New York art students mold clay into faces of city's nameless

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When Amy Pekal signed up for the New York Academy of Art to hone her skills as a sculptor, she never thought she would end up assisting in a police investigation.

Yet the 22-year-old student from Brooklyn and about a dozen of her classmates are doing just that by helping anthropologists at New York City's Office of Chief Medical Examiner identify nameless corpses that have gone unclaimed, sometimes for decades.

The students participated earlier this year in a five-day forensic sculpture workshop where they used clay to reconstruct faces from the remains of a few of the medical examiner's backlog of about 1,200 cases.

"Because of my skill and craft, I'm able to make a job for somebody else easier," Pekal said.

The hope is that the sculptures will help families claim the remains of their loved ones and bring them closure. In cases where the cause of death was deemed to be criminal, an identification could help prosecutors find justice for the victims.

Pekal, who reconstructed the face of a man found in the trunk of an impounded car in the early 1990s, said it was a humbling experience to give "identity back to somebody."

"This person was forgotten," she said.

While the medical examiner's office has used police sketch artists for years to help with identifications, the collaboration with the New York Academy of Art is the first time it has turned to art students.

Founded in 1982, the small graduate school is known for teaching the techniques of Leonardo da Vinci and other old masters who used anatomical studies to perfect their craft. At the school's Lower Manhattan studios, it is not uncommon to see live horses, kangaroos and other animals serving as models for the students.

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