Flashing police lights and screaming sirens jumpstart Barbara Martin-Bailey’s sketch pencil. As the forensic artist for the Oakland County (Mich.) Sheriff’s Office, Martin-Bailey is frequently called to the scene of a burglary or homicide to coax a description of the suspect from a traumatized witness.

“When I’m interviewing a witness, I’m so intensely interested in what they’re saying that someone could drive a truck through the room and I wouldn’t even notice,” said Martin-Bailey, of Berkley, Mich., who earned a bachelor of art education degree from EMU in 1971.

“A good forensic artist tries to capture not just the person’s physical appearance, but also their expression, like how piercing their eyes were,” she added.

Her skills have drawn the careers of many criminals to a close such as serial killer “Coral” Eugene Watts. Late one night in 1979, Martin-Bailey was comfortably ensconced in front of her TV when she got a call from Ferndale, Mich., police about a woman who had been murdered. When the officer described the brutal nature of the crime, Martin-Bailey rushed to the scene. The eyewitness-based sketch she created later helped convict Watts, whose face was splashed across newspapers and TV screens during his 2004 trial.

Martin-Bailey’s first shot at forensic art came in 1968, when she was developing her natural drawing talent as an art student at EMU. Three young women who lived near her disappeared with a young man, and wound up dead. Upset by the lack of quality of the suspect’s composite drawing being, she called the police three times pleading to use someone with more artistic talent.

“My roommate and friends thought I was nuts to get involved, but I had to,” said Martin-Bailey. “It was either him or me.”

Police finally connected her with a witness. Martin-Bailey drew what turned out to be the face of John Norman Collins, who was convicted in 1970 of one murder in a series of seven linked murders. “I wanted to prove a point about drawing an anatomically correct likeness,” Martin-Bailey said. “But by the 13th death investigation, I was hooked for life.”

After graduating from EMU, she began teaching art in the Berkley School District, and freelancing as a courtroom sketch artist for Detroit’s Channel 4 News and NBC Nightly News. Four years later, she took a one-year leave of absence in the face of looming budget cuts. Her interest in criminal justice, which surfaced during the John Norman Collins’ investigation, led the way to the next step on her career path.

“Every time I saw a police car go down the street, I wanted to follow it and see what was going on,” she said.

In 1979, she joined the Oakland County Sheriff’s Office, where she honed her forensic art skills in a variety of clerical positions. By 2002, her drawings had helped send enough criminals to jail that the Oakland County Board of Commissioners voted to create a forensic art position in the forensic science laboratory of the sheriff’s office.

The FBI recognized the quality of Martin-Bailey’s forensic work in 1984, when she and 12 other forensic artists were asked to collaborate on the development of a forensic facial-imaging course. In 1998, she was asked to teach part of the class.

Three years after she helped create the FBI course, the International Association for Identification (IAI) recognized forensic artistry as an official forensic discipline. Martin-Bailey, who has received the IAI’s highest certification, now sits on the IAI Forensic Art Certification Board. She is also the American director of the Michigan Ontario Identification Association, a regional division of IAI.

In addition, Martin-Bailey is a member of the International Association for Craniofacial Identification, which has 120 members from 28 countries. She is studying the perception and recognition of faces with fellow member Dr. Joerg Subke, who works in the applied sciences department of Geissen University in Geissen, Germany.

Martin-Bailey further expanded her knowledge by learning two facial-reconstruction techniques involving clay sculpting. The Manchester method, taught by Richard Neave and Dr. Caroline Wilkinson at England’s University of Manchester Medical School, focuses on appropriate tissue depths at 35 points on the human skull. The American method uses 21.

One way she has been able to employ these techniques is through her pro-bono work for Project EDAN (Everyone Deserves A Name). Forensic artists who volunteer for this project donate facial sketches and reconstructions of unidentified persons for certain cases submitted by law enforcement agencies that do not have access to qualified artists.

A recent EDAN case involved a 20-year-old Nevada homicide. The nature of the crime made reconstruction of the woman’s face very challenging. “A lot of people don’t want to work on this kind of case, but I figured we didn’t have anything to lose,” she said.

Her efforts paid off. A family has come forward to identify the woman, and authorities are waiting for DNA confirmation to put the case to rest.
Martin-Bailey’s newest venture is photo-facial comparison and analysis. She compares specific anatomical points on different photos, sometimes taken years apart, to determine if it is the same person. In 2005, the TV program “America’s Most Wanted” featured her photo comparison of an Auburn Hills, Mich, woman who robbed an elderly woman and left her for dead. “She’s mine! I got her!” said Martin-Bailey when she heard she had gotten a hit on the show. The suspect pled guilty to all five charges.

“That’s the result you want – to get the criminals off the street,” she said. “But a court ruling would give the technique more credibility.”

Although she loves her work, it does come with certain dangers. The criminals she helps put behind bars are obviously not fond of her sketches, and other prisoners think she can prove them not guilty. “After stories appear in the paper, I often get ‘fan mail’ of the unwanted kind, she said.

The FBI recognized the quality of Martin-Bailey’s forensic work in 1984, when she and 12 other forensic artists were asked to collaborate on the development of a forensic facial-imaging course. In 1998, she was asked to teach part of the class.