Speaker 1: From My Heart Radio. This is Missing on nine eleven,
Speaker 1: the story of one woman who vanished on the eve
Speaker 1: of history and my quest to find her. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: John Wallzac. My name I go back professionalized Michael W.
Speaker 1: Street and I'm a forensic facial imaging expert and certified
Speaker 1: forensic artists. I do any type of forensic facial imaging consultation,
Speaker 1: actual work on the face in terms of facial comparisons
Speaker 1: for probable identities, aged progressions, age regressions, postmor imaging, skullar reconstructions,
Speaker 1: such facial composites for witness descriptions, so anything involving the face. Um,
Speaker 1: we pretty much tried to do. As a kid, Michael
Speaker 1: loved art, but after high school he wanted a stable career,
Speaker 1: so he followed in his father's footsteps and became a
Speaker 1: cop art aspirations aside until one night is SI Police
Speaker 1: Sketch broadcast on the news, and I had this epiphany,
Speaker 1: this aha moment where I'm like, that's it. That's what
Speaker 1: I'm going to do, That's how I can merge the two. Today,
Speaker 1: Michael runs a company called Sketch cop He's one of
Speaker 1: the nation's leading forensic artists trained by both the FBI
Speaker 1: and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. He's
Speaker 1: in such high demand that he often has to turn
Speaker 1: down projects, but he agreed to work with us to
Speaker 1: create an age progressed image of snay Ha so we
Speaker 1: can see what she would look like today, twenty years
Speaker 1: after she disappeared. To start, Michael asked for high quality
Speaker 1: images of say Hawk and her immediate family. I'm looking
Speaker 1: for something that the head and the neck and just
Speaker 1: below the breastplate, pretty much Philip. The photo field. Sometimes,
Speaker 1: you know, the graduation pictures or professional pictures are taken
Speaker 1: from a few feet back, and there's usually like a
Speaker 1: flag in the background, a bookcase or some other sort
Speaker 1: of decore. You know, those are okay, But again the
Speaker 1: Porkerd's ideal. You get full face, you get some sort
Speaker 1: of expression of emotion, and the photos of the family,
Speaker 1: it gives us an opportunity to see how the person
Speaker 1: is likely to age. All a lot of it has
Speaker 1: to do with lifestyle, medical condition, exercise, diet, alcohol, drug abuse.
Speaker 1: All these different things factor in turns to the aging.
Speaker 1: But the family is always a good place to start,
Speaker 1: and sometimes if there's enough of a resemblance. I'll actually
Speaker 1: merge some of the photograph of the family member into
Speaker 1: the missing person, so that always helps. Then, of course,
Speaker 1: you have to have photo references of your own, because
Speaker 1: hairstyles changed quite a bit and it's unlikely that that
Speaker 1: person is going to wear the same hairstyle throughout the
Speaker 1: course of their life. And then there's preferred colors of
Speaker 1: clothing and styles of clothing and such. So you know
Speaker 1: between the parker of the person, the last known porker
Speaker 1: of them taken, the family reference photos, and your own
Speaker 1: reference photos. You kind of mix all those up together
Speaker 1: and a little bit of science, a little bit of
Speaker 1: artistic license, and come up with something that resembles the
Speaker 1: person at least. So talk about this specific case. I
Speaker 1: sent you photos of snay Haw and of her family.
Speaker 1: Was there one in particular a reference photo that jumped
Speaker 1: out immediately is well, this is the one that I
Speaker 1: want to use to start from. When their kids, it's
Speaker 1: a little bit different. I may integrate a photo of
Speaker 1: a parent because there may be something that jumps out
Speaker 1: in terms of a resemblance, and it's good to blend
Speaker 1: photos and such, But when they're adults, I only look
Speaker 1: the parents pictures of the siblings pictures at that particular
Speaker 1: age as a guide in terms of how I'm going
Speaker 1: to proceed, and I may not even use them at
Speaker 1: all because they become not so much irrelevant. Like in
Speaker 1: sneahousekis because she was a doctor. She wore her hair
Speaker 1: a certain way, her skin looked a certain way, her
Speaker 1: the way she dressed very professional. It didn't appear to
Speaker 1: me that she had the environmental issues that came into
Speaker 1: play with aging like her parents did. In terms of
Speaker 1: growing up in in UM, I think India, yeah, and um,
Speaker 1: I have a lot of associates, a lot of friends
Speaker 1: in India, and it's a it's a very modern country.
Speaker 1: But at the same time, you know, the lifestyle some
Speaker 1: parts of the country, they're a huge country, is going
Speaker 1: to be a little bit different and caused the aging process.
Speaker 1: And even if the parents were professionals, again that the dress,
Speaker 1: the lifestyle, a lot of things were different versus her
Speaker 1: being Americanized. So I just went ahead and looked at
Speaker 1: the brothers and the parents, and there were some things
Speaker 1: that took into consideration in terms of way to the face.
Speaker 1: And I may have gone back and grab some old
Speaker 1: eyebrows from one of seeing hows earlier pictures in which
Speaker 1: she was younger, because the way I age progressed her
Speaker 1: was in a way that a smart, intelligent, professional woman
Speaker 1: who is likely over time to relax into a more
Speaker 1: casual yet still professional, fresh young for her age at
Speaker 1: the time, I progressed her too. So I believe be
Speaker 1: fifty one, very breezy and laid back, but with that
Speaker 1: still professional demeanor and still you know, keeping up her appearance,
Speaker 1: so to speaking, being very interested in keeping up her apparents.
Speaker 1: It's interesting the impact that the hair and the clothes
Speaker 1: have because the face seems more straightforward, and the hair
Speaker 1: and the clothes, like you said, that seems more just subjective.
Speaker 1: So you've just taken into account somebody's biography and just
Speaker 1: whatever you know about them, and when you choose how
Speaker 1: to express what their hair might look like at a
Speaker 1: certain point, or what clothes they might be wearing. I do.
Speaker 1: I look at myself as a as an artist, but
Speaker 1: not in the sense of like a lot of artists
Speaker 1: to and you know, my art is the vehicle that
Speaker 1: gets me to where I need to be in terms
Speaker 1: of an investigation, and or you know, creating a facial image,
Speaker 1: and in the case of age progression, in the case
Speaker 1: of skelped remains reconstruction. That's where you really get to
Speaker 1: be an artist. In terms of expressing some sort of
Speaker 1: lifestyle imagery, you're almost like imposing your own experience and
Speaker 1: a lot of other things. And so in her case,
Speaker 1: I didn't believe for a minute that she would be
Speaker 1: any different than she was when she was younger. I
Speaker 1: had a look and project and say, Okay, she worked
Speaker 1: really hard to become what she was in the generations
Speaker 1: she grew up in, and the way she saw herself
Speaker 1: in terms of the way she dressed, the way she
Speaker 1: kept her appearance, her skin, she kept herself up well,
Speaker 1: and I didn't think that that would change over time.
Speaker 1: I didn't think that. And again, we can't predict the
Speaker 1: person is going to get sick. We can't predict that
Speaker 1: they're gonna become an alcoholic. But I assume, because of
Speaker 1: the discipline that she had to get through medical school
Speaker 1: to achieve that all that she had done before she disappeared,
Speaker 1: that that wasn't going to change if she was still alive.
Speaker 1: And again, until you find a body, always have to
Speaker 1: presume someone's alive out there. That she would still age well,
Speaker 1: so to speak, and maybe by then she was able
Speaker 1: to either be retired SIMI retired, and the clothing, although nice,
Speaker 1: didn't have to be so professional, and the hairstyle could
Speaker 1: be a little bit more relaxed, a little bit more length,
Speaker 1: a little bit looser still. But at the same time,
Speaker 1: I wanted to be able to keep that smile on
Speaker 1: those friendly eyes that she had, that very approachable appearance.
Speaker 1: I wanted her to keep that. So how long did
Speaker 1: it take you to to do this? I probably worked
Speaker 1: on this, um nearly all old day for eight hours.
Speaker 1: Imagine I'm you, You're sitting in front of the computer.
Speaker 1: How do how do you even start? Well? Tip of day.
Speaker 1: I started out trying to learn as much as I
Speaker 1: can about the person. So I actually googled her name
Speaker 1: and read and read a Wikipedia story and it was
Speaker 1: pretty consistent with what I heard to begin with. So
Speaker 1: I get kind of a sense or of flavor of
Speaker 1: who the person was, and what they've been through and
Speaker 1: how they got to where they were and what led
Speaker 1: up to disappearance. I looked at the pictures that you provided,
Speaker 1: and I took the targeted photo, which was the most
Speaker 1: portrait like one had her in the front of you,
Speaker 1: and I made some adjustments in terms, so I cropped
Speaker 1: the photo. I made some color adjustments and some skin
Speaker 1: tone adjustments, and from there I looked at the reference
Speaker 1: photos and decided what I was going to use, if
Speaker 1: I was going to use any at all, and then
Speaker 1: start researching my own archives as well as pictures on
Speaker 1: the Internet of different hairstyles and clothing types and such
Speaker 1: signs of aging, you know, skin tones, skin textures, things
Speaker 1: like that, And then I spend the time, you know,
Speaker 1: putting it all together, and sometimes it works and you've
Speaker 1: got to replace the part and use another one. And
Speaker 1: once you pull everything together, it's a matter of scaling,
Speaker 1: setting opacities on your on your layers, and you start
Speaker 1: layering wrinkles over the face or hairstyles, just to make
Speaker 1: sure anything fits together and blends well. Michael emailed me
Speaker 1: the age progressed image. It was really bizarre to see
Speaker 1: today smiling. What am I looking at? I don't know
Speaker 1: how to ask this. Am I looking at some blend
Speaker 1: of photos and like artistic photoshop tools or what exactly
Speaker 1: is the final product? The final product is my interpretation
Speaker 1: of what she would look like. If she were found today,
Speaker 1: and the photoshop and the tools I use in nothing
Speaker 1: more than tools. And there's a misconception that it's photoshop
Speaker 1: that drives it is the software programs that drive the
Speaker 1: age progression when a reality is just the opposite. I
Speaker 1: could have take in this and got the same result
Speaker 1: by drawing it or by tracing it with a pencil
Speaker 1: or drawing it with a pencil. So you know, what
Speaker 1: you're looking at is basically a portrait based upon my
Speaker 1: knowledge of aging, in my interpretation of what she would
Speaker 1: look like, based upon the information I'd have from the
Speaker 1: photos in accomplishing that through Photoshop and other tools I used,
Speaker 1: and looking specifically at the layers this rendering that you did,
Speaker 1: is this? Are there pieces of photos in this? How
Speaker 1: do all the layers come together? Like? Is this a
Speaker 1: mix of art and photos? It's um, it's it's both.
Speaker 1: I mean, I grab a hairstyle here, I grab a
Speaker 1: shirt there. Her original photo that you provided is the
Speaker 1: base image within that photo. I took that photo and
Speaker 1: I added way to the face. You know, use the
Speaker 1: warping tool to pull a couple of features downward, because
Speaker 1: as we get older, gravity takes effect. But large day
Speaker 1: after that was just taking aging artifacts like facial lines
Speaker 1: in hairstyles and showing just and just layering those on
Speaker 1: top of the original image and blending them in. I
Speaker 1: had to do some digital painting. I had to do
Speaker 1: some air brushing and stuff like that, and some blending.
Speaker 1: But how frequently do you get asked to do age
Speaker 1: progression for adults versus children? I imagine it's it's less common,
Speaker 1: it's less commons It's mostly most of the requests I
Speaker 1: get are from people who want to see how child
Speaker 1: would look had they lived to adulthood. It's it's a
Speaker 1: great tool if nothing else, that helps get their case,
Speaker 1: especially in the case of the missing person out in
Speaker 1: front of media. Again, what about this case in particular?
Speaker 1: Move to you. I thought that there was a person
Speaker 1: who worked really hard, um to get to where she
Speaker 1: was and obviously loving supportive family, and just to have
Speaker 1: all that presumably taken and in this horrible, horrible act
Speaker 1: and her life done an instance, all that work, all
Speaker 1: that discipline, all that time and money, everything with a
Speaker 1: life of promise ahead. In this case, I just saw
Speaker 1: life unfulfilled. You know what's interesting is every everybody who
Speaker 1: worked with her that I've talked to um and friends
Speaker 1: say that she didn't actually want to be a doctor,
Speaker 1: she wanted to be an artist. Mm hmm. Interesting. And
Speaker 1: you know, the funny thing is is that I've met
Speaker 1: a lot of people that wind up in careers lawyers.
Speaker 1: That is, it's probably I talked to more lawyers that
Speaker 1: never wanted to be lawyers. They absolutely hate being lawyers,
Speaker 1: that they could do something else. They would do something
Speaker 1: else in a heartbeat. And a lot of its cultural dynamics,
Speaker 1: family dynamics, practicality. And I'm really thankful that I picked
Speaker 1: a career that I chose. My father want me to
Speaker 1: do it, I chose it, and it the end, I
Speaker 1: was rewarded in such a way that I could go
Speaker 1: off and do what I wanted. If I wanted to
Speaker 1: work in a seven eleven a surfboard shop, if I
Speaker 1: wanted to go door to do our selling back and cleaners,
Speaker 1: or do what I'm doing, I could do it because
Speaker 1: I could afford to do it. I'm able to do that.
Speaker 1: But it didn't come up without a lot of hard
Speaker 1: work and sacrifices. And thankfully my body wasn't compromised in
Speaker 1: terms of injury or death and my my psyches turned
Speaker 1: out pretty well though. I've seen some really horrible, horrible
Speaker 1: things and heard some horrible things in my lifetime, but unfortunate.
Speaker 1: So I'm sorry that she didn't get to realize her dream.
Speaker 1: To view the age progressive image of snay Ha, go
Speaker 1: to Twitter dot com slash John Wallsack. That's Twitter dot
Speaker 1: com slash j O n w A l c z
Speaker 1: a K. We're back next week with a brand new
Speaker 1: full length episode. Next time I'm missing on nine eleven.
Speaker 1: So you're saying that she went out without her glasses
Speaker 1: and without her wallet. Yes, actually, I believed she used
Speaker 1: Rawn's credit card to make the purchase at Century twenty one.
Speaker 1: She didn't even have her own I d s she
Speaker 1: had his credit card. You can reach us by phone
Speaker 1: at one eight three three new Tips that's one eight
Speaker 1: three three six three nine eight four seven seven again
Speaker 1: one eight three three six three nine eight four seven seven,
Speaker 1: or you can read speed via email at tips at
Speaker 1: iHeart media dot com. That's tips, T I P s
Speaker 1: at iHeart media dot com. Ben Ballen is our executive producer.
Speaker 1: Paul Deckan is our supervising producer. Chris Brown is our
Speaker 1: assistant producer, Seth Nicholas Johnson is our producer, Sam T.
Speaker 1: Garden is our research assistant, and I'm your host and
Speaker 1: executive producer John Waalzack. Cover art by Pam Peacock. Special
Speaker 1: thanks to to Make a Campbell at iHeart and to
Speaker 1: Christoph Zappery in New Orleans. Also thank you to Michael W.
Speaker 1: Street and ASoP Rock. If you want to hire Michael
Speaker 1: or views work, go to sketch cop dot com. Original
Speaker 1: theme music by ASoP Rock. Check out Asop's website at
Speaker 1: ASoP rock dot com. If you like this show, check
Speaker 1: out our first season, Missing in Alaska, about the nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy two disappearance of two congressmen. Missing on nine eleven
Speaker 1: is a co production of I Heart Radio and Greenfork
Speaker 1: Media