Sometimes victims of crimes, and the people who commit them, go unidentified. That's where the work of a forensic artist can be invaluable.
Alex L'Heureux is one of only two forensic facial imaging specialists with the RCMP – otherwise known as a forensic artist.
L'Heureux has only been on the job since May of last year, but he's already been involved in dozens of cases.
Tucked away in his Fredericton office, L'Heureux helps investigators piece together the puzzle of who the unidentified person was.
“If I'm able to reconstruct a person based on the remains that are left behind and we're able to bring these people back to their families, that's worth it,” says L'Heureux.
Part of L'Heureux’s job is to create an image of a suspect, by interviewing both witnesses and victims of crimes and then crafting a portrait based on their memories.
To help identify deceased victims of crime, L'Heureux makes a mold of the skull and mandible, measuring what their nose might have looked like, how furrowed their brow was, how high their cheek bone was, sculpting the person back to life, in hopes that someone might recognize them.
Working as a forensic artist isn’t how L'Heureux had envisioned his career. He spent the first part of his life training for the Olympics.
“I had an Olympic coach, I had Olympians as training partners, and everything was going well,” says L'Heureux. “I went for a run on a nice, hot summer day in North Carolina and I stepped on a rock.”
He was set to qualify for the Beijing Olympics, but that rock threw him off track. L'Heureux wondered what he would do if he couldn't be a professional athlete, that is until his father, a former Quebec police officer, gave him a call and suggested he look into becoming an RCMP.
L'Heureux soon found himself with the New Brunswick RCMP and, by chance, he met fellow officer Michel Fournier, a forensic artist and somewhat of a legend.
Fournier asked if L'Heureux could draw and the rest is history.
He's been in the job for a year now and L'Heureux credits Fournier with helping him discover what he truly wanted to do – despite the fact he used to be terrified of blood.
“I don't see dead bodies as gruesome anymore. I see it as the spirit has left the body and now it's my job to do whatever I can to identify that person,” says L'Heureux. “It's not always pleasant because, we're working with human beings here, so you've got to respect the remains, you've got to treat them as a human being.”
L'Heureux now believes his work is more gratifying then winning a race at any level.
With files from CTV Atlantic's Laura Brown
