LACOMBE, LA — The Saint Tammany Parish Coroner’s Office is hoping a model can help solve a murder mystery.
The case involves a dismembered body that was found on July 29, 2016, along a remote area of Highway 90 east of Slidell. The coroner says the body was badly decomposed and fingerprints could not be collected.
The Saint Tammany Parish Coroner is enlisting the help of the Forensic Anthropology Computer Enhancement Services, or FACES, Lab at LSU for help to identify the body. The coroner says that the man was between 60 and 80 years old. He had also had open-heart surgery. Forensic investigators even know what heart medications the man was taking.
FACES uses the skull of a body to painstaking recreate the facial features. The skull from the body was provided to the lab in December 2016. The rendering were recently returned to the coroner’s office.
The coroner’s office is asking anyone who has a missing family member who may have resembled the model to call 985-781-1150.
The coroner also says that, while molds have been taken, there are no dental records for comparison because there isn’t even a list of missing persons in the case.
The lab has been used many times by coroners and law enforcement agencies around the state and country.
Below is a photo gallery of other cases in the New Orleans area.
In 2013, Hurricane Issac washed some bodies from graves in Plaquemines Parish 
FACES was asked to help make sure all of the bodies were returned to their proper graves. 
Mary Manhein worked for decades at LSU to build the FACES program. She retired in 2015. 
One case in 1999 in lower Plaquemines Parish involves a woman's body that was found in this net. 
Detectives had a few of the victim's personal belongings but could not identify the body. 
The woman was shot in the chest 
The FACES team at LSU created this model. 
All of the models are constructed upon the actual skull of the unidentified body. 
In May of 2011, a body was found in a shallow grave in Tangipahoa Parish 
Detectives asked FACES to help remake the face of the victim. 
In October of 2003, detectives exhumed a body in St. Tammany Parish 
The victim died in 1986 
FACES created this model of the victim who is believed to have been in her 20s when she was killed. 
Now St. Tammany detectives are hoping for help with this case from 2016.
