Georgia Magazine - April 2020 - 25
By H.M. Cauley
PHIL SKINNER / PHILSKINNERPHOTOGRAPHY.COM
Georgians AT WORK
Meet forensic artist Kelly Lawson
K
elly Lawson spent years fighting fate. From childhood,
she'd watched her mother, Marla, put her talents to
work solving crimes as the Georgia Bureau of Investigation's (GBI) forensic artist.
"She was the first and helped draft guidelines for the
International Association for Identification, but I had no interest in that job whatsoever," says Lawson, a lifelong Sharpsburg
resident.
But art was in her blood. She earned art scholarships and
graduated from Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, in
2011 but went to work for a medical collections firm. Then her
mother decided to retire in 2013 and was unable to find a
competent artist to replace her.
"At Sunday dinner one night she asked me to draw a face
from a mug shot, and when she saw it, she said, 'It ain't great,
but it's better than what other people are doing.' It was the
greatest compliment she could give me," Lawson recalls.
Those fateful words led Lawson back to the drawing board.
After a yearlong apprenticeship with her mom, Lawson stepped
into her current role as the GBI's forensic artist. She now travels
the state and works with law enforcement agencies, witnesses
and victims to put a face on the unknown.
"I might do three to seven composites [images based on
physical descriptions of a person] a week," she says. "I'll sit with
a victim or witness until they're happy with the image from a
violent crime. That's 90 percent; the other 10 percent is doing
age progressions for people who are missing or re-creations
from human remains at various stages of decomposition. If I
have a skull, I can even do a 3D facial reconstruction. And
occasionally I testify in court."
Lawson's days are often long.
"Sometimes I drive for five hours, draw for two, then drive
home," she says. "I've been called out in the middle of the night
to sit across from a child who's been molested or a woman who's
been raped and ask them to remember the worst things that
could happen. I've had to come up with a portrait for a person
whose remains were unidentified. It took a couple of years to
get comfortable in the work, and it's still hard but extremely
fulfilling."
Lawson's empathy keeps her centered and able to handle
whatever situation arises in her job.
"I always think, 'What if this was my sister, my mother, my
child?' This is a job that can't have a margin of error."
H.M. Cauley is a freelance writer from Atlanta.
"Composite," a documentary about the work of Marla and Kelly
Lawson, is on the independent film circuit. Get a preview at
officerinvolvedproject.com/composite.
www.georgiamagazine.org
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3/12/20 1:40 PM
http://www.PHILSKINNERPHOTOGRAPHY.COM
http://www.officerinvolvedproject.com/composite
http://www.georgiamagazine.org
Georgia Magazine - April 2020
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Georgia Magazine - April 2020
Contents
Georgia Magazine - April 2020 - Intro
Georgia Magazine - April 2020 - Cover1
Georgia Magazine - April 2020 - Cover2
Georgia Magazine - April 2020 - Contents
Georgia Magazine - April 2020 - 4
Georgia Magazine - April 2020 - 5
Georgia Magazine - April 2020 - 6
Georgia Magazine - April 2020 - 7
Georgia Magazine - April 2020 - 8
Georgia Magazine - April 2020 - 9
Georgia Magazine - April 2020 - 10
Georgia Magazine - April 2020 - 11
Georgia Magazine - April 2020 - 12
Georgia Magazine - April 2020 - 13
Georgia Magazine - April 2020 - 14
Georgia Magazine - April 2020 - 15
Georgia Magazine - April 2020 - 16
Georgia Magazine - April 2020 - 17
Georgia Magazine - April 2020 - 18
Georgia Magazine - April 2020 - 19
Georgia Magazine - April 2020 - 20
Georgia Magazine - April 2020 - 21
Georgia Magazine - April 2020 - 22
Georgia Magazine - April 2020 - 23
Georgia Magazine - April 2020 - 24
Georgia Magazine - April 2020 - 25
Georgia Magazine - April 2020 - 26
Georgia Magazine - April 2020 - 27
Georgia Magazine - April 2020 - 28
Georgia Magazine - April 2020 - 29
Georgia Magazine - April 2020 - 30
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Georgia Magazine - April 2020 - 37
Georgia Magazine - April 2020 - 38
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Georgia Magazine - April 2020 - 40
Georgia Magazine - April 2020 - 41
Georgia Magazine - April 2020 - 42
Georgia Magazine - April 2020 - 43
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Georgia Magazine - April 2020 - 45
Georgia Magazine - April 2020 - 46
Georgia Magazine - April 2020 - Cover3
Georgia Magazine - April 2020 - Cover4
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