Head Case

Frank Bender sculpts the dead to help the living.

by Natalie Hope McDonald

Michael T. Regan BREAK THE MOLD: Philadelphian Frank Bender, who works with the FBI to help solve crimes, is one of the only forensic artists in the country who still sculpts by hand. (CLICK IMAGE FOR LARGER VERSION)

A sheet of spring rain coats the front door of Frank Bender's South Street studio. Inside, a photo of Bender posing with members of former Mexican President Vicente Fox's Special Forces, called los federales, is a reminder of his days in Juarez, Mexico, when he worked in the dark of night sculpting victims' faces in hopes of solving 400 mysterious serial murders uncovered since 1993 in the gritty border town.

The shelves lining his studio walls reveal even more evidence of a 30-plus-year forensic career spent sculpting heads of unrecognizable murder victims and wanted fugitives. Clay busts from famous cases, including the Girl in the Steamer Trunk, Alphonse "Allie Boy" Persico and Ira Einhorn, line the shelves, as do Bender's fine art, a bronze sculpture of Bob Marley, replicas of his Holocaust memorial sculptures and a new mixed-media shadow box inspired by his wife, Jan's, recovery from cancer. Ted Botha's newly published The Girl with the Crooked Nose: A Tale of Murder, Obsession and Forensic Artistry (Random House) chronicles Bender's forensic work, both in the U.S. and abroad, with a special focus on the unsolved murders in Juarez, known today as the "feminicidios."

"We're the last people to represent the dead," says Bender of his profession. He's a fit man in his 60s with an eagle tattoo on his forearm, a token of his Navy days. "When I was in Juarez, women would come up to me on the street and tell me they were praying for me."

Bender's dedication to his craft runs deep, but as a fine artist, he never expected he would spend the better part of his life helping to solve crimes for the FBI. They call on him as one of the only forensic artists in the country who still sculpts by hand, a tribute to his formal art education. Bender began his art career studying at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in the early '70s. It wasn't until he visited the city's morgue for an impromptu anatomy lesson that Frank Bender the painter became Frank Bender the forensic artist.

"I was given a tour of the Philadelphia Medical Examiner's Office," remembers Bender, who saw his first Jane Doe, a murder victim found near the airport, in late 1975. He still remembers her toe tag, No. 5233. "She was shot in the head," he says. "It lifted her head up like a garbage can," rendering her virtually unrecognizable.

As with many violent crimes, the examiners were at loss as to who the woman was and where she came from. "I said I knew what she looks like," recalls Bender, who to this day has an uncanny talent for reconstructing faces despite seemingly insurmountable disfigurement.

"I decided to sculpt her head," says Bender, who had taken only one basic course in sculpting at the time.

His intuitive work paid off when, a few months later, a New Jersey police officer recognized a photo of Bender's bust of the Jane Doe, who turned out to be Anna Duval, a missing woman from Arizona who came to Philadelphia to collect money on a real estate deal gone wrong.

Years later, after Bender moved on to other cases — many gruesome, like one woman who was dismembered and put into three suitcases — he still kept in touch with Duval's daughter, as well as other victims' families. "We don't talk about the murders," he says. "But certain families want to keep in touch."

For an artist like Bender, the seriousness of forensic work can take a personal toll, which is why his studio, in addition to being a showcase of modern crime, is also a gallery for his watercolors, sketches and fine art sculpture, although Bender is unlikely to call anything he does fine art — he hates the term.

"I download my feelings," he says, referring to the abstract watercolors he paints to recover from his involvement in difficult forensic cases. He also builds model trolley cars, an interest stemming from his days growing up on Philly's North Lithgow Street. "My playground was the railroad on American Street," he says. "We would hop trains for fun."

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The process Bender applies to both his fine art (for lack of a better term) and forensic art is stunningly similar. "I've always believed in intuition more than anything," he says, comparing his art to music. "You change a note in a song and it makes or breaks it. I approach each forensic case like it's the first one."

Ted Botha, author of a new book about Bender, says the artist's process is very usual in the forensics field. "Not many people do forensic sculpting," says Botha, "either of skulls or age progressions." He says while most work is done on the computer nowadays, these digital renderings often lack character. "Frank's, meanwhile, have a lot of character, which he gets criticized for," says Botha. "Basically he is giving expression to a skeleton, which is very risky." But in taking the risk, there's a far better chance a friend or family member may recognize the victim, he says. And for Bender, that's reason enough to follow his instinct. It hasn't let him down yet.

Given the nature of his work (he helps catch mass murderers and fugitives, after all), and its roots in lawlessness, one might expect Bender to sometimes worry about the very real consequences of his art, particularly if it means apprehending serial killers, which he hopes will happen as more attention is paid to the tragic victims of Juarez. So does he ever fear for his life? "I grew up in North Philly," laughs Bender, shrugging, "So what?" But in all seriousness, and with a very determined and very characteristic glint in his eye, he adds, "No, I don't fear it at all."

(n_mcdonald@citypaper.net)

Ted Botha and Frank Bender will read and discuss The Girl with the Crooked Nose: A Tale of Murder, Obsession and Forensic Artistry, Thu., May 22, 7 p.m., free, Borders, 1 S. Broad St., 215-568-7400, borders.com.