Name Betty Gatliff | ||
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Betty Pat Galtiff (born 1931) is an American pioneer in the field of forensic art and forensic facial reconstruction. Working closely with forensic anthropologist Dr. Clyde Snow, she has sculpturally reconstructed faces of individuals including the Pharaoh Tutankhamun, President John F. Kennedy, and the unidentified victims of serial killer John Wayne Gacy.
Biography
Gatliff resides in Norman, Oklahoma. She received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Oklahoma College for Women in 1951. She worked as a medical illustrator and technical illustrator for 27 years in the U.S. Civil service. She began a freelance career in 1979 as forensic sculptor, illustrator, and teacher.
In 1967, anthropologist Dr. Clyde Snow and Gatliff worked at the Federal Aviation Administration in Oklahoma City. Snow recommended that Galtiff learn the techniques described in Wilton M. Krogman's book The Human Skeleton in Forensic Medicine (1962). Snow was able to identify the ancestry, gender and approximate age of a skull, while Gatliff used her art training to create a likeness of a face based on the skull and other scientific information. Working with Snow, Gatliff created a sculpture directly on the skull of an unidentified young man which led to his identification. The success of this early collaboration formed the foundation of the use of facial reconstruction from the skull in the United States. Together they developed the Gatliff/Snow American Tissue Depth Method. This method encompassed the work of other researchers which defines numerous "landmarks" on the skull and determines an average tissue depth for each location.
In 1978, the United States House Select Committee on Assassinations began an investigation into the murder of President Kennedy. Gatliff created life-sized models of Kennedy's head for use in trajectory tests.
In 1978, John Wayne Gacy was apprehended for the serial murders of 33 young men and boys in Illinois. Investigators discovered the remains of 29 individuals in the crawl space under Gacy's house, with 24 of these remains being positively identified. To assist with identifying the remaining victims, Gatliff conducted clay facial reconstructions for the nine unidentified victims. This effort led to at least one positive identification and five tentative identifications.
Working with Snow, Gatliff reconstructed the face of Tutankhamun which was featured in Life Magazine (1983) and National Geographic World (1985).
Gatliff was a technical consultant on the television series Quincy, M.E., creating forensic art reconstructions for the show, in which her hands were featured sculpting. Gatliff also contributed her forensic art techniques to the film Gorky Park.
Gatliff has taught her techniques at the FBI Academy, Scottsdale Artists' School in Arizona, Cleveland Institute of Art in Ohio, and the University of Oklahoma.