It is almost with sadness that I find this amazing artist, (if you can call her that?) Frances Glessner Lee. As until three minutes ago, I though, "Wow, those guys who write CSI Las Vegas are so original."
Well, it's clear to me now that they must have stumbled upon Lee's work prior to writing into their scrip lines about he miniature killer (who also of course turned out to be a woman) as she looks like the foremost expert in miniature death scenes. The works are on display at the Medical Examiners office at the Baltimore city morgue where a guest book for people to leave comments sits next to the doll houses. Well in that guest book was an entry from photographer Corrine May Botz who must have been moved by the gruesome miniature death scenes and decided to create a book on them, The Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death.
The death scenes had been constructed during the 1940s to teach inexperienced police officers about different types of death scenes, and to encourage them to use careful observation to spot "indirect" evidence for crime reconstruction. Lee, the remarkable woman behind
the project, made each doll by hand, and apparently decided how each one
would "die".
It's freaky and brilliant all at the same time.