World’s first ‘forensic jeweler’ works to identify victims of migrant tragedies

By Sarah Ward via SWNS

The world's first "forensic jeweler" told how she is working in Greece to identify victims of migrant crossing tragedies.

Dr. Maria Maclennon, 33, described her job as being like CSI, and has worked with Interpol and Crimewatch as well as the National Crime Agency.

She is currently using her unique skillset to help identify victims of migrant crossing tragedies in northern Greece, where hospital mortuaries are primarily dealing with drowning deaths.

Many of the victims have been adorned with items believed to be Aramaic prayer beads and other religious jewelry.

Maria said: "I'm an academic, I do a lot of desk research but I do the CSI stuff too.

"I've attended large crime scenes and worked on investigations.

"In Greece I've been looking at the identification of refugees.

"A lot of objects survive longer than the human body and the same principles apply.

"Sometimes the object has a hallmark on it, or something which is recognizable, or it might be a really personal item.

"There are definitely ways that objects can act as an identifier that gives us the first clue or that would allow us to link DNA.

"I've worked with police here in Scotland, and the Transnational Platform for Forensic Assistance."

The world's first "forensic jeweler" told how she is working in Greece to identify victims of migrant crossing tragedies. (Harry Lawson via SWNS)

« ‹ of 6 › »

She described the project in Greece as a pilot, designed to prove there is a need for further resources to be applied.

Over the past year Maria has gone backwards and forwards between Greece and Dundee, Scotland where she lives, and where she originally enrolled on a jewelry design degree at Dundee Art College before an opportunity came up to try working with the world-class forensics team at the University of Dundee.

Maria said: "The intention will be to try and identify individuals and link them back to their families.

"It is going to be a very multidisciplinary effort."

The project, Identifying the Displaced, is a collaboration between forensic pathologists and anthropologists as well as experts in design.

It consists of more than 500 personal belongings recovered with identified and unidentified migrants killed along the "River of Death," a particularly treacherous migratory route separating Turkey and Evros in the north of Greece.

The humanitarian effort, funded by the Economic and Social Research Council, aims to promote and enhance the value of personal effects as a forensic aide.

More than 390 personal belongings are kept in the mortuary at The General University Hospital of Alexandroupolis, which have been attributed to 100 migrants.

Maria is working with forensic anthropologists Dr. Jan Bikker, from the Platform for Transnational Forensic Assistance, a Dutch charity based in Athens, and Professor Pavlos Pavlidis, Professor of Forensic Medicine at Alexandroupolis General Hospital and the Department of Forensic Medicine, Democritus University of Thrace

She hopes to collaborate with specialists in London who have a knowledge of Farsi and Aramic due to the language and cultural differences.

Many refugees come from Afghanistan or Syria, and Maria said it was important assumptions were not leapt to about the backgrounds of the deceased.

She said: "That's why we want to get people in, we don't want to make assumptions about different cultures and different demographics.

"There's a lot of red herrings in there too.

"We have been really cautious.

"If people have traveled they may have picked something up on the way, they may have been given it, they may have stolen it, or they may have bought it."

Maria has also worked with charity the Missing Persons Bureau.

She lectures in jewelry design and silver smithing for two days a week at the Edinburgh College of Art.

Maria said treating refugees and asylum seekers as "homogenous" was bound to fail.

"They are not a homogenous group on TV," she said.

"These are individuals and people. People are risking and losing their lives in migrating across Europe.

"Sometimes the family don't know their loved one has passed away.

"There is a real challenge in identifying people."