna, you know, the prosecuting Zacharias Masali. So I worked on some of those presentations of courtroom things. Uh. So it was it was anything related to eleven that took up the bulk of my time the first year.
What are some things when you started working there that a regular person would kind of be surprised by because obviously you walked in there and you didn't really know much. You just supplied for some job in the newspaper and you're like, cool, I'll be doing some kind of art for the FBI. And you walk in after one of the biggest investigations in United States history, like what what happened?
Like?
What are some things that kind of blew your mind that you didn't really realize happened Behind the scenes?
It was on some well, my my supervisor was walking me through the office and he had a he said, this is where we keep all the skulls. And I was like, you have skulls in there. That was because that was not in the job description, which was fine, but that kind of blew me away. Just seeing the real work. You've seen things on TV, you know, you're you're you're watching police shows and everything, and then going inside the FBI and going, oh my god, this is
really where it really hap happens. And seeing people working in, you know, scraping clothing for for hairs and fibers and and things like that. It was It was surreal, It is all I can say. It was surreal to be there because everybody's normal people. They're just walking around like, you know, this is their job. But to be on the in, to be on the inside, it was it was, Yeah, it was surreal, Like I was. I kept pinching myself. I was like, I can't believe them here. It was. Yeah,
it was thrilled. It was absolutely thrilled.
Do they have like one central office or are there other branches throughout the country that do this work as well or is it one place?
Okay, So the way the FBI is organized, there's the FBI headquarters in Washington, DC, and then they have field offices. So every state has a every state, most every state has a field in field office. So you could say that the most of the case work is done by the agents and the field offices. So even though the Washington even though the FBI headquarters is in Washington, d C, there's also WFO, the Washington Field Office. So and then
they have legal attaches all over the world. So the but the forensic art we were actually our division was the FBI Laboratory. So you can imagine the organizational tree of the FBI goes on forever. So so I was part of the SBI Laboratory division and we eventually moved down to Quantica. Yeah yeah, oh okay, cool.
So when you when you started, you they knew that you had some kind of a background in art, but you weren't specifically trained to do what you ended up doing. So when you started working there, did they require you to go to art school or did someone teach you like on the job training or was it a combination.
It was a little combination. I mean they you know, I said, non of a portfolio, so they saw my drawing ability, the and all that. It was basically learning how to apply those skills to forensics. So I had done plenty of floor plans and diagrams and things at Hopkins, but this you had to think of it as it going to a courtroom, and so how to make sure that this information is presented in a way that the
jury can understand so it's clear and unbiased. So I would shadow sometimes, like shadow and other artists, just so that they would be working on a case and I would see, you know, see what they were doing. That Also they had the big thing was the FBI Forensic Facial Imaging class, and that was three weeks long, and that was training in composite drawings and age progressions and facial approximation. So that was my first time. That's when
I fell in love with skulls. And facial approximations. During that class, I thought, this is this is the best thing ever. And because I was, because I'm still a new hire, you know, I wasn't able to do facian props right away and then you have to kind of, you know, work up to that. But that's when I fell in love with it. And from then on I
was just I learned. I did everything I could learn anything, everything about facial approximation because I want because I wanted to do it later when I want to go.
Isn't it kind of cool when you look back at your childhood and you said that you did see an episode of Quincy and you saw them doing that that if the Internet maybe existed, because because think about this, if you were if you were a fourteen year old kid and you saw a TV show that did that, all you'd have to do on Google is you know, what job can I get where I do this and it'll pop up. But when I mean the same thing
happened with me. There was no Internet when I was trying to figure out what I was doing with my life either. So it's it's like kind of cool how people got their story without having that at their fingertips and got to where they were. Did you when you started working at the FBI over twenty years ago, did you were you one of the only women working there or what or do you think that there was a lot of women working there at the time or has that changed over the course.
As far as well, there's as far as the FBI overall, it depends between agents and support personnel. So I was a support personnel. So in our the graphic unit where I worked, and that it's not the official name. I don't I'm not getting official names, so that that FBI unit, it's just anybody's worried about it. So in the graphic unit, they're about have you know, fifty fifty men and women, and our official title was Visual Information Specialists. But not
everybody in there. Would you composits or age progressions or facial approximations. Some did more crime scene like going out diagramming crime scene is doing video, you know, more of the more of the technical aspect than others. So every every artist in there have kind of there's actually we had to be able to do everything at least at a base level, but then people kind of fall into
what they're best at. And thankfully the supervisors. Then they saw that and they're like, Okay, well Lisa love Skalts and she's putting in the work. So that's the direction I went. Others just had very amazingly technical minds and were able, like especially on for the Masai trial, some of the presentations they did were just remarkable, remarkable things that maybe with the software now might be a town easier, but in two thousand and one, it's incredible that they did.
I think it's cool that you're talking about trials that we're all familiar with hearing in the news and everything. Working in the hospital, we have to comply with HIPPO regulations, which is to protect patient privacy. Is there something similar in the FBI where you're kind of you're allowed to talk about stuff, but you really can't talk about too much so you can't figure out exactly who you're talking about.
Yes, I mean we all have. We have the highest of the clearance, so top secret. I had what's called top secret with the sci special compartmented, so it was kind of up there. But because I had been in the military, it was The FBI is not like the military, but it was the same thing. It's like you're working in law enforcement, you have a clearance, you keep your mouth shut. That was just security was drooling a dirt. Hence all the time, it's like, keep your mouth shut.
So you don't go out and talk about work out in the bar or something. You just you just do it. And you know, they didn't have a rule against identifying yourself as an FBI employee online, but I never did. I mean some people would go, I'm an f be a friends of artists and have it all over their social media, and I never did that. I'm hardly on social media now and I never put that I was at the FBI. I just you know, like, why bring attention?
You know, I didn't see anything. Yeah, it was goodly to of this, so yeah I did.
So you said that you they've picked up that you specialized in skulls, So just can you I first I want to know, like what what's your work schedule? Do you go to work just nine to five Monday through Friday? Is it part time? Are you on call? And then secondly I want to know when you walk into work every day and this might change from day to day, but like what what do you sit down and do? Do you sit at a desk, you stand in a lab, like, give us some explanation of what a typical work.
Day would be. So I would say that, well, the first half of my career it's basically nine to five. You can you can slide the schedule a little bit, like sixty three thirty. You can slide that a bit, but it's very disappointing to anybody that sees all the awesome sets. Like on cssig and Bones, we do not work in cool offices. They're they're Cuba goles, cubicles, fornchs old. That's that's just what it's like. So when my career can basically be divided into nine year blocks, you know,
the two blocks. So the first half, yeah, you just you walk in, you sign in, you get coffee, you check your email, and you just That was before I was working on skulls and the supervisor has a number of cases assigned to you and you just sort of juggle them based on court dates. And then the prosecutor might call up and say, guess what, we're going to court a month thoroughly, and then you have to swap
things around, so sometimes you're juggling. We were not on call on call employees I don't know a lot about this, but you know there would be a schedule, so you knew when you were on call. And I guess there was some a different pay, pay structure or something. I'm not too familiar with it, but I know it exists. But you were expected if there was, you weren't. You didn't want to say no. Guy says, you know, we really need you to get on a plane tonight and
go somewhere. You're like, okay, I will, So you're not you're not technically on a call, but yes you. I mean, it's just like the military. I was used to that. I mean, the military only owns you twenty four to seven. You might work a five day and we can get a weekend. But if you get a phone call that you need to go somewhere, then you go somewhere, Like
do you. I don't know if you remember it was all the shootings on the East coast with not the member's name, the sniper shootings, if you remove that vaguely.
Yeah, funny because I was just talking. I was just talking about that today. Actually. It's it's so funny how you don't talk about things for years and then today I was just talking to my husband this morning about the DC sniper and stuff, and now you're talking about it, which is interesting. So what involvement did you have the kis.
The first night I was thalm and said, somebody, somebody saw something. There's a presentation in the morning, you have to go into work, and so it's ten o'clock that night and not driving tech borders or I remember. It was like something some information came in. You need to do a presentation, you need to whatever. So that yeah, that was. That was for anybody that worked in the
DC area. It was It was scary because at that time, you know, I took the bus into DC, so you're standing in a long bus line and all you can think of is like, I'm a perfect target because this guy's still on the loots. You know. Turns out it was too but you were just it was. It was scary. It was like, oh my god, I joined the FBI and now now this now now there's you know, snipers and everything.
So oh, I yeah, my husband what what? What my husband and I were talking about this morning actually was what a crazy time period that was, because it was like nine to eleven happened and then didn't the sniper thing happen at the same time time as Hurricane Katrina. I feel like it was like all within a couple of months, like just craziness and you're just like and then an antracks, Yeah, oh, an Anthrax, so of course, yeah, that was just like a crazy things like that.
Like you know, even with those Anthrex letters, you know, we would might get those in and scam them and they would be in part of a presentation. We would give one fun thing I got to do. I shouldn't call it fun, but it was kind of cool. So during the trial for the sniper shooting, the model unit they took you know, they they would hide in the trunk and they drilled the hole and they were shooting people. They were inside the trunk and then shooting with the
rifle out. So, uh, the model shop got a car, cut it in half and they restructured that to use in court so they could show exactly, you know, how how they would like fimb into the climb into the trunk. And there another coworker and I was the lead artist. We went over to the driving training that they have for agents where they get to drive fast and chase bad guys, and so we were having to measure one of the identical cars to use that for the present
for the courtroom h courtroom exhibits. So that was you know, I've got to work on that a little bit. It was interesting.
Yeah, that's that's us. I know, it doesn't it's it sounds kind of weird to say it's cool, but scientifically and just to be involved with a case like that, I think it's okay to say that it's cool. I would.
I think I'll Actually I've completely forgotten about that. I just completely dropped. It's like, oh yeah, it's sometimes I forget some of the things I've done and I'm like, oh yeah.
Yeah, and You're like I've done all this cool stuff and it just it's every day of your life, right, So what when you say composits, sketch and all these words, that's like, did you explain what some of those things are? What you would actually do sitting there as an artist to come up with that stuff, Like how do you do a composite sketch? Do you have to interview people to get that information? So you personally would interview them?
Yeah, it was okay, And fifty years ago it was it was different. The FBI agents would do the interview. That's a whole other story, but yes, we would. We would go in, we would have a book of facial references, so we interview the person. But you're just basically trying to talk to them and get to relax. We're not in any uniform, so you're just you know, you're just doing get a person, which you know, somebody's been through
something horrible. I mean, I didn't use sexual assault cases, and it was just it was very hard for me just I didn't want to say anything. I didn't want to say anything wrong. And this person's just had the worst moment of their life, you know. So so it's not like a police interview.
Yeah, and you don't want them to be visualizing it right like you feel bad, but they try trying to help them. You have to look at it that way.
Then exactly exactly, it's like they're trying to forget that face. On one hand, they want to forget it. On the other hand, they want a representation that it's something you go, see, this is what that I said. They looks like nat boat get them. I mean that it was I don't want to get ahead of myself. So yeah, so we would. We would just free recollection, like tell me what you remember.
And it wasn't always just facial features. Sometimes it could be you know, something they smelled or or anything, because it can all it can all tie together, and then we have sacial records. So they let's say they sit that's I can't speak. Let's say the witness describes he had a really long face and a big nose and big bushy eyebrows. By the way, that would be a wonderful compassage to do, because average looking people are the
worst to try to draw. If somebody says, well, it's like then you feel like you're ending up drawing Charlie Brown because everything is just so nothing. So they said a really long face. We had a catalog goes there were the rest photos that had been organized, so then there's you know, headshape, and then what was most similar.
And it's a composite because you're piecing it together. Somebody called it once like mister potato head, which is friends of artists hate that, but there is a little bit of truth into it that you're basically piecing things together. So we develop we developed a general sketch, just keeping it rest and then show it to and is this on the right track? Do you would you recognize this person? Like,
what do we need to do? So then it's then it's constant erasing and moving and the eyes need to be closer together digit and it's uh yeah it ta. It's like two to three hours too generally. And when I started, we were doing a pencil and paper. I don't know if they still are, but obviously now with you know, digital pads and everything. Just my opinion, that
is a way to go. There's no reason I don't think to be using pencil on paper in a situation like that, And you could much more easily draw it on a pad and then instead of having to erase an eye and move, it happen and you just set it up with the cursor, the you know, moss a layer a little bit. That's my opinion unpopular in some corners.
Yeah, and plus you could probably, yeah, like easily show it on a screen better and everything like that. How often when you do these kind of drawings, do you you ever get to see the person that gets arrested? Are you ever, like Dann I did a good job, like they they look exactly like the telling. Does that happen often or not really.
It's it's kind of a crapshoot, and in those instances you really have to say, and this is not this is not like oh being humble. But the witness is the most important person. There's like a train of side in Friends of Guard that you could have a fabulous artist and a bad witness, and a great witness and a bad artist, and a bad artist will produce a better drawing because if you have a great witness, the quality of the drawing is is important as the features
that are being described. So sometimes, like you know, an artist, you could do portrait level work. It's a terrible listener and it's not paying attention to what the witness wants. And they make a beautiful drawing, but it doesn't look like what was in the witness's head, and that does nobody any good. So having a good witness is gold. And a witness says, I don't remember his nose. I don't remember, I don't remember. It was average. That's like
pulling teeth and it's hard for everybody. It's hard for everybody.
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grossroom dot com for more info and sign up. So when you're off work, like I know, for example, for me, I'll just be it just happened to me a couple weeks ago. I'm just sitting there with one of my friends, and I notice pathology on people all the time, and it's hard for me to like shut that off. I feel bad about it because I just can't shut it off. If I notice someone has like a weird bomb or something's going on with them, I can't.
Shut it off.
So the fact that you look at skulls for a living, right, do you just kind of dissect every single person you look at and think about like what their skull looks like.
Yes, in a word, yes, that's a joke between me and my husband that I'll hee. We'd be sitting there talking and I he would notice that my gaze was off, and he was you're looking at my skull, aren't you? And I was like, I'm sorry, but just trying to figure things out, you know, trying to figure out like, Okay, there's a feature, how would it translate in flesh? And the funniest thing is to get a group of friends
of artists together. What time there was a group of us at a conference and our waiter just had the most unusually shaped face and we were all just like, it's like star starings not staring because we just we were curious. We're curious that it's one of those things because it's a fascination. How does the skull translate to the face, what causes that? It's like a puzzle, and so that just kind of appealed to me.
It's really cool though, because I don't know if you've ever been to the Modor Museum in Philly, but they have a whole wall of skulls and you just look at them and you're like, oh my god, this this really could show that how people look so different. But I think when you're a regular person and you just see a skull, like on TV or whatever, you don't really realize how many differences there are just with the size and with the orbits and everything, and how it
changes between cultures. Is that something that you had to learned too about Is this person from European descent or Asian descent like things like that.
Well, the antipologists would do that because they have an artist has no way near the training that would take to be able to determine things like that. So the antipologist sees it one way. They see it, of course, in the scientific way, and they will say, you know, the high Sex age stature ancestry. As an artist, when I first started, I thoughts looked alike. And of course as soon as you see two skulls together, you're like,
oh my god, I couldn't have been more raw. And the first time I went to the body of farm saw twenty doll in a row, and I also was like a kidney candy store it was. And I've been to the mutter and it was just fascinating. And yes, you're standing there going, okay, I'm putting a face on in my head, but yeah, it's that's the key to why we look the way we do is it's all starts with a skull, and you know people people think, oh,
how can they do that? Like you're just making things up, and it's like, no, there's a lot of information from gesture skull. You know, there's there's some things that you know are more leveled up to artistic interpretation. But I would say that you have to make you have to downplay what you don't know and play it when you do know. So, as the anthropologist says, this person broke their nose and it didn't heal right, and it was
really crooked. So really emphasized that Orere, I could just look at the skull and no, it's like, well they have close set eyes far apartized. So it's it's the it's the overall look of the face. It's the head shape, where the features are. See, we don't know everything. We don't know a lot of things with a facial approximation,
but we know where the features are. We can determine some things like the shape of the nose, the length, things like that, and you can never get I've had some that were like scary clothes that were really like wow, you know, the anthropologist and I were very happy with. But you can't get perfection, and that's actually not necessary because in a facial approximation, you're looking for recognition from somebody,
a family member that is looking for that person. You could do a facial approximation, it's gonna look like fifty people. It could be fifty different people. But if a family member is looking for their missing brother and they see that sculpture, you just they could key on it and go, Okay, that looks like my brother or that's familiar. That's what we're going for.
It's just so interesting to me. I'm reading a book with my daughter right now, a National Geographic book about Mommy's Oh Okay, and they're talking about how they found this one on Mount Everest. I think he was labeled the Iceman or something. But they were showing how they took his skull and they recreated it to what he would look like. And you know, my daughter's ten, so she was just like, well.
How did it?
Was cool? They were I think in the book they said that you couldn't really tell from the nose and the ears maybe as much what they would look like, but the they the guy was from European descent, and they were able to do the what is it called the facial approximations or whatever based on that, like how thick this soft tissue would be in certain areas of the face and stuff.
Yeah, yeah, so we we generally saw a we have tissued up tables just as as a guideline. Uh. Ears ears are just we know where they are, but they don't really They're not important for identification because if somebody had big ears, you're not going to know that from the skull. Things like the nose as long as the skull, as long as the nose is fairly intact, we can tell a lot of it. We could tell if somebody has a long, crooked nose that points up and goes
to the left. The problem is in the forensic world is that a lot of them are homesides. So if they were shot in the face or or beat up, or you know, the skull has been out in the elements for how many years, little tiny bones get eaten up. So the nasal spine, which you know, is one of one of the features that we look at to determine the position of the nose, that the direction up or down or average that is I would say nine times out of ten that was gone by the time it
got to me. Because you know, skull had been out there five to ten years and you know, a squirrel shoot it off or something, or it had been you know, the person had been you know, do trauma or something. So the skulls that forensic artists get are they've been through a lot. They've they've been through a lot by that name.
They're not like texts.
Yeah. So yeah, so that was that was part of the reason why I went to the body flarm. Not to jump ahead, but that was part of the reasons to try to learn more about what this nose looks like, you know, the nasal aperture, and then how might that look in lives and yeah, so the so that's the difference between you know, the forensic ones and the historical ones. You know, sometimes historical ones are in great shape either, but you're not. You're not looking for an ID. So
it's not like there's anything on the line. It's not because they yeah there's yeah, there's there's no it's not a high stakes thing, and.
It's just it also see what the guy might have looked like.
But it's it's fascinating.
It's let's get on to talking about so you your book it comes out today, which is it's awesome. I read it and so did my daughter, but loved it. What made you decide that you were going to write a book or write a book about this topic? Like, what is your book about? Is it about your life? Is it about a combination?
It's it's about my time in the FBI. And I can honestly say that I was never going to write a book just I was an artist and was like, I'm not an author. I am not going to write a book. However, after what happened to me, there's it's sort of somebody asked me to describe the book, and I said, well, it's kind of a cross between Bones
and Aaron Brockovich because it's it's my career. But then it's, oh my god, the battles that you have to fight when there's discrimination and harassment, and the crazy links that can go.
Let's get into talking. Yeah, yeah, let's talk about that. So you had your career, you obviously have a strong passion for it, and you decided to create a website. What exactly did you do on this website? Was it to kind of teach others about forensic art?
Yeah, it was purely that I'm going to make this point because I'm probably a forensic artist that I know. I was listening to this and make it clear. So in the FBI you need permission for pretty much everything. So I had permission to you know, you get permission to run a website. I chose to keep it anonymous because I didn't want to have FBI blare it everywhere
and that I don't have that website up anymore. But it was called asked the Friends of Artists because I was getting like phone calls and emails from people, you know, I want to be a friends of artists how to do it? And there was no source out there, just like when I was twelve or thirteen and saw there was no resource. So I wanted to create a resource for people who wanted to be a friends of artists to help them get in the field, which is which
is yeah, that was That was my whole thing. So I still actually have I could push a button and make the website lie it again, which I might do. You know, you should, but it was everything was like, you know, what what training do I need? Do I need a degree? You know, where are the jobs handing get into it? It was it was purely educated and
I don't know. I just I'm the kind of person if I find out something cool, I want to like grab the first person out go this cry I found out, like you know, I look, you know, did you know what happens when the skull does this? It's just I don't know, It's just kind of my nature. I just I loved it so much that I just kind of
wanted to share it. And like I said, literally I would get phone calls and emails people not true me, but my name got my name got associate with the FBI because sometimes they would happens to interviews and everything. And then I was getting phone calls and emails like how can I be a friends of artist at work? And I was like, I'm sorry, I can't. I can't sit here and tell you how to be a friends of artists. So that was part of it too, to put the information out there.
And what happened. So you have this website and it's it's awesome for people that want to learn about your profession and what happened.
Oh, you mean the co plane.
So someone that was an if former FBI employee complained about it.
No, she had taught we would have guest instructors at the FBI Academy. So for the facial levaging course, they would have you know, FBI people teaching, but then also there would be guest instructors. So she had taught at the academy. And I got called into my boss's office one day and she saw my website and she didn't like it, and she decided to write a complaint letter to somebody way up in the FBI. And I got called on the carpet and I actually didn't get in
trouble for that. I mean, I had to explain myself. I didn't feel like I was in trouble at the moment. It turns out I didn't. I didn't know it was coming.
But you had permission to do it, right, Yeah, So now all of a sudden it was a problem.
It was for me. It was why is this person doing this? Because what did I induced for her? And I am not doing anything wrong. And you know, I just spoken to my super like they knew I had a website. I believe I still have the email in case it's like this is not bad memory. So my SuperM sent me the email, so it was it was
a complaint letter. I think this is unprofessional. And then there was a ps the bloggers and FBI employed and it's like, well, I didn't have that on my website on purpose, and I guess that was supposed to be a zinger. And I don't know. I all I can say is I mean, I was devastated. I was devastated because it was like, I'm not. All I'm trying to
do is you know, educate bat friends of art. I guess I only can say is there are you know, some people women who support other women and others should don't.
And I've had the same exact things happened to me, trust me, so I one hundred percent understand.
Yeah.
Actually, when my daughter read your book, she was like, this lady has your exact life, Like yeah, she she just said it was it was crazy and because she had read it first and she's just like, you just won't believe it. She just went through the same exact stuff that you go through, you know. Yeah, And it's and it's always just I think that people are jealous because they didn't have the idea first or something. I
don't know, just haters, people that are bored. I don't know what it is, but there's there's people that will use all of their energy to try to destroy you. It's it's it's really it's really crazy what.
You can't do. It is it's it's I don't understand. It's like you know, the what is it, the crabs in the barrel, you know that, you know, trying to drag you in the person down. It's like, I don't get it. I don't understand. And you know it's like I'm no competition. It's like but then people are like, well you were at the FBI. I was like, well, she has an awesome career, Like I don't get it.
But you know, how did so did she somehow know that you were running the site? Because if you were anonymous on your site, like, how did right? How did she? How would she know to say, oh, this person's an employee the FBI. If you never said that you were.
Oh my god. The fact that you asked this, Like I said, we were friends slash acquaintances, like I met her in person many times. She wrote to me and she said, oh is this your is this your website? I see this new news? Asked a friend saith artist, is that you? And I went I remember writing back you Sly Fox you figured it out like thinking it was fun and guinn It's like, oh, I'm figured out it was mek God. And then literally like two days later they called into the office and that is the
hand to got what happened. And that's why I was like, I was like, damn it, she fooled. Like it's like I didn't know it was you, but now you just confirmed it. So yeah, that was yeah, and I just I've happened anonymous a weirdo.
Yeah, it was just you know, so after that your work found doubt about it, things started getting bad for you.
Things things were turning because there was a lot of transition during that time. So it was like in the summer of twenty two thousand and nine, like everything there was reorganization and new supervisors and so it was kind of like the perfect storm of things. And my new supervisors, one in particular just did not like friends of artists, and you know, he had he was a photographer, he about hey ran the Puto group, and he had friends of artists stuffed in his lap and he didn't like it.
And he was very open about the fact that he did not like having friends of artists in unit. So he had an asta grind, you know, and especially against me. I don't know. People asked me, why was he picking on you? And I said, maybe sun Redhead in his childhood like made him. Man. I don't know, there was there was just some people that twins tail of Taylor Smiths. Some people are just mean. But yeah, I was like I had a I have a target on my back
and that kind of guy. I think that gave him a foothold because from the moment we were put in the unit, he was trying to get us out. I mean, that was common up. He told us, he said, I don't want you in this. You know, there's myself and several other friends of artists, and because he had lost several photographers, there was like a swap of personnel, so
he wanted his photographers back. He didn't want us, and that was just the first thing he could latch onto, like that letter to upper management, because I didn't go to him, and it went like several levels above him, and so he got called into somebody's helf as like, you know, I guess what this friends of artists did even though I was doing nothing wrong.
But do you think there's a possibility that someone at the top was like, we need to get rid of her, like, no matter what, this is not good that because she's like willing to talk publicly about No.
No, I mean the person I knew, the person that she sent it to, and actually she wouldn't be surprised to know that I was on good terms with him, So he didn't have a problem with me. So it People complain about the FBI all the time, Like if my in my book that I felt my former supervisor Gary, if that had happened with Gary, he would have laughed his butt off and said, oh my god, you know,
and he would he would have laughed at all. He would have taken it like not seriously at all, because he had the same thing happened to him, you know, when he was coming up and everything. Like people, people, they try to bring you down. So but this so Gary, the previous supervisor, never would have been an issue. It would have been like because he knew her, he knew how she was the new supervisor. Because he wanted friends
of guardists out of the unit. That was kind of like the first little chip that he could try to get a toe hold on. So it didn't do the trick as far as up upper management, you know, giving me the sting guy, but it didn't have my supervisor because he thought he had something on me.
It was also, yeah, there's always like some man troll that's trying to get I had this. I had the same thing, just like some what the one female doctor at my work used to call them man child like just trying to get rid of me and felt so threatened by me, even though they were in a higher position than me.
It was so weird.
Yeah, So when you were working there at the FBI, so I a couple of months ago. I don't know if you heard my interview with doctor Daniel Wescov, but he is a forensic anthropologist. Yeah, I love him. He was awesome. He's a forensic anthropologist that and professor at the body Farm at Texas State University. And he talked about the body farm. So I was interested to learn that you went there as part of your job as
the FBI. So could you explain to us what you were doing there, because this was all around the same time.
Actually went I went to two different body farms. So I went to the first body farm that you know, the original at University of Tennessee. I went there six times. And so that was a research project that I started because, like I said, you know, we were trying to I wanted to know, like, what does this not look like give real life and forensic artists. We did not have. We didn't have any you know, proof, We didn't have
a skull. In the perfect world, you would have a photo of a skull on a photo of the person in life and you go, oh, okay, like start drawing some correlations. And we didn't have that. So when I read Death's Sake gre throwing a second time, and when I found out that they had, I was going to donate my body. So this is how it started is I saw that they were selecting, and this is how it all began. I saw that on the application they were asking for a driver's license photos and then it
was like the cartoon light bulb over my head. I was like, oh my god, they have photos and these are donors. So the FBI laboratory being a laboratory, they do research, and so we were, you know, and this is my previous bossons I run up a research project. Let's go to the body farm and get all the donors they have that have life photos and all three d scan them and then put together a reference collection Sir forensic artists, and so we went there six times.
So that's so cool.
It was I just gave myself goose bumps. It was was rewarding. It was just like, oh my god. It was like I'm starting to sound like a goofball right now. But it was so exciting. It was like we had we collected over one hundred skulls. We had their skulls, we had their life photos, we had like the basic
an you know, we had their anthroological information. So you know, I started putting together you know, I wanted to put together together a reference guide and you know that of course, you know obviously need to protect the privacy and the individuals, but because they had been donated and they donated themselves, it was allowed to be used for law enforcement for research.
So my goal with that was to put to gather just like the composite catalog has facial references, my goal was to put together a catalog of Stouttal references to have the skull and the face. That was my goal, which didn't pan out for you know, reasons that became clear later in the book, but that was my goal. So then friends of artists could say on this knows that I'm working on as similar, you know, they could have some sort of guideline to look for. Everything else
is pretty much anecdotal. And then after that project ended, another there was another research project going on, and so it kind of intertwined with ours. So we went to the Texas Bodies r and then we scanned a number of skulls there too, And I'm pretty sure I met doctor Westcott. He has a really big deer. Now. I was there turnament when I was there easily ten years ago, so I'm pretty much I'm pretty sure that's.
Because I think he's been there for a while. So yeah, yeah, there, it seems like he's been there. That's so cool. It sounds like you were on the brink of you know, because a lot of people don't realize that when you're working with skulls, it's it's a face, and a face is considered an identifiable feature, so you would have to get permission. And the problem is is that the person's dead,
so you can't really get permission from them anymore. But when they did give permission to donate their body towards these types of things, it sucks that you weren't able to follow through with that. You were talking earlier about you guys used like a sketch pen, and you weren't a patent paper to sketch, and you were talking about technology that exists on with computers and things like that.
I guess you could use like a program even on an iPad or something to do drawings at this point, but while you were there, because now, for example, well even in this Mommy book that I'm reading with my daughter, which is already probably dated at this point a couple of years old, they show that they use AI and they're using scanning of skulls a lot and stuff as opposed to using the typical clay to do a sculpture
or to use drawings. Did you see any of that before you had left the FBI, that they were moving over to more advanced technology as far as using those identifying features rather than using the traditional art materials.
That. Yeah, Actually, I probably six months before I retire, I was going to transition to digital sculpting because it was the way things progress. That we always used to do two D approximations in the FBI, and the treaty came along when the group got a scanner, so we had never done treaty. This is about a point I need to make as far as working with clay and skulls, as you never put clay on the skull because the
skull is evidence. Never never, never, So that's why we'd scan the skull, make a copy, and put you know, sculpt with clay on the replica. And then when we were doing that before they were like off the shelf three D sculpting programs. You know, there were three D sculpting programs out there, but they cost fifty thousand dollars. So that's why we did clay on replicas. And then as I'm not gonna be able to think of the name, I think I'm not gonna be able to think of
the name of the software. But now there are even five years ago, off the shelf three D sculpting software. So I was I had ordered a new computer, so I had a great, big news souped up computer. I had ordered this, I got the software in and I was transitioning to sculpting digitally, which to me, it's it's better on it's it's better all around. I mean, it would be faster. There's no need to print a skull. You can see through the into the skull. So that's
where I was going. And just as all that was coming together, I forced the naybe decide to retire or I retired. Yeah, that that's kind of explained in the book. It was just I guess to be like long, long story short. It was by then I was in a new unit with a fabulous supervisor, and things are really pretty great, and it was just sometimes I never thought I would leave friends of art, but just after a while it was like, I, yeah, some things you just can't.
There's only so much stress to put up with. Because there was it was never I understand that it was never gone. The threat was always back there, like the threat that the not so's ailed threat was taking my clearance. And without a clearance you're dead meat. You can't work anywhere, and you're your debt. So so when I when I when those storm clouds started, I was like, you know what. And then also you know I had lost the just
less than the year before. You know, my mom and my brother died within two months of each other, and that was like, yeah, no, that's that's that's fine. I mean, but you know, things like that, you know, you start sessing your life and you look around and you go, why am I, Why am I doing this? Why am I putting up with this? And what else can I do? And you know, after something like that, you know, you start thinking. And that's when that's when I was like,
you know what I was. I was planning on retiring at sixty two, and when I was fifty eight, it's like, I'm eligible. Let's and my husband and I were like, let's just do something completely and utterly different, and that's what we did. We moved to Vegas.
He was probably, yeah, I was going to say, like he was probably because when when I was working at the hospital and they were giving me a hard time, there were a few times that I would just come home and cry every day, like over over some bullshit, right, And my husband finally was just like, I can't have you like this anymore, you know, And it sucks because when you love your job so much, and it's not
that you don't love your job. You love your job, it's just the people are making it absolutely brutal to work there. Well, so I have kind of like a juicy question. Okay, when I interned at the when I interned at the Philly M's office. I remember one day I was up in the offices and I saw these giant posters that were black and white and it had this really disturbing looking child on it that was dead, like looked like he was around five years old. And
I was like, what is this. I said to the medical examiner that I was interning with, what the hell is this thing doing in the closet? And he was like, Oh, that's the boy in the box case, and I was I didn't know anything about it, and when I learned about it, it was crazy. It was a very high profile case that happened in Philadelphia where a young boy was found dead in a box and they recently have just figured out who the kid is, which is crazy.
But I thought it was so cool that there was this old It wasn't the actual boy in the box in the closet, It was just these posters that they had made up at the time that said, you know who this is because nobody knew who this kid was and nobody had reported that a kid was missing, so like, five year olds don't just appear dead that nobody knows that they were missing.
Right right?
And I thought that cool piece of Philadelphia forensic history. Was so cool that it was just in the closet there because the office was old. As you were saying with says I and everything. There was a Philadelphia forensic show that was on at some point that would show with the Medical Examiner's office in Philadelphia, and it was all shiny and stainless steel, and I thought, like the
Medical Examiner's Office. Well, I think that they move since then, but at the time it was very seventies wood paneling, just old building cubicles, all that fake wood stuff. But anyway, I thought it was really cool that that there was this this old Philadelphia forensic history there at the office when you and you said, when you started working at the FBI, they said, oh, here's our room of skulls
or whatever. Were there some cases that were there that you were familiar with that that you couldn't believe you were seeing the actual real evidence in front of your eyes that they still had there.
Yes, it was older cases. What was the book? Was it? Jeffrey Jeffrey McDonald's. He was a doctor and he was convicted of killing This was like during the sixties and seventies killing his wife. His wife and his kids and he was a military doctor. Fatal Fatal Vision. That was the book I remember reading Sadal Vision before I ever thought of being in the FBI. And then in the archives there were just like these big, you know, gray drawert, gray cabinets that had lots of case work, lots of
exhibitits from years before. So I saw, you know, the crime scene photos from that Jeffred McDonald case, and it was like it was just it was I'm glad they were black and white at that, you know. Now, you know, within a few months, I was looking at a lot of gory things. But yeah, I remember seeing the trial work for the Jeffer McDonald case. That was the first thing that stuck in my mind. Was like I know
this one. So that was and I kind of feel like an insider, like ooh, I saw this, but you know, it's just kind of like everyday work at the FBI. It's like, yeah, you know, yeah, I worked on this. That's not like blase or anything. But me, I was completely new and peeked out, like I'm going through this like it's a treasure trove, like just look throwing the files. And some of the other artists were like why do help it that for It's like because it's very interesting.
It's yeah, is it hard when you're sitting around, like especially during the nine to eleven time?
It was horrible.
I mean I was I was in my early twenties, but I vividly remember everything that was going on at the time. Like you're sitting around at a dinner party or something, and everybody knows you work there, and they're you know, they're people are trying to talk about how are they how they figure out who the hijackers are? How do they figure out this? How where are all these people that are missing? And stuff? People have questions?
Did did? How? Is it hard for you to just keep like keep that in, you know, just because you're saying it was very emotional, so you know, sometimes it feels better when you could talk about stuff when it upsets you, but you didn't really have anyone to talk It.
Was Yeah, I wouldn't ever and I didn't want to talk about it. Like later, my husband and I weren't married that point, you know, so I would call him and you know, he you know, he noticed that I was down. It was just like at that point that was during you know, scanning all these photos and everything, and but the photos we were scanning, they were all like birthday parties and graduations and all these happy events. And then but you're knowing that this person is gone.
So that was you know, you start, you know, you look at pictures of people smiling and happy and you go, oh, that's really nice, and then you go then you remember why you're scanning the picture and this person is gone. So it was yeah, so I didn't want to talk about it. I didn't want to talk about it later. It was like I just tried to, you know, try to try it. Yeah, and you know some of the yeah, I had to had to do some child a ducta Oh my god, some PEDOPHI don't take those. Yeah, those
those you have to yeah before yeah, before that. I normally we wouldn't do that. There's like tesks Force, your special team at the FBI and at other agencies like at the National Center Missing Exploited Children that will look at these photos and then they try to sanitize them so they can you know, figure out, can they figure out what motel this is based on the bedspread and the curtains and things like that. So you know, I did. I did a few of those, not many that was enough.
So yeah, you just I've actually talked to one of the FBI psychologists. She was a psychologist at the Academy, and just in a discussion, not anything formal, said, Okay, I'm going to have to look at these photos. I know they're coming in and I don't want to look at them, and how do I handle it? And you know, she's like just trying to compartmentalize it, and I just had to kind of disassociate and go, it's pixels out of screen, like zooming way in they would you know
that it's just all these little pixels and stuff. Just trying to put it aside, and yeah, I'm I'm very blad. I only had to do a few of those. And actually I found out just by chance it one of one little girl was recover just one of the photos I worked on. And it's a huge team of people doing these things. It's not it's not like, oh, you know, I did this photo and she was found, but it was just I was on a tour of the National Center and this image comes up and they said she
was recovered. I was like, oh, I know her, that's you know, one of the you know, how you had the boy in the box and this was like, you know, boots are you know she wore cowboy boots or something, So it was just that was nice. It's like, okay, you know I had to see this. But then later yes there was a happy ending. She was found and she's safe and recovered.
Yeah, so does that happen that when I guess that's the question, like the follow through do you Cause a lot of times I'll do an autopsy or something. Well, it's it's better now when I was working at the hospital and I was so in depth, But sometimes I do like per dam autopsies, and I'll do it and then I submit the slides and everything, and then I really don't know, Like I kind of think, what I know how the person died, But then I don't really ever hear the follow through of the case, which I
love like a full circle thing. So do your bosses sit down with you and say, like, hey, this case we've been working on was solved or is that something like you heard on the news.
No, I mean some of the things that wouldn't make the news like we did. Usually the way I found out and you would never you didn't always find out It would basically be if the agent, like if I went out and I remember it did some you know, some cleposit sketches and then you know, the agent emailed me. Was like when we got and we got them, and this was something that didn't go and didn't make the news.
It was a different thing. And I would I would have the capability because the FBI has, you know, the whole database that you know, I could probably have gone in, looked up and found out. I mean I could have called the agent after, you know, because I worked with a lot of agents, I could have called the detective to go, hey, what happened, But I guess I didn't want to annoy them. I thought, you know, I did my job. That was a tool for them to do
their job, and then now they do their work. And I just was never comfortable calling them back and going like, hey, what happened? Did it work? And you know, lots of times things did, and they might you know, sometimes they would call like really or email like really ecstatic, like you know, oh my god, this is great. And sometimes you'd never hear and then you'd find out later that you know, you'd find out like I saw things. I would see things in the newspaper, like you know, if
Pedophile it was a restaurant. I was not. Oh I worked on that, and oh this is funny. Went up my girlfriend Liz Heilinds. She called me one time and she said, oh, I just saw this one approximation and this person was ID and you know, did you work on that? And I was like who what? And she sent me the link and I was like, oh, I, yeah, that is mine. I had no My girlfriend found out she was ID before I did, and I worked at the end of the I Liz thought that was hysterical
before I did. Yeah, I just I soon have probably kept track of like everything I did, and I kept good notes and I kept good records and everything. But I don't know. I kind of it's like, Okay, I did the work that and I would put it sign and go on to the next thing.
I know I should. I always think about that too. I get so many because people say, like, how many autopsies have you did? Did you do this? And I have a pretty good recollection of like what I've seen, But I really wish that because sometimes it just want to pop in my head and I'll be like, oh I yeah, I did that, like I wish I wrote
down more. You know. Yeah, it's just like I feel like you would do that now, But it's just like back then, you just go to work and do your thing and you just you know, I try to just take in as much as I can in my memory, and that's it. But so let's I don't I don't want to get into why exactly you left and everything, because we need to leave some stuff for your book. But since you you did leave now and you're not doing that anymore, so are you still interested in the whole like true crime world?
Are you?
Do you listen to podcasts and TV shows or things like that, or are you kind of like I'm over that part of my life and I'm just doing something else completely.
Now For the most point, I'm over it, But I mean I'm still interested in it and the truth crime things that I'm interested in. I just watched this one. You might have heard of it. They called it mostly Harmless. It's about a hiker. It's on Netflix. It's a great documentary. But that was you know, that was a body that had been out of the woods, and you know, the internet was trying to trying to identify him. So I'm
interested in things that are like the investigation part. I don't want to read about or see horrible murders like the This is a joke between me and my husband that the true crime stories out watched are more like the husband wives killing each other short of thing rather than home invasions, because it's like, I know my husband slept and kill me, so I'm safe there. So I know that sounds terrible, but I just you.
Know, it's you're just you're like justin. Yeah, it does to me too, because I would be like watching forensic files all the time. My husband's a firefighter and he doesn't sleep at home sometimes, and then I would be so freaking scared at night because I would be like, oh, my god, like I saw this case last week and the guy broke in the house and he didn't even know who she was, like something that I could say, Oh, that could happen to me exactly. And then I wouldn't sleep.
I'd be up all night, like scared to death. I had even when they when the girls, my girls were younger, I would have them sleep in bed with me because I was so scared. And then I and then I was like I can't watch this stuff anymore. I just can't. I can't do it until he's retired. Maybe I'll start watching it again.
Yeah, I can't either. I'm with you there. It's like, like I said, I know it sounds Terrible's like's if it's a husband wife thing. You know that's you know that I can watch, but you know that I'll be gone in the dark. Do you like? That just terrified me. The the Golden State said, the Golden State Killer, the one that they identified through the genetic geno.
Yeah, Michelle, Yeah, that one's really Yeah.
That was Yeah, that was brutal.
I wonder if it's like because for me and you, like I've been at the Medical Examiner's office and I've seen people, like with my own two eyes, multiple people that have been murdered. It's real for me and the same with you. You've seen all these skulls with people that have been killed. I wonder if it makes it even more scarier for us, because it's not just we're not some girl that works in the office and is watching this on TV and doesn't really know how horrible
and gruesome it could be and how scared it is. Right, there's that element of the realness.
Maybe I don't know what's really comical. This is this is this is funny? Is that you know I've been I've been to the Body of Barn and I've seen you know, horrible d comp and been right next to it, and you know that I can do it because it's fascinating and it was like it was interesting. But if there's this really bloody movie on TV, I can't watch it, like torture, Like I never watched Dempster and I knew
they were bad guys. He's only torturing mad dies. But some stuff just it stays in my brain and I can't, you know, I can't get it out of my brain. I don't want that in my brain. Like at the if I can tell you this real quick, at the FBI Academy, they had in the behavioral Science unit, the one basically for the Silence of the Lands, that was that unit. So yeah, so yeah, so that's they're literally like three or four floors like the third or fourth basement.
They're really down there. So they had the psychologists I
was telling me about. She had all the drawings and notebooks of like set of sam like all the drawings they did so all these serial killers and all of their artwork, and she, you know, it was like a once in a lifetime thing because these things are not open to the public, and so she had them all out and she's explaining things, and it's like, I can't I can't have these drawings in my head because these men were drawing these things in prison, basically, you know,
reliving the murders they had committed. And I don't want what was in their head in my head. I walked down the hallway we had a class. It was one of a facial facial imaging classes, and they were fascinated and I was like, I'm done. I don't don't want it in my head.
Yeah, I understand that, because I feel the same way about a lot of that. It's scared. Like when when that guy, the guy killed the college student in Idaho.
Yes, I don't know if you've heard of it. Oh, yeah, I'm sure you've heard.
About that case. It's just like I don't know when, especially it freaked me out when it happened. But then when they released his photo and video of him being arrested, his face like scared the shit out of me, Like his eyes are so creepy, and I just I just
it like shook me. You know, I don't know these people, I don't know, I don't know anything about it, but something about it I just was like, especially because, like you said, when it's a husband and wife, you could see they get in fights all the time and they and they kill each other in the passion. And but when it's strangers and people don't know that they're being stalked and all this stuff, it's just so scary to me. All Right, sing a little bit more cheery. Let's talk
about your personal life. So you talked about your husband a couple of times. When so at what point of your whole career and transition from Navy and to FBI every end? John Hopkins too, when did you meet him? How'd you meet him? And when did you guys get married?
Uh So, we met when I was waiting to go into the FBI. So it was a sure thing that I was, well, you know, I was going, I'm sorry, me start that over. We met when I was waiting to go on the FBI. I'm sorry, my brain, and we met and we actually met in person at the lunch and I I was recently divorced and so I was he and it was just like just friends, like I don't I don't want anything to do with men. I'm done, I'm done, i'm done, got my cat and I'm done, and you know, but we just started talking.
It was like this guy's really just wonderful and we were we were friends, and then I just fell in love with a guy because he's amazing and he's wonderful and he's going to be embarrassed at this, but I don't care. So yeah, so.
He how does he feel about what does he do for a living?
Well, he uh, he's a he was ah and he's still doing it. A videographer and producer. So he worked. He also worked for the federal government, so he was he was making kind of like news stories, you know, things they would have a news channel sort of about in some of the the work and events that these military agencies would do. And he would go out. One time, Oh my god, he was on the back of an airplane.
It was they had the back open and he was showing me video and he's like, why are the hardest on? I was like, I'm so, I'm so glad you didn't. He was like it was so cool. I missed lying on the back of this and it was open and all I have is a artist. I'm like, thank you very much. But yeah no, so yeah, I was like, oh, I'm so glad you only showed me up after Yeah. Yeah, So he's very creative.
What's he think? Yeah, so that's cool to be because my husband's also very creative. It's good to like live a house that because sometimes I have like outrageous ideas, and you know, when you have an artist that's a husband too, then you can express those in your house or any they understand that you say, oh I completely hate this, I need to change it or whatever. He's how's he feel about you? Like knowing that you're you're
handling human skulls all day at work and stuff. I mean he was just pretty cool with it obviously.
Yeah. He was like, well, sometimes I would come home and say, oh my god, we got this one skull in our own you know, this is this one thing in this decomp by son. He's like, I want to know, Like I don't want to know, and I was like, no, it's really not fun, it's really not that cross and he's like no, no, like, don't tell me, don't topping. So it was funny. I can tell you this was
this was funny one time somebody frown. We had one of the anthropologists fround a bodyth arm count and teaching our class and she had to transport some skulls in and she didn't want to leave them an air hotel overnight, so we had a because we had an alarm, So she said, can I store them at your house? I said, well, let me ask my husband. So I was like, how do you feel about having some human skulls in the den?
And he was like, let me think about it. And then I was like that okay, and I said it won freeky out and he goes as long as you jump though, like you know, and like scare me with a skull. And after he said it and it's just really like my opening, he said, it's just that's just what you end up as you know. It wasn't spooky, it wasn't scary, it wasn't gross. It was just you're just you're just skulls in a box, you know. That's what we all end up, as you know. So yeah, he's he's had skulls in.
His dead so it's like he's he probably has a bunch of like one liners of what husband hears this question from their wife? Can just store these ten skulls in our house overnight? Just cauld we put the alarm on. You don't care that there's like ten dead people downstairs while we're sleeping, right, Yeah, you can't be like that
in this field, thinking there's ghosts and stuff. Yeah, exactly, Like what if you had like a reason, like I don't know, if fire or something in the middle of the night and they show up, they'd be like, what's happening here?
Said? I promised they were aside from.
I know, right, Yeah, so we know that you're not doing the forensic art anymore. But I mean you're an artist, So what are you doing? What are your other interests besides being interested in forensics? Like do you garden?
Do you draw?
Do you still do art and stuff?
I am doing anything that's not a skull so right now, evantually, So don't tell my husband. No, I'm working on a painting right now, which is just new territory for me. I've tried to I just jumped into a big project and I'm not going to say exactly what it is because my husband's going to hear this and like, I want to be able to finish it. But I'm actually working on like a big thing, So I've anything that's
I don't see. I don't like creepy stuff. I mean, I like some things in my cop you know there there's there's a there's a level of creepiness that I really like, but it depends. It's like I have to see it. So I like, I like humor and just like a little bit of creepiness. So that's hard to explain, but I like humor and art and I like something things that are surprising. So like you might look at look at a painting and go, oh, that's a really nice painting and you look really close and there's like
a cows lying in the background, like obscurely. Just things that are silly or maybe a bit surreal that surrealism. I don't know. I'm just I'm trying to figure out when I'm I'm trying to I'm figuring it out. It's this is a time where I get to I get frustrated because I'm like, I can't do this, I can't do that. My husband's like, this is the time where you get to play and do whatever. You want so
just play and have fun. And so I'm like, okay, So after being so work boring and for so long where you have a deadline, it has to be done and it has to be right. It's like, this is artwork. You're allowed to god to big mistakes. You're allowed to a couple up faper through away. So that's what I'm learning now.
Yeah, that it does seem like a weird transition to just turn it from what you were doing.
It is.
Well, thanks so much for being here with us today. Everyone needs to get your book. It's called Clay and Bones and it's available now. Do you have while you are going to reactivate your website? I hope, because I bet you a lot of people listening to this today are interested.
You know I do. I do have a website. It's for the author website. I actually did rehost Things of Friends. It's a forensic one on one about how to how to become a friends of artist. So I actually did put that on my current site, my author's site. So I will put some things back up. That is the one thing I did put out because some wretch to me on Instagram says they want to be a friends of artists, and you know, she said, oh that in high school, I asked some friends of artists and they
wouldn't give me the time of the day. I was like, well, I'm gonna put that on my website, so I did so. Yeah.
Yeah, that that kind of stuff makes me mad when people aren't willing to help the next generation of people.
My girlfriend here, do they have car? Oh well no, my girlfriend here she puts it. She's like, you know, women need to support women. And she's like, send the elevator back down when you make it to the top, hit the bottom of like help somebody else on their way up, you know. And it's like, yeah, like I don't understand exactly.
I don't. Yeah, I don't either. That's it's it's really upsetting when I hear stuff like that. Do you think that there's college I mean, I don't even know anything about this, but I feel like there must be some kind of college programs at this point that are geared towards people that want to do.
Stuff like for forensic ard. There really isn't. And let you create your own creat slam And I only know of one artist as far as you did that, and she her name is escaping me because she's wonderful. But she went to the University of Tennessee and so she created because it's the body of our she was able
to create a forensic art program. And there's actually Friends of Art master's program, and I think Dundee Scotland or something, which I'm sure was a wonderful program, But there's because of the nature of friends of art, there's no it's not like being a doctor or something where you need to have certain credentials and a piece of paper that you are now you know you are now in friends of artists, that doesn't that doesn't exist in friends of art.
It's just one of those jobs that for in most for most friends of artists, most friends of artists work in law enforcement agencies like state sheriff's office, you know, count of city police, things like that, and they're mostly doing composites and it's an adjunct it's a collateral duty. So it would be friends of artist's shonage. It would be just too narrow a pool to have a college program, I believe, And there's just not the jobs.
And that's something that's something important to say too, because you were saying you only worked with a few people right that did your job.
Yeah, I mean the full time positions. And I believe this is on this is in my post on my website, is that the full time friends of artists there are various few, maybe under fifty. Nobody really knows. Not many. We work at the state, et cetera level. So those are like where the full time friends of art positions are the other friends of art positions, Like you said, they're collateral duties. They're done by people in law enforcement, detectives,
crime scene texts, whatever. A person in law enforcement who had artistic talent and their boss said, hey, you can draw, You're going to be our friends of artists down or they had the gumption to say, and I want to do composite sketches, and they create the job. It's there's no money in law enforcement. There's no money to hire friends of artists. So it's one of these collateral duties where somebody who is very motivated, and this is usually
where it happens. You have a motivated person in law enforcement who can drow that says this is what I want to do, and they volunteer their services as need that they're not get extra. They do it because they have.
It's really important to note because it's like, because I feel like I'm an artist too, and it's a scientist too. I feel like I would be actually interested in that to that kind of job and just but people need to understand that you really have to kind of make it happen for yourself in a way. It's not as easy as just going to school to be a nurse, go to school, get a job, get high exactly, although they have to be good too, it's just in a
different it's in a different kind of way. And it's it's the same could be said like every every painter isn't going to be Pocrasso, right, Like, yeah, it's just it's just the way it is.
Yeah, I mean, it just it just pains me when you know, I hear people they want to be a friends of artists and you know they're they're taking classes, like you know, there's lots of commercial classes out there. It's like, well, that's great if you want to you know, if you want to learn about it and everything. But it's just there's no jobs. There's very very few jobs, and the vast majority of them are in law enforcement. I've got grief for this, but it's the truth because
skulls are evidence of composite drawing is evidence. You're dealing with evidence. So it's only that that's out. It is what it is, you know. It's sorry. Yeah. So, but someone that's motivated, some with artistic skill, they can be in in academia. Is anything that might cross pass this law enforcement, you would have the potential to be able to do like a facial approximation. It's if you work
at a university and you're in anatomy or anthropology. Guess what if you put forth the athlete, you could probably do some facial approximations for the medical examiner. It's completely possible. Absolutely. Yeah, that's great advice.
Thank you so much. Again, it was awesome talking to you.
This is a thrill. This is great.
Thank you for listening to mother nos death. As a reminder, my training is as a pathologist's assistant. I have a master's level education and specialize in anatomy and pathology education. I am not a doctor, and I have not diagnosed or treated anyone dead or alive without the assistance of a licensed medical doctor. This show, my website, and social media accounts are designed to educate and inform people based on my experience working in pathology, so they can make
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