Naming John Doe

Tupperware-like boxes hold the entire remains of a 3-year-old girl’s body. Inside, stickers attached to the bones by investigators point out unhealed bruises indicating that she was a victim of child abuse.

“We take her everywhere with us,” forensic anthropologist Judy Suchey said of the tiny bones, found 23 years ago. “She now helps to instruct pathologists and others to detect the signs of child abuse in skeletal remains.”

As an anthropology professor at Cal State Fullerton and a consultant to the Orange County coroner’s office, Suchey analyzes skeletons for details that might offer clues to the age, sex, stature and, ultimately, the identities of John and Jane Does. She has worked on more than 2,000 cases, including the Charles Manson and the Hillside Strangler murders, and the 1984 abduction and slaying of 3-year-old Laura Bradbury of Huntington Beach.

Suchey, along with five other forensic scientists, will host “Bones Tell the Tale,” a two-day public seminar today and Sunday at the Atrium Marquis Hotel in Irvine. They will discuss methods they use to identify victims and will detail investigations of such disasters as the 1986 Cerritos plane crash to explain the delicate process of forensics.

“This is a very personal thing for us. It’s not just a job,” said Douglas Wyler, who specializes in cremation analysis and dental identification. “We’re trying to get families’ lives put back together by helping them with their healing process. If a child is missing for 15 years, every time that phone rings, the mom could think it’s someone calling about the child. There has to be closure.”

Wyler will explain at the seminar how he used dental records to identify James Trotter, a 13-year-old Costa Mesa boy who was missing for 17 years before a hiker discovered his charred remains in the Cleveland National Forest.

Wyler examined the child’s dental braces and, through medical records, located the boy’s Fountain Valley orthodontist, who said the brackets and wires fit the description of the type he used in 1979. The orthodontist confirmed his work by comparing Wyler’s description of how far the child’s teeth had moved to the orthodontist’s record of Trotter’s last visit.

Dental records, fingerprints and DNA provide the most accurate information, Wyler said. But he reminds scientists not to overlook medical records and police reports that include information like a history of broken bones and tattoos that might help link a name to a body.

To narrow a list of names, scientists can examine bones’ development stages to determine sex and age, said Deborah Gray, a forensic archeologist whose job involves recovering skeletal remains, both prehistoric and modern. For example, she said, female pelvic bones are generally wider than male ones.

Gray, along with Wyler, recently trained Bosnian pathologists to use this process to identify soldiers and villagers exhumed from mass graves. The two scientists will discuss the details of their trip at today’s seminar.

“There are some really great people over there doing a lot of work with no equipment,” Gray said. “They don’t have any running water, electricity, nothing. They are working with butcher knives to figure out what’s going on.”

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She said five Serbian doctors are now working to identify 11,000 exhumed bodies being stored in an abandoned shoe factory with concrete floors, screens but no windows, and a leaky roof. The scene was shocking, she said, especially compared with the response that is typical after mass disasters in the United States.

After the 1986 Cerritos plane crash, several of the seminar speakers joined together to identify the 82 crash victims. Suchey examined 17 torsos, while Wyler combed the rubble for individual teeth.

The job can be frustrating, Suchey said. For instance, the identity of the 3-year-old whose body is now used in her classes remains a mystery.

After 28 years in the business, she said, she has not become immune to the pain of families’ grief or the distressing condition in which some bodies are recovered. The bloated appearance of a drowning victim does not shock her, she said, but she is sickened when she discovers that a person obviously died in agony.

“The cases that are the worst are when you can see human violence against another,” Suchey said. “A floater may not have felt any pain, but when you see someone with an ice pick in their ear, . . . it’s disturbing.”

This weekend’s seminar on the forensics of bones, mummies and unidentified human remains is open to forensic specialists, criminal investigators, students, mystery writers and anyone else with an interest in the topics.

Hours are 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. today and Sunday at the hotel, 18700 Mac Arthur Blvd., Irvine. The cost is $40 today, $50 Sunday and $60 for a hands-on forensic evidence session Sunday. Student discounts are available.

Information: (714) 833-2770.