Frank Bender

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Frank Bender is a world-renowned autodidact forensic facial reconstruction artist and fine artist. His job is to make facial reconstructions of the dead and of fugitives, many who have been on the run for a long time^[1]. He primarily works in clay and then casts his pieces into plaster and paints them, but he has also aged fugitives using pastels. His most famous facial reconstruction case let to the arrest of John Emil List; the case was shown on America's Most Wanted.^[2] His fine art work stems from his forensic work and is often a blend of art and science. He has created life-sized monuments in bronze for the African Burial Grounds in New York (using three of the actual skulls found on the site),^[3] a monument for slain police officers in New Jersey, a holocaust obelisk,^[4] and many other works of fine art in various media.

Bender is one of the founding members of the Vidocq Society along with William Fleisher and Richard Walter.^[5] The Vidocq Society, named after Eugène François Vidocq, meets in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and focuses on solving cold cases.

On May 13th, 2008 Random House released The Girl With the Crooked Nose by Ted Botha, a book on his life story intertwined with his most challenging case: Female homicides in Ciudad Juárez.^[6]