Noteworthy deaths

Sunday, May 18, 2014

Father of modern forensic anthropology

The New York Times

Clyde Snow liked to say that bones made good witnesses, never lying, never forgetting, and that a skeleton, no matter how old, could sketch the tale of a human life.

Snow was a legendary detective of forensic anthropology, the science of extracting the secrets of the dead from skeletal remains. He died Friday at age 86 at a hospital in Norman, Okla., where he lived. His wife, Jerry Whistler Snow, said the cause was cancer and emphysema.

Throughout his career, Snow's subjects included President John F. Kennedy, Nazi war criminal Josef Mengele, the "disappeared" who were exhumed from mass graves in Argentina, the victims of serial killer John Wayne Gacy, and even King Tutankhamen, the Egyptian pharaoh who lived 3,300 years ago.

Snow, who testified against Saddam Hussein and other tyrants, was the father of a modern movement that has used forensic anthropology in human-rights drives against genocide, war crimes and massacres in Kosovo, Bosnia, Rwanda, Chile and elsewhere.

Snow also helped identify many victims of the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995.

Snow was born in Fort Worth on Jan. 7, 1928, the only child of Wister and Sarah Isobell Collins Snow. He grew up in Ralls, a panhandle town. His father was a physician, and his mother, though not a trained nurse, assisted in their home clinic and maternity ward.

Snow married Jerry Whistler in 1970. He had several previous marriages. Besides his wife, he is survived by four daughters from his marriage to Donna Herring: Jennifer Boles, Tracey Murphy, Cynthia Wood and Melinda McCarthy; a son, Kevin, from his marriage to Loudell Fromme; eight grandchildren; and eight great-grandchildren.

Metro on 05/18/2014