Scientific Detectives at Work : Mengele Identity Search: How Clues Are Assembled

Success in establishing whether a body exhumed last week in Brazil is that of Nazi war criminal Josef Mengele depends heavily on how much detailed information investigators can gather concerning the living Mengele’s physical characteristics.

American forensic medicine specialists said records that describe illnesses, injuries, birth defects and dental work--plus X-rays and the results of laboratory tests that the former concentration camp doctor may have undergone--vastly improve the chances of making a certain identification.

Brazilian police say they believe that Mengele lived in Brazil for at least 15 years, using false identities, and that he drowned there in February, 1979.

Mengele was the physician at Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland during World War II and is held responsible for the deaths of up to 400,000 prisoners, most of them Jews. His medical and dental records from his time as a member of the Nazi SS, which ran Adolf Hitler’s concentration camps, have been forwarded to Brazilian doctors by the Simon Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies in Los Angeles.

But Dr. Leslie Lukash, medical examiner of Nassau County, N.Y., said in a telephone interview that this information could be supplemented by newer records.

“During the 35 years that he has been missing, he must have been cared for by somebody. Who was it?” Lukash asked. “What kind of X-rays did they take? Was he injured? Who was his dentist? This sort of thing requires a great deal of leg work and time.”

Lukash, who is scheduled to leave for Sao Paulo today to consult with the Brazilian doctors, said that one approach would be to survey hospitals and doctors there in search of more recent records.

Other information may come from the embalmer, the doctor who signed the death certificate, as well as from labels on the casket and any personal articles, such as a ring, that may have been in the casket.

Some American experts have been critical of the rough manner in which officials, who were not forensic specialists, handled body parts exhumed from the grave last week. They said that in such cases, the body parts and all grave contents should be handled in the same precise way that archeologists screen for fossils.

Orderly Procedure

Experts generally follow an orderly procedure for identifying a body. In cases where the body is decomposed, the steps consist of cleaning all of the bones and other parts, separating the bones and X-raying them, and then reconstructing the skeleton. Additional X-rays often are taken from exactly the same angle as films taken during the subject’s life so that the two can be compared.

Teeth, said Dr. Gerald Vale, chief forensic dentist for the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner, are the most durable part of the body and often are the key to identification. Forensic dentists say that virtually no two humans have exactly the same dental characteristics. They vary in size, shape and other features, as well as in having or not having fillings and other dental work.

Although only six teeth have been recovered in the Brazilian exhumation, Vale said he would have a “high degree of reliance” on an identification that is based on Mengele’s dental records. However, according to Rabbi Abraham Cooper of the Los Angeles Holocaust center, no dental X-rays for Mengele have yet been found.

The other two identification methods most accepted as being scientifically valid are fingerprints and bone abnormalities or other characteristics that can be matched in medical records or X-rays taken before death, Vale said.

Fingerprints Unlikely

According to Dr. Wilmes Roberto Teixeira, the Brazilian medical examiner in charge of the case, the body being studied has very little tissue other than bones--an indication that fingerprinting may not be possible.

But in a telephone interview Thursday, Teixeira said that Mengele is known to have had an uncommon abnormality involving his incisor teeth. And even if the six recovered teeth are not incisors, he said, it may be possible to pick up signs of the defect by X-rays of the roots of the teeth remaining in the jaw.

Another identification possibility, Teixeira said, involves the right hip bone, which appears to be enlarged--possibly because of an injury from a motorcycle accident that Mengele is said to have been involved in during the war.

Teixeira, who is a member of the American Academy of Forensic Medicine, said that he is at a stage in the procedure at which he is about to reconstruct the skeleton. So far, he said, he has established that the body is that of a male whose stature was about 5 feet 8 1/2--slightly shorter than Mengele’s reported height.

The next step, he said, is to determine race and age. These characteristics involve skull measurements, for racial determination, and an examination of several specific bones, including the pubic bone, from which investigators can gain indications of age.

Establishing Age

However, Teixeira said it may be difficult to tell the age of the remains found in Brazil from the pubic bone because that bone is not in good condition.

UCLA researchers said that specialists can also establish age at death from a single tooth. Besides wear of the teeth, they said, there are half a dozen special characteristics that can be microscopically measured.

Dr. William G. Eckert, director of the International Reference Organization in Forensic Medicine in Wichita, Kan., said he has been informed by Teixeira that the facial bones of the exhumed body are broken. Eckert said this may be due to deterioration caused by insects in the grave but, “It is important to rule out whether the body had been tampered with before burial or during life.”

The answer may come from screening all the debris and dirt in the grave for pieces of bone and reassembling them on the skull to see if a pattern can be established indicating how the injury might have been caused.

Determining Cause

Experts say that even after a body’s lungs have decomposed, it may be possible to determine by an examination of the skull’s temporal bone whether drowning was the cause of death. In such cases, there is sometimes hemorrhaging into the temporal bone.

Another sign of drowning is the presence of silica in the leg bones. The silica comes from the skeletons of diatoms--microscopic animals that live in river and sea water and become deposited in the bone of drowned persons.

Forensic specialists can also sometimes determine an individual’s blood group from temporal bone hemorrhaging, even if all the blood has dried. Also, tooth pulp may have been protected by the enamel and can provide enough tissue to establish the blood group.

Another method sometimes used by American experts to help identify a person is to reconstruct the face on the skull, using modeling clay. According to Betty Pat Gatliff, an Oklahoma sculptor, an anthropologist first must determine the subject’s sex and race. Then a sculptor can shape the face based on 26 tissue thickness charts for males, females and different races that have been developed over the years.

Two forensic anthropologists are among the American specialists who have been invited to observe the work in Brazil. They are Dr. Clyde Snow of Norman, Okla., and Dr. Ellis R. Kerley of the University of Maryland. Besides Lukash, the Nassau County medical examiner, other Americans taking part there are Dr. Lowell Levine, a New York dental expert; Dr. John Fitzpatrick, a Chicago radiologist, and Eric Stover, a specialist in scientific translation.

The visits to Brazil of Snow, Lukash, Fitzpatrick and Stover are being funded by the Simon Wiesenthal Center of Los Angeles.