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Making Faces

When local authorities find a decomposed body they can’t identify, what do they do?

Well, they send it to the LSU FACES Laboratory.

“It goes through a processing stage where anthropologists try to identify the gender, the race, and the approximate age range," says Larry Livaudais, the Imaging Specialist and Facial Reconstructionist at the FACES Lab. "Then after that it comes to me and I try to put a face to it as best I can with the clay.”

Using old fashioned clay and a human skull, Livaudais combines science and art to give John (or Jane) Doe a face.

Like building a house, Livaudais begins with a foundation. After reattaching the jaw he places tissue depth markers throughout the cranium which look like tiny pencil erasers.

“The tissue depth markers will actually help establish the general proportions of ancestry and gender," says Livaudais. Once that's done, "the scientific aspect of it will tell us what needs to happen.”

He then builds clay over the bone bringing it level to the thickness of the markers. As the face fleshes out, Livaudais’ focus gently shifts from the scientific to the artistic.

“When you go into the artistic phase," says Livaudais, "that’s when you can bring those traits out: the eyelids for instance, the nose, the mouth.”

It becomes a delicate juggling act between science and artistic technique.

“There’s a philosophical debate that we have ongoing here, and in the field itself," says Livaudais. "When are you going too far and straying from the scientific aspects which underpin it?”

In other words, as the face begins to take shape and the personality emerges, the harder it is to stop sculpting.

In the end, though, each face Livaudais rebuilds is one that’s closer to hopefully being identified.

For more information on the LSU FACES Laboratory, visit  http://www.lsu.edu/faceslab/.

For more information on missing persons, visit http://identifyla.lsu.edu/.

The end result: a human face.
Larry Livaudais, LSU FACES Laboratory /
The end result: a human face.

Copyright 2016 WRKF

Frank is a native Houstonian. He relocated to Baton Rouge to attend LSU where he earned a communications degree. After working in the film industry for three years as a production assistant, he decided to make the switch to radio and could not be happier with his decision.