History of the I.A.I. Forensic Art Discipline
By Karen T. Taylor
Through many hours in the library, I have documented that the use of forensic art goes back at least one hundred years. Our I.A.I. Forensic Art Discipline can trace it's roots to 1984, when Detective Frank Domingo, now retired from the Artist Unit of the New York City Police Department, organized the First National Composite Art Symposium. Held on October 15, 16, and 17, 1984, at the World Trade Center in New York, there were more than fifty artists from the United States and Canada in attendance. At the 1984 meeting, I was personally proud to meet many artists who continue today to be valued friends and professional colleagues, including:
Frank Domingo: New York City Police Department (retired)
George Homa: New Jersey State Police (retired)
Tom Macris: San Jose, California Police Department (retired)
Scott Callander: U.S. Secret Service - Washington, D.C.
Horace Heafner: FBI - Washington, D.C. (retired) and the National Center for
Missing and Exploited Children (retired)
There was general discussion of the formation of an independent professional organization for composite artists. During the conference, Kay McClanahan of the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division spoke to the group as a representative of the I.A.I. Frank Domingo discussed the importance of communication, education, standardization and perhaps eventual certification in the police art field. It was subsequently voted upon and agreed that the I.A.I. would be an excellent "umbrella organization" to facilitate the composite art organization. It was later decided that the generic term "forensic art" would be used rather than "composite art" to encourage membership by those who were involved in other forensic art endeavors such as skull reconstruction or demonstrative evidence.
In 1985, a handful of artists met at the 70th Annual Educational Conference in Savannah, Georgia, and discussed plans for our fledgling organization, and got to know the I.A.I.
In the following year, 1986, Frank Domingo represented the artists' group at the 71st Educational Conference in London, England, where he addressed the Board of Directors concerning the value of adding forensic art as a discipline. A vote was taken during the business meeting and forensic art officially became a discipline under the auspices of the I.A.I.
The first Subcommittee Chairperson was Frank Domingo and the first members were:
Susan Biesiada: St. John's County, Florida Sheriff's Department
Frank Gorey: Nassau County, New York Police Department
Paul Johnson: St. Paul, Minnesota Police Department
Marla Lawson: Atlanta, Georgia Police Department
Tom Macris: San Jose, California Police Department
Neil McDonald: Orlando, Florida Police Department
Glenn Miller: Fairfax, County, Virginia Police Department
Carrie Stuart Parks: Freelance artist, North Idaho
Karen T. Taylor: Texas Department of Public Safety
Also in London, Frank submitted a rough draft of a document that was reviewed and approved for publication. Thus, later in 1986, there was the publication of the Composite Art Manual written primarily by Frank Domingo and intended as a reference document for police agencies and those new to forensic art.
Kevin Richlin from the Sunnyvale, California Department of Public Safety and I co-authored an article which appeared in the July/August 1989 issue of the Journal of Forensic Identification entitled "Forensic Art: Defining the International Association for Identification's Ninth Discipline." The article introduced our field to the I.A.I. membership at large and defined four general areas of concentration within the field:
1. Composite Imagery:
-Composite drawings
-Mechanically-generated composites
-Object or evidence drawings
2. Image Modification and Image Identification :
-Methods of manipulation, enhancement and categorization of photographic images
3. Demonstrative Evidence:
-Visual information for case presentation in court
4. Reconstruction and Postmortem Identification Aids:
-Methods to aid in the identification of physical remains in various conditions
