013. How do we recognize a person from his skull?

This time I am going to tell you about a remarkable technique by which we can positively identify a person from his skull. On May 23, 1992 the police found a skull floating in a local river and I was called to opine upon it. I was to give the police all possible information from that skull. But the most important question was, who was that person?

From the villages Rampur and Phoolpur which were lying on either side of the river, at least seven persons were reported missing during the last one year under mysterious circumstances. Of these 4 were females and 3 were males. It was quite possible that the skull belonged to one of these seven persons.

When I examined the skull closely, I found that the skull belonged to a female. Telling the sex of a person from the skull is not difficult and we have already talked at length about it in our February 1994 issue. So obviously the 3 males were out of our contention and our task was reduced somewhat.

The four females were 15-year old Sona, 32 year old married Ramwati, 47-year-old Phulwanti and 83 year-old widow Kashi. The police had much to gain if I could tell them whose skull was it, because they could then concentrate their investigations only on that female and her possible enemies. In effect, their task would be reduced to one-fourth, if I could tell them this vital question.

I would like to digress here somewhat and say something about the anatomy of the skull. The skull of every person is unique. It has got distinct bumps, projections and curvatures. If you touch your eyebrows you will find that the skull underneath is somewhat raised. Similarly if you touch your check prominences you will find that the cheek bones beneath are somewhat raised. But what is most important to comprehend is that these 'bumps' are different in each individual.

Similarly the skull shows many curvatures. The curvature of the top your skull in unique. All persons have different curvatures of their skull. Similarly the curvature of the chin is different in each individual.

In the same way, the shape of the teeth is different in each individual. If we see the margins of the teeth in a particular individual, the margin forms a distinct outline in each individual. So if you see the photographs of a smiling individual, you would find that the upper teeth, which are usually visible in smiling individual, form a distinct outline.

The face is molded over the skull, much like plaster of Paris molded over an underlying mould. This cause the face to reflect the same bumps, curves and projection as are present in the individual's skull. Now if we have a photograph of the individual, we have got a record of all the peculiarities of that person skull.

If has been now possible to take the photograph of a missing person and superimpose it over the negative of the skull so that all bumps, curvatures and projections could be compared. Teeth outline of smiling individual can also be compared to the teeth outline of the skull. If all the outlines match perfectly with each other, then we can be hundred percent sure that the skull belonged to that individual only.

I asked for the photographs of all 4 missing females - Sona, Ramvati, Phulwanti and Kashi. I enlarged the photographs to life-size and then superimposed the negative of the skull over the various photographs. You can see some examples of these superimpositions in the accompanying photographs although they are from different cases. This will give you some idea of what superimposition in all about. Only the facial outline of Sona matched the outline of the skull and I could tell the of the skull and I could tell the Police that it was the skull of Sona.

Police was in fact suspecting for sometime that 15-year-old Sona had been murdered by her paramour Ramesh. However they could not lay their hands on Ramesh as Ramesh was the son of a powerful Zamindar (the Hindustani name for a powerful landlord). In addition, they did not have any solid proof that Sona had even been murdered. Ramesh kept asserting that Sona had run away with one of her lovers. But now, after my opinion, the police had solid proof that Sona had indeed been murdered. Armed with this information, they raided the house of Ramesh and apprehended him. Ramesh again tried to repeat the same old story, but now the police knew better. When they told him, how they had found about the identity of the skull, Ramesh broke down and told them the whole story.

Ramesh had enticed Sona with his money and had promised to get married to her. Under this presumption, Sona allowed Ramesh to have sex with her. After some weeks Sona fell pregnant and began pressing Ramesh to marry her. Ramesh never wanted to marry her. He began to think of ways to dispose her off somehow. Finally one day he called her at the bank of the river to finalize the matter. There he strangulated her and threw her dead body into the river, thinking that the body will drown. Actually the fishes, and other aquatic animals of the river ate the flesh of Sona's body till only the skeleton remained. From this skeleton, the skull got separated and landed ashore. That is how the police got hold of that skull.

This case is one of my best cases as I solved a murder mystery by utilizing one of the latest techniques in crime investigation.

Note: Certain figures mentioned in the text may not be visible here. Although not being able to look at the figures would not interfere with the comprehension of the article very much, if it is desired to have a look at the figures, readers are advised to consult the original text in the magazine.

IMPORTANT NOTE: THIS MATERIAL IS COPYRIGHTED BY THE AUTHOR AND MAY NOT BE REPOSTED, REPRINTED OR OTHERWISE USED IN ANY MANNER WITHOUT THE WRITTEN PERMISSION OF THE AUTHOR