Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, February 1, 1992 TAG: 9202010161
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: ARLINGTON LENGTH: Medium
ENHANCED PHOTOS MAY HELP FIND MISSING CHILDREN
More than two years ago, a stranger snatched 5-year-old Melissa Brannen from a Christmas party in the few moments her mother's back was turned.The Lorton girl's pretty, cheerful face was plastered on newspapers, television screens and milk cartons in an unsuccessful nationwide effort to find her.
But those pictures would scarcely resemble the child today, said Horace Heafner of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. If she is still alive, Melissa would be 7. Her face would be longer and wider, and her mouth and teeth would be less childlike.
"It doesn't do you any good to circulate a picture of a little kid if that kid is now two years older," said Heafner, a retired FBI graphics expert. "They would look totally different."
Using special computer modeling techniques, Heafner has created a composite of what Melissa might look like today. He tinkered with Melissa's old photo, stretching the jaw and broadening the cheekbones and nose. He then merged the picture with a photo of the girl's father at age 8. The result is a smiling 7- or 8-year-old with her curly light brown hair tied in a ribbon.
"It threw me for a loop for a couple of days," said Melissa's mother, Tammy Brannen. "In my mind she's forever 5 and it was hard to shake a picture I've had for two years now."
A groundskeeper at Brannen's apartment complex is serving a 50-year prison term for abducting the girl, but her whereabouts are still unknown.
"It's very hard to accept the idea that she may be running around somewhere looking like that and she's not here, or that she may never have had the chance to look like that," Brannen said.
Abductions by strangers are extremely rare and the odds of finding the children alive are slim, Heafner said.
"Golly, I'd love to find one. But if this does nothing else, I hope it can give some comfort to those families to know someone is still looking," Heafner said.
The computer image of Melissa will be released nationally on flyers and in direct-mail inserts this month, center spokeswoman Julie Cartwright said.
The technique, called age progression, has been used on about 100 children in the non-profit Arlington-based center's files.
Eleven of those children have been found, Heafner said. All were abducted by family members.
In many cases, Heafner's educated guesses look strikingly like the recovered children.
"We can't say for sure this is what found these kids, but we're certain it helps," Heafner said.
Heafner works only on children missing for more than two years and, with rare exception, will not attempt the technique on children who were less than 2 when they vanished. "The face is just too undeveloped, too baby," he said.
"It's half science, half art. He relies on incredible expertise in the human face to do this," said center President Ernest Allen.
Good photos of both parents and child are crucial, Heafner said.
"I go down the face and see what you got from mom and what you got from dad. Then I look at the face for particular distinguishing things, things I know will be with that child for life."