Skull‐Photo Superimposition and Border Deaths: Identification Through Exclusion and the Failure to Exclude*

Fenton, Todd W.; Heard, N B A Amber; Sauer, Norman J.

doi:10.1111/j.1556-4029.2007.00624.x

Cited by 74 publications

(53 citation statements)

References 28 publications

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“…dentition), but the skull cannot be matched to the photo. In developed countries the challenging issues that may complicate superimpositions are not as problematic because skull-photo superimposition is usually only carried out as a corroborating evidentiary process in proving identity (19,46). This is because comparable DNA samples and dental records are almost always available and are thus used as the principal methods to determine the identity of skeletal remains.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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An investigation into the accuracy and reliability of skull-photo superimposition in a South African sample

Gordon

Steyn

2012

Forensic Science International

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One of the aims of forensic science is to determine the identities of victims of crime. In some cases the investigators may have ideas as to the identities of the victims and in these situations, ante mortem photographs of the victims could be used in order to try and establish identity through skull-photo superimposition. The aim of this study was to evaluate the accuracy of a newly developed digital photographic superimposition technique on a South African sample of cadaver photographs and skulls. Forty facial photographs were selected and for each photo, 10 skulls (including the skull corresponding to the photo) were used for superimposition. The investigator did not know which of the 10 skulls corresponded to the photograph in question. The skulls were scanned 3-dimensionally, using a Cyberware™ Model 3030 Colour-3D Scanhead scanner. The photos were also scanned. Superimposition was done in 3D Studio Max and involved a morphological superimposition, whereby a skull is superimposed over the photo and assessed for a morphological match. Superimposition using selected anatomical landmarks was also performed to assess the match. A total of 400 skull-photo superimpositions were carried out using the morphological assessment and another 400 using the anatomical landmarks. In 85% of cases the correct skull was included in the possible matches for a particular photo using morphological assessment. However, in all of these cases, between zero and three other skulls out of 10 possibilities could also match a specific photo. In the landmark based assessment, the correct skull was included in 80% of cases. Once again, however, between one and seven other skulls out of 10 possibilities also matched the photo. This indicates that skull-photo superimposition has limited use in the identification of human skeletal remains, but may be useful as an initial screening tool. Corroborative techniques should also be used in the identification process.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Due to problems with personal identification in South Africa (3,13) and high crime rates, this procedure is commonly used in this country. Although some reports on reliability have been published (4,(14)(15)(16)(17)(18)(19)(20)(21) its accuracy has never been tested in a consistent manner and also not on a South African population.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

An investigation into the accuracy and reliability of skull-photo superimposition in a South African sample

Gordon

Steyn

2012

Forensic Science International

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“…The isolation of the decision making stage given a SFO While the negative influence of the first five issues outlined above is quite evident, the sixth is not clear at all. In contrast to recent computerized approaches that clearly differentiates between SFO and Decision making stages [8,9,10], the process of overlaying the skull over the face traditionally [2,11,25] involved a continuous comparison of the skull-face relationship. While, this task is avoided in the present study since the participants directly received the SFO, the approach followed guarantees a more objective framework where all the participants examine the list of criteria using the same SFO (that are objective and accurate in the case of positive cases).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This process is repeated for each available photograph, obtaining additional overlays. Skull-face overlay thus corresponds to what traditionally has been known as the adjustment of the skull size and its orientation with respect to the facial photograph [10,11]; iii) decision making. The degree of support for being the same person or not (exclusion) is determined by studying the relationship between the skull and the face based on the superimpositions achieved in the latter SFO stage: the morphological correlation, the match between the corresponding landmarks according to the soft tissue depth, and the consistency between asymmetries.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Study on the criteria for assessing skull-face correspondence in craniofacial superimposition

Ibáñez

Valsecchi

Cavalli³

et al. 2016

Legal Medicine

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Study on the criteria for assessing skull-face correspondence in craniofacial superimposition, Legal Medicine (2016), doi: http://dx.doi.org/10. 1016/j.legalmed.2016.09.009 This is a PDF file of an unedited manuscript that has been accepted for publication. As a service to our customers we are providing this early version of the manuscript. The manuscript will undergo copyediting, typesetting, and review of the resulting proof before it is published in its final form. Please note that during the production process errors may be discovered which could affect the content, and all legal disclaimers that apply to the journal pertain. AbstractCraniofacial superimposition has the potential to be used as an identification method when other traditional biological techniques are not applicable due to insufficient quality or absence of ante-mortem and post-mortem data. Despite having been used in many countries as a method of inclusion and exclusion for over a century it lacks standards. Thus, the purpose of this research is to provide forensic practitioners with standard criteria for analysing skull-face relationships. Thirty-seven experts from 16 different institutions participated in this study, which consisted of evaluating 65 criteria for assessing skull-face anatomical consistency on a sample of 24 different skull-face superimpositions. An unbiased statistical analysis established the most objective and discriminative criteria. Results did not show strong associations, however, important insights to address lack of standards were provided. In addition, a novel methodology for understanding and standardizing identification methods based on the observation of morphological patterns has been proposed.

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“…Other significant cases are the Dobkin case [4], the Worlkersdorfer case [5] and the Howick Falls murder case [6]. Detailed reviews of the techniques can be found in the literature [17,[20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27] and many case studies have also been published [8,13,[28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42].…”

Section: *Manuscript (Without Author Details) Click Here To View Linkmentioning

confidence: 99%

The use of craniofacial superimposition for disaster victim identification

Wilkinson

Lofthouse

2015

Forensic Science International

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Skull-to-face comparison is utilised for human identification where there is a suspected identity and the usual methods of identification, such as DNA or dental comparison, are not possible or practical. This research aimed to accurately compare manual and computerised craniofacial superimposition techniques and to establish the application of these techniques for disaster victim identification, where there may be a large database of passport-style images, such as the MPUB Interpol database. Twenty skulls (10 female; 10 male) were utilised from the William Bass Skeletal Collection at the University of Tennessee and compared to face pools of 20 face photographs of similar sex, age and ethnic group. A traditional manual photographic method and a new 3D computer-based method were studied. The results suggested that profile and three-quarter views of the ante-mortem face were the most valuable for craniofacial superimposition. However, the poor identification rate achieved using images in frontal view suggests that the MPUB Interpol database would not be optimal for disaster victim identification, and passport-style images do not provide enough distinguishing facial detail. This suggests that multiple ante-mortem images with a variety of facial expression should be utilised for identification purposes. There was no significant difference in success between the manual and computer methods.

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Skull‐Photo Superimposition and Border Deaths: Identification Through Exclusion and the Failure to Exclude*

Cited by 74 publications

References 28 publications

An investigation into the accuracy and reliability of skull-photo superimposition in a South African sample

An investigation into the accuracy and reliability of skull-photo superimposition in a South African sample

Study on the criteria for assessing skull-face correspondence in craniofacial superimposition

The use of craniofacial superimposition for disaster victim identification

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