Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office uses New Technology to Identify Murder Victim

JEFFERSON, Ill. (KFVS) - Detectives are using new technology to show you the face of a murder victim, they hope that face will lead to new clues in the case.

“From my experience just the DNA technology, it seems like every year this seems to get better,” Detective Captain Bobby Wallace with Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office said.

Long reddish hair, and a pin-shaped mole in her left ear. Wallace said these details in new forensic art of a murder victim found almost 30 years ago, can lead to answers.

“The hardest part of this case was identifying the victim. We were told about a year ago about a new technology that might help us out. That offer was made to us, and we gladly accepted it,” Wallace said.

Anthony Redgrave with Redgrave Research Forensic Services and forensic artist Carl Koppelman developed these photos.

He said they’ve helped identify multiple victims with this new technology.

“We all sort of worked together, to determine what should be different, what was a little too extreme last time and just making a more pleasant image to look at,” Redgrave said.

He shared it took 5 to 6 rough drafts before getting to the perfect image. The next step is finding a victim’s relative with genetic genealogy.

“We’re feeling very hopeful that we’ll be able to finish it quickly based on demographics and what’s already available in databases,” Redgrave said.

If you have ever taken a genealogical DNA test you can have it tested to see if there is any match, even if you don’t know the victim, but there is no telling how long finding a match can take.

“I can’t wait until we come to a candidate for identification because I’m pretty sure he’s gotten it as close anybody has gotten it so far,” Redgrave said.

Wallace said he hopes to see more advancements in technologies, to help solve cases like this one.

“It just keeps getting better and better, and they’re able to extract and identify DNA from a lot less material than they used to. Now you’ve even got a lot of other databases to reach into,” Wallace said.

If you know or recognize the person in the picture you can call Jefferson County Sherriff’s office or Crimestoppers.

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