Officials weighing anthropological facial reconstruction to ID woman burned in subway attack: sources

Authorities are still working to identify the woman who was scorched beyond recognition on a subway train earlier this week — and are already considering using anthropological facial reconstruction to solve the case, sources told The Post.

The process of recreating the face is one of the few options available for investigators, who have been trying to use DNA analysis in the five days since the horrifying murder.

“Facial recognition or approximation comes in when you’re really trying to shake the trees, because you’ve kind of hit a dead end, nothing’s showing up database, days and weeks have gone by and you want to call in the public to say, ‘Does anybody know who this person is?’” said Nathan Lents, a professor of Biology at John Jay College of Criminal Justice.

“That’s when you’re getting into what we call the ‘dragnet’ stage — when the case is kind of getting cold and there’s not a lot of leads.”

The victim’s burns are “catastrophic” and seared through all layers of her skin and tissues with “potentially deeper structures of the body” caused by inhalation of superheated gases which would cause thermal burns to the respiratory tract, the law enforcement sources said.

While the severity of the injuries is forcing investigators to consider facial reconstruction, at this point in the investigation the extraction of DNA is still the investigators’ best bet — and they would only need a small sample of it.

“Getting DNA from a badly burned body can be challenging, but a lot of times ‘badly burned’ just means badly on the outside and beyond visual recognition,” said Lents.

“There may be plenty of bones and internal soft tissue that is accessible for DNA extraction, unless the body has been completely incinerated, as in a cremation.”

Such DNA can be pulled from any intact bones, he continued, pointing to the pelvis, shoulder blade and femur as particularly DNA-rich areas.

Whether any soft tissue, like muscles and fat, survived the blaze is unclear. The city’s Office of Chief Medical Examiner did not immediately respond to The Post’s request for comment.

Authorities announced Friday they were making strides with the DNA extraction, but not enough to identify the victim.

“As many of you know, the criminal court complaint and the indictment at this time indicates the death of a Jane Doe. The police and the medical examiner’s office and many investigators are working to identify her,” Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez said at a press conference.

“The body was badly burned, and so advanced fingerprinting efforts are being made, as well as advanced DNA evidence to identify her. We have made some progress in that area, but I’m not at liberty to get into specifics now,” he continued.

According to Lents, investigators will use that DNA to build a profile of Jane Doe that they will compare to missing persons, felon and old crime scene databases.

However, the chances of finding a match are slim.

“The vast majority of the United States public is not in any of these databases,” Lents said simply.

The highest likelihood of identifying the victim would be if her family reported her missing or otherwise came forward. Then, investigators could pull loved ones’ DNA and compare it to the victim’s profile.

So far, the woman, who was sleeping when she was lit on fire, has only been described as homeless. Guatemalan migrant Sebastian Zapeta-Calil has been arrested for the grisly murder.

Despite the investigation being in the early stages, the OCME is already pointing to facial reconstruction as an option, sources said Friday.

The process has been used in the past to successfully identify victims — including those killed in London’s 2017 Grenfell Tower fire, where temperatures reached as high as 1,000 degrees.

Forensic reconstruction is a lengthy and time-consuming process that involves using the shape of facial bones to create a general head and face shape, as well as impressions of those bones to estimate facial muscles and other details.

The process does not utilize DNA — and does not always draw up an accurate representation of the victim.

Similarly, that’s when investigators might turn to a third option: genetic genealogy.

Pumping Jane Doe’s DNA profile through databases like 23andme would be equally as time-consuming because there are various safeguards in place to protect other users’ genetic history, Lents said.