It’s International Women’s Day, and we wanted to highlight five women who have made great strides in everything from forensic sciences to criminal profiling. These fields wouldn’t be the same if it hadn’t been for these pioneers whose contributions have likely helped solved thousands of cold cases.
Candice DeLong was born in 1950 and was a criminal profiler and criminologist for the FBI. She was involved in high-profile investigations such as the Chicago Tylenol Murders and the Ted Kaczynski Unabomber case.
Famous Quote: "You can thank the Tylenol killer for the fact that it now takes a blow torch to get into a bottle of Tylenol.”
Clea Koff is a forensic anthropologist who worked as a scientist with the UN to exhume victims of the genocide in Rwanda.
Koff also consulted on the Mitrice Richardson case after her remains were discovered in Dark Canyon, Utah.
In 2005, she founded The Missing Persons Identification Resource Center in Los Angeles
Frances Glessner Lee was born in 1878 and died in 1962. She was a forensic scientist who is credited for creating the “Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death.”
The Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death were a series of very detailed miniature dioramas of actual crime scenes. These dioramas were used to teach students how to properly read crime scenes and collect all relevant evidence.
Glessner Lee also established the department of legal medicine at Harvard Medical School in 1936.
Sylvia Elizabeth Mathis was the first African-American Female U.S. Special Agent. She started at the FBI Academy as a 26-year-old lawyer and went on to work in the New York Field Office in the crime sector. Mathis also interviewed survivors from the 1978 Jonestown, Guyana massacre.
She was tragically killed in a car accident in 1983.
Mary A. Sullivan was born in 1879 and died in 1950. She was the first female homicide detective in the New York City Police Department and the first woman to be inducted into the NYPD Honor Legion.
Sullivan first made a name for herself for her part in solving the Rosenthal murder case in 1912.