Carl Koppelman

Koppelman has attributed growing up in the 1970s, when there was a growing coverage of serial killers, to starting his fascination with crime and unsolved mysteries. Koppelman has also attributed several key incidents as formative memories. The first of these happened when he was 9, during the 1972 Summer Olympics, when terrorists killed 11 Israeli athletes. This incident directly impacted Koppelman's sphere of community. The third notable incident did not directly impact Koppelman, but was a formative experience for him nonetheless. In 1979, when Koppelman was 16, 16-year-old Lucinda Lynn Schaefer was killed by the "tool box killers" in neighboring Redondo Beach, California. Koppelman, who did not enjoy any of the jobs he held, went to Long Beach State University to study accounting. Because of how much care his mother needed, most of Koppelman's interaction with the rest of the world took place online during this time. In 2017, after his mother's death, Koppelman sold her house and returned to work. == Forensic involvement ==

Initial interest Koppelman first became truly interested in crime and forensics in August 2009, after the media storm surrounding the safe return of Jaycee Dugard. Koppelman reports sitting in his mother's home on the computer, looking at online news articles about the case and photos of Dugard. Koppelman has stated that the skills he learned as an accountant helped him in his pursuits as a web sleuth, including the large spreadsheet he keeps of listings from NamUs. Koppelman's first reconstruction was of a male found dead of accidental causes in a motel in Philadelphia in 2006, later identified as Joseph Cole. After this, Koppelman continued to create reconstructions. Initially, Koppelman would do reconstructions based on which cases had postmortem photos publicly available online, though as he grew in rapport Koppelman began to work with law enforcement on cases. who was later identified as George Pollard of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Koppelman's reconstruction was directly attributed to helping match the identification, as loved ones of Pollard saw the reconstruction on Monahan's website and noted the similarities between the reconstruction and George Pollard. Koppelman also sends his completed reconstructions to NamUs, who then decide whether or not to display it on the case's listing. One of the owners of Websleuths, Tricia Griffith, has personally thanked Koppelman for his contributions. Koppelman begins each reconstruction with a model photo of a live person who is similar to how the decedent would have looked in life, which he uses to maintain a lifelike quality to his reconstructions. After several years of experience creating forensic reconstructions, Koppelman is adept at figuring out the race, sex, age, and build of a decedent based on highly degraded remains, including charred remains or skulls. Koppelman sets the model photo at 90% transparency, with the intention to keep his reconstruction from being unduly influenced by the model photo, which is intended to serve more as a guideline. Koppelman then creates the reconstruction while studying post-mortem photographs of the decedent extensively. The amount of time each reconstruction takes to complete varies based on factors such as decomposition and facial trauma. Cases with minimal damage typically take between 5 and 6 hours for Koppelman to reconstruct. However, even in cases with minimal decomposition, rigor mortis causes changes in facial features such as the eyes and mouth. == Notable cases ==

Carl Koppelman's involvement has been credited with significant progress in multiple cases, and in some cases, such as that of Tammy Jo Alexander, Koppelman was even the one to link the decedent with their correct identity. In September of that year, Koppelman came upon the listing for Alexander on NamUs and immediately suspected that Alexander could be Cali Doe. The identification was confirmed through forensic DNA analysis using DNA from Alexander's half-sister, Pamela Dyson. Witnesses report having last seen the girl hitchhiking at the nearby Hitchin' Post truck stop, and she had told a waitress there that she was from Rockport or Aransas Pass, Texas. She was reported as missing by Dennis Bowman, who claimed she had run away. In February 1975 a partial skeleton was discovered on a river bank in a park in Strongsville, Ohio. The skeleton was determined to be a young white female who had been killed by a gunshot to the head. When the skeleton continued to remain unidentified, she was buried in an anonymous grave. In 2014, Christina Scates, a local college student, was doing genealogy research in cemetery records when she rediscovered the unidentified burial. Scates posted her find on Reddit, expressing shock that there seemed to be little investigation done into the girl's identity. In 2015, her posting attracted the attention of Carl Koppelman. Koppelman posted a reconstruction of Strongsville Jane Doe's skull, but it did not lead to an identification. Shortly after seeing Scates' post, Koppelman was contacted by the Cuyahoga County Medical Examiner's Office to work on an unrelated case. Koppelman asked for higher quality photos of the unidentified skeleton, and it was realized that a clerical error had prevented the case from being listed in NamUs. Within a year of Koppelman inquiring about the case, Akron law enforcement reached out to Cuyahoga County with the theory that Strongsville Jane Doe could be Linda Pagano. On 12 July 2018, Strongsville Jane Doe was publicly identified as Linda Pagano. == References ==