Share and Follow
SARASOTA, Fla. (WFLA) — For the second year in a row, forensic imaging specialist Joe Mullins led a workshop at Ringling College of Art and Design aimed at teaching fine artists how to become forensic artists.
“The whole idea of this class is to turn artists loose on these active cases, basically passing on everything that I have learned in my 26-year career onto the next generation of forensic artists,” Mullins said.
This year, there were 10 active cases, including five from Florida.
“The bigger picture is lending their talents to helping these nameless victims get their identity back and that is exactly what happened,” Mullins said. “This is such an exciting moment.”
Senior Noah Shadowens participated in the workshop both last year and this year.
“I joined last year because it seemed like something that was just a cool rare opportunity of something to do, and then I kind of realized the impact and the importance of it when hearing the stories of where the remains came from, and I just couldn’t pass that up again,” said Shadowens said. “If it was going to happen, I was going to be there.”
The 3D-printed skull Shadowens worked on this year was an active case out of southwest Florida. This victim’s description was limited.
He was believed to be a white male between 30 and 40 years old who was located in Ft. Myers in August 2024. However, his estimated year of death was 2023-2024. However, Shadowens said he had some distinguishing features.
“I had a lot more information to work with, which actually really helped because you can kind of see there is an asymmetry in general to the skull, which comes out with the reconstruction,” said the senior. “His nose was broken too.”
Within just four days of completing the facial proximation, the victim was identified with help from Ft. Myers investigators and the victim’s family. The man was identified as Shane Michael Williams.
“It happened really fast,” Shadowens said. “I had talked to a few people about this one possibly getting identified because it was so recent and local, but I didn’t mean within four days of completing it, so that was insane. I think I’m still processing that too.”
Shadowens said these workshops have inspired him to pursue a career in forensic art.
“Helping people with art is an incredible thing to do because art is supposed to inspire, but this whole thing is just so, rare, there is not a lot of people that do it, and I just really want to keep doing it,” said the college senior.
Mullins said this success shows that these techniques really do work and hopes to see it open doors for others to be identified down the line.
“It really hammers home the message that this does work. District 21 where that case came from is one of over 2000 Medical Examiner and coroner’s offices across the US, so there are lots of skulls out there in need of this, and remember, for forensic artists, we are the last ditch effort most of the time to get these cases identified,” said Mullins. “Let’s use this as a springboard and call to arms to basically say hey, this does work, give us an opportunity, open the door for us, give these cases that are sitting on a shelf. These are somewhat frozen cases, so let us do this, let us scan the skulls, 3-D print them, give these artists an opportunity to lend a hand with the investigation and it does work. It is a testament that it does work.”
Mullins said the key is getting the faces in front of the right people. He shared images of the Southwest Florida cases that have yet to be identified.



There is an exhibit of the completed sculptures on display at Ringling College through April 17. You can find more details relating to hours at this link.