Forensic sculptor/ North Philly native Frank Bender dies of mesothelioma

Frank Bender called himself "The Recomposer of the Decomposed".

Philadelphia and the crime-solving community lost a legend last Thursday when Frank Bender died of pleural mesothelioma in his home. He is survived by his two daughters, three grandchildren, and sister. He was predeceased by his wife Janice, who died of cancer in 2010. The New York Times and Philadelphia Inquirer both ran obituaries for the late, great forensic sculptor.

Talking about his mesothelioma--the aggressive asbestos-related cancer of the lining of the lungs and other internal organs--Frank Bender once told a reporter, "It's interesting that I have cancer, because I have always said through the years that catching fugitives and identifying people takes a piece of cancer out of our society." 



Mr. Bender believed his exposure to asbestos happened in the engine room of the Navy ship where he and the rest of the crew worked. Mesothelioma rates are high among naval veterans, due to the large amounts of asbestos used to insulate the boilers, engines, and other high-temperature areas of military vessels. 


Even during the last months of his life, Frank Bender was committed to solving crime. His last sculpture, The Woman in the Woods, is a hand-sculpted bust of a woman (estimated age 25 to 40) whose body was found in the woods near Easton in December of 2001. For more about The Woman in the Woods, visit http://coldcase.squarespace.com/ to learn more about this unsolved crime.

The Woman in the Woods--Frank's last case. Her death remains unsolved.

Though his busts of unidentified bodies have helped many families find closure, Frank Bender's most famous sculpture was of a suspected murderer who had eluded the police for eighteen years. When America's Most Wanted asked Mr. Bender to create a time-adjusted sculpture of John List, a New Jersey man accused of killing his wife and family in 1971, a woman watching the show in Virginia recognized the bust as her neighbor, "Bob Clark." Mr. List was subsequently arrested and convicted of the murders.

"In many ways, Frank's bust of John List really launched America's Most Wanted into a national force for catching fugitives," AMW host John Walsh said in 2009. "Whenever I get the tough cases, I call Frank."


If you want to learn more about Mr. Bender and his colleagues' pro-bono work in The Vidocq Society, visit http://www.vidocq.org/index.html.