- Born
- Died
- Betty Pat Gatliff was born on August 31, 1930 in El Reno, Oklahoma, USA. She is known for Quincy M.E. (1976) and BattleField Detectives (2003). She died on January 5, 2020 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, USA.
- She worked with Clyde Snow, a forensic anthropologist and colleague at the Federal Aviation Administration's office in Oklahoma City. They developed what is known as the Gatliff/Snow American tissue depth method, in which several short stubs of soft plastic are glued directly to the skull, at different heights according to the average depth of tissue at various points. The stubs act as guides, as clay is spread from one marker to the next.
- She was a prominent forensic sculptor who co-pioneered a new method for reconstructing faces, both contemporary and ancient. She worked on over 300 cases, with an estimated 70 percent success rate of positive identification, as police used photographs of her work to generate leads and give a name to a John or Jane Doe. She recreated faces of victims of serial killer John Wayne Gacy, sculpted a bust of President Kennedy for a congressional committee investigating his assassination, and reconstructed the face of pharaoh Tutankhamen and Francisco Pizarro, the Spanish conquistador.
- She studied mathematics and art at the Oklahoma College for Women (now the University of Science and Arts of Oklahoma), receiving a bachelor's degree. She worked briefly as a Phillips Petroleum Co. draftsman, then became an illustrator for the Navy and the FAA.
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