Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
The cold case of the woman dubbed ‘Angel’ has haunted University of Wollongong facial anthropologist Dr Susan Hayes.
So when police this week publicly identified the woman whose skeletal remains were discovered in Belanglo State Forest in 2010 as Karlie Jade Pearce-Stevenson, Dr Hayes felt a sense of peace.
Now Karlie - and her daughter Khandalyce whose remains were mysteriously found near a suitcase in South Australia just three months ago – could finally return home to Alice Springs.
Dr Hayes - currently on an archaelogical dig on a remote Indonesian island - said the identification would also allow her to analyse her unique facial approximation technique.
‘’From what I saw (of Karlie’s photo) I think there are some aspects that worked well and others that could have been done differently,’’ she said.
‘’… But although the identification of ‘Angel’ is going to be very helpful at an academic level, the most helpful thing is that Karlie and her little daughter will finally get to go home.’’
A year to the day after Karlie’s remains were found, Dr Hayes had stood in the Glebe morgue with the young woman’s skull in her hands.
Unable to discover her identify through traditional methods, police had turned to Dr Hayes to give a face to the woman they had dubbed ‘Angel’ – due to the word ‘Angelic’ found on her T-shirt.
Dr Hayes painstakingly built up the layers of flesh, muscle and then skin using computer imaging techniques and CT scans. It was a technique she had used many times – but this time it was different.
‘’All cases stand out, and all skulls are unique. But Karlie is more special than most because she died such a short time ago,’’ she said.
‘’Most of my research is with people who have only very distant relatives living today - or absolutely none at all.’’
This has included working with historical remains from a few hundred years ago, to putting a face to an 18,000 year old ancient species of hominid discovered in 2003 known as the ‘Hobbit’.
‘’Working with Karlie in 2011 meant many things to me, both personally and professionally, and she still does,’’ Dr Hayes said.
‘’When the NSW police requested my assistance this meant that my research findings would actually have the potential to be of help to Australian people.
‘’Working with Karlie also meant that I would be putting my research right on the line … it is only with forensic cases that I can see how effective my methods actually are.
‘’Working with historical, archaeological and palaeontological remains … I have no way of knowing how accurate the results are.’’