Murder of Karen Price

Comparison with the clay reconstruction with photograph of Karen Price.

Karen Price, (known as Little Miss Nobody before she was identiifed), was a fifteen-year-old Welsh murder victim, who had vanished in 1981. After the discovery of her body in 1989, her skull had been reconstructed by Richard Neave, an English facial reconstruction artist.^[1] The facial re-construction and the matching of her DNA to that of her parents led to the identification of the body; this was the first time DNA had been used in this way.^[2]

Discovery and identification

In Cardiff, Wales, two construction workers unearthed a rolled carpet while constructing a garden behind a house. When the carpet had been unraveled, the skeletal remains of a young female were visible. Entomologists studied the insect eggs around the site of the discovery to show that the girl had been dead for approximately ten years. After fruitless attempts to identify the body, Richard Neave of Manchester University created a clay facial reconstruction of the skull. Both the reconstruction and the DNA samples taken from the bones compared with the DNA of her parents identified the remains to be those of Karen.^[3][4]

It was believed that the runaway girl had turned to prostitution, and in 1991, Idris Ali and Alan Charlton, who were thought to be in charge of Karen's soliciting, were later charged with her murder^[5]. However, Ali's charge was reduced to manslaughter and was therefore released in 1994, while Charlton remained on a life sentence.^[6]

References