Lips are one of the most error-prone areas of forensic facial reconstructions. They’re an area that artists can’t easily approximate based on bone structure. The same goes for features like a person’s ears, or the amount of fat they carried in their face. 

Take, for example, Gail Mathews. Gail Mathews* was a victim of serial killer Gary Ridgeway, known as the “Green River Killer.” She was murdered in 1983, and remained unidentified for two years until 1985, when a cousin was reading an article about the Green River Killer, according to Victims of Serial Killers Wiki. The article provided detailed descriptions of the unidentified victims’ remains, hoping someone may recognize something. Gail Mathews had sustained multiple injuries while alive, that her cousin realized matched the descriptions of one of Ridgeway's victims’ remains. Mathews was then identified through medical records.

In the process of trying to identify Mathews, the above 3D reconstruction was created of her face. While you can see the similarities in the eyes, nose, and cheeks, one of her most recognizable features, her fuller lips, are very different. With one slight difference, you can see how it could have not clicked for family and friends that the woman may have been Mathews. 

These areas, that can’t be approximated from the skull itself, are the few places where forensic artists must practice some degree of artistic license. Wherever possible, however, they word with as little artistic license as possible. Particularly with forensic reconstructions (as opposed to anthropological or historical), there’s so much riding on trying to make these faces look as recognizable as possible. Too much artistic license -  a mole in the wrong area or an imagined scar, could throw off a possible identification.

It’s important, as we view these reconstructions, that even a seemingly rudimentary reconstruction is still an attempt at identifying someone who’s lost their name. Tragically, these reconstructions often are, as pioneer forensic artist Betty Pat Gatliff said about her reconstructions of the nine then-unidentified victims of serial killer John Wayne Gacy, a “last-ditch effort” for identification.

*Not to be confused with Gail Matthews, who was murdered, alongside her 5-year-old daughter Tamara Berkheiser, in 1994. Their case remains unsolved, and their family continues to seek justice.