FORENSIC ANTHROPOLOGY IRELAND

The dead do tell tales

By Cormac O’Keeffe

Monday, October 10, 2011

WHEN gardaí in Wexford got a call from the skipper of the Willie B on April 3, 2010, they knew who was the man for the job.

Known by his colleagues as "the Bone Man", Detective Garda Gerry Kealy was directed to meet skipper Jimmy Devlin when he docked at Kilmore Quay the following day.

"The station rang me and told me ‘we’ve got one coming in for you’," said Det Garda Kealy. "They told me about a skull in a bag."

When he met Jimmy Devlin, he could see he was holding a plastic bag. Inside was the skull. It had been caught up in the nets of the Willie B about 50km off the coast.

Det Garda Kealy, a seasoned member of the Wexford Crime Scene Investigation Unit, was used to seeing such remains and had expertise in forensics. Holding a master’s degree in forensic science, he was a lecturer in the force and in third-level colleges and he quickly determined what he was dealing with. 

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Marie Cassidy conducted the postmortem examination in Waterford Regional Hospital on April 6.

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The detective’s next step was to take the skull to Dr René Gapert, a forensic anthropologist at UCD.

He carried out a maceration process, removing all the tissue from the skull to prepare it for facial reconstruction. He said that during this process, Dr Gapert discovered that the first two bones of the neck were still attached to the skull.

An examination showed signs of arthritis, which meant when the woman was alive she had a stiff neck and problems turning her head to the left.

When she was eventually identified, it emerged that the woman’s medical records did show she had been to the doctor complaining of "terrible pain" in her neck.

The examination also showed that ligaments in the base of her skull had ossified (or turned to bone) and had been compressing on her carotid artery and nerves. This would have given her symptoms of fainting and headaches — which were also later confirmed in her medical records.

A dental examination gave other clues, indicating she was over 40 (she turned out to be 45).

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They also recovered three small reddish-brownish hair fragments, which again matched the woman when she was identified.

The next stage was to get a DNA profile. Det Garda Kealy said Dr Gapert removed a tooth and from this Dr Steven Clifford, a DNA expert at the State Forensic Science Laboratory, generated a profile.

Dr Gapert also sent skull measurements to Professor Richard Wright at Sydney University, who determined the woman was European.

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Det Garda Kealy gathered all the information and fed it into the Interpol black list, which holds details of unidentified people across the world. He also emailed 600 doctors and dentists in Wexford, sending them facial reconstruction images, dental charts and medical information to see if this woman had attended any of them.

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Then, a couple of weeks ago, he got a reply from Interpol, saying British police had a potential match. He was given a name and told she had been missing since late 2009.

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He contacted Interpol, which gave him contact details of police in Wales. He rang them and asked for the woman’s DNA profile, which they had extracted from her glasses.
He sent the profile to Dr Clifford in the Forensic Science Laboratory.
The breakthrough came last Tuesday, when Dr Clifford rang him and said: "That’s a match. I’ll write a report."

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The case is a fitting tribute to a garda who, on 11/11/11, retires after 34 years in the job.

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Read more: http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/the-dead-do-tell-tales-170122.html#ixzz1bL2IeAPH