43 Facts About Carl Koppelman

Carl Koppelman is an American professional accountant and unpaid volunteer forensic sketch artist.

Since 2009, Koppelman has drawn over 250 reconstructions and age progressions of missing and unidentified people.

Carl Koppelman has attributed growing up in the 1970s, when there was a growing coverage of serial killers, to starting his fascination with crime and unsolved mysteries.

Carl Koppelman has cited this as being one of the earlier memories of the evil that people do to each other.

The third notable incident did not directly impact Carl Koppelman, but was a formative experience for him nonetheless.

In 1979, when Carl Koppelman was 16,16-year-old Lucinda Lynn Schaefer was killed by the "tool box killers" in neighboring Redondo Beach, California.

Carl Koppelman remembers following news of the case in the newspaper.

Carl Koppelman never worked in a profession that required artistry, but he had done art recreationally for most of his life.

Carl Koppelman, who did not enjoy any of the jobs he held, went to Long Beach State University to study accounting.

Carl Koppelman subsequently became his mother's full-time caretaker at her house in El Segundo, California.

In 2017, after his mother's death, Carl Koppelman sold her house and returned to work.

Carl Koppelman first became truly interested in crime and forensics in August 2009, after the media storm surrounding the safe return of Jaycee Dugard.

Carl Koppelman reports sitting in his mother's home on the computer, looking at online news articles about the case and photos of Dugard.

Carl Koppelman began to explore the website, and found himself gravitating specifically towards the forum for the missing and unidentified.

Over time, Carl Koppelman shifted from reading the discussions to pitching in on them, spending up to 12 hours a day searching for leads, from sources such as old yearbooks and Classmates.

Carl Koppelman has stated that the skills he learned as an accountant helped him in his pursuits as a web sleuth, including the large spreadsheet he keeps of listings from NamUs.

Carl Koppelman continued to contribute, eventually being appointed as an unpaid administrator for the forum.

Carl Koppelman's reconstruction was directly attributed to helping match the identification, as loved ones of Pollard saw the reconstruction on Monahan's website and noted the similarities between the reconstruction and George Pollard.

Since he began his forensic involvement, Carl Koppelman has helped to close 8 cases as of 2019.

Carl Koppelman has no specific criteria for how he picks which cases he will reconstruct.

Carl Koppelman himself has matched 5 identities, and his contributions have helped 2 missing-presumed-dead be recovered alive.

Carl Koppelman, who is almost always an unpaid volunteer, puts every reconstruction up on Websleuths.

Carl Koppelman sends his completed reconstructions to NamUs, who then decide whether or not to display it on the case's listing.

Carl Koppelman works by request with local law enforcements, and is a volunteer at the DNA Doe Project, where he helps to do genealogical research in addition to providing reconstructions.

Carl Koppelman receives a high volume of such requests, and is not logistically capable of fulfilling all of them.

Carl Koppelman creates his reconstructions on Corel Photo-Paint, a software he received as a gift.

Carl Koppelman begins each reconstruction with a model photo of a live person who is similar to how the decedent would have looked in life, which he uses to maintain a lifelike quality to his reconstructions.

Carl Koppelman then creates the reconstruction while studying post-mortem photographs of the decedent extensively.

Carl Koppelman's involvement has been credited with significant progress in multiple cases, and in some cases, such as that of Tammy Jo Alexander, Koppelman was even the one to link the decedent with their correct identity.

Carl Koppelman made his first reconstruction of Cali Doe in 2010, but would reconstruct her more than 20 more times in the coming years.

Carl Koppelman reported being specially invested in the Cali Doe case, and had said that he believed that after so much time spent reconstructing Cali Doe, he would be able to recognize her anywhere.

Carl Koppelman worked on the Walker County Jane Doe case for 12 years, having first learned about the case in 2009, but it was not until after the positive identification of Tammy Jo Alexander that Carl Koppelman became heavily focused on Walker County Jane Doe.

Carl Koppelman says that after the identification of Tammy Alexander, his focus on Walker County Jane Doe became singleminded.

Carl Koppelman started and maintained a Facebook page dedicated to the case, called "Who Was Walker County Jane Doe".

In 2017, Carl Koppelman even traveled to Huntsville to retrace her last steps.

Carl Koppelman was reported as missing by Dennis Bowman, who claimed she had run away.

In 2009, Carl Koppelman became aware of the case of Racine County Jane Doe, latter identified as Peggy Lynn Johnson.

Carl Koppelman began to research the case, including looking through news articles and dedicated social media pages, as well as missing persons database.

Carl Koppelman began to investigate Aundria's disappearance online, eventually coming across a Classmates.

Carl Koppelman reached out to the owner of the page, who revealed herself to be Aundria's biological mother, Cathy Terkanian.

Carl Koppelman posted a reconstruction of Strongsville Jane Doe's skull, but it did not lead to an identification.

Shortly after seeing Scates' post, Carl Koppelman was contacted by the Cuyahoga County Medical Examiner's Office to work on an unrelated case.

Carl Koppelman asked for higher quality photos of the unidentified skeleton, and it was realized that a clerical error had prevented the case from being listed in NamUs.