S21 Ep47: Clay and Bones: My Life As A Forensic FBI Artist w/ Lisa Bailey
Darkness Radio
Darkness Radio
4.7 • 3.2K Ratings
🗓️ 21 April 2026
⏱️ 166 minutes
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Summary
True Crime Tuesday presents Clay and Bones: My Life As A Forensic FBI Artist with Forensic Artist/Author, Lisa Bailey!
Just two months after the September 11 terrorist attacks, Lisa Bailey began her career as an FBI forensic artist.
She threw herself into the work and over the next eighteen years handled hundreds of cases: unidentified remains pulled from shallow graves, sexual assaults, acts of terrorism, and kidnappings. She became a recognized authority in facial approximation from the skull, witnessing firsthand how her sculptures could restore a victim's identity and bring closure to grieving families.
But even in those early days, Bailey noticed cracks in the Bureau's polished image. She'd heard stories of women who reported harassment or discrimination, only to find themselves quietly dismissed. She wanted to believe the rumors weren't true...then it happened to her. Now, Bailey breaks her silence in this raw, eye-opening account.
She takes readers behind the scenes of the Bureau's most haunting cases, from mass disasters to cold-case homicides, and exposes the hidden toll of a career inside one of the world's most powerful law enforcement agencies. She describes the painstaking art of restoring a face from an unknown victim's skull, the profound relief of a confirmed identification, and the eerie reality of working among the dead at the University of Tennessee's famed "Body Farm.
On Today's TCT, Lisa tells us about some of the intriguing things that happen to our bodies when we die, how she puts us back together again, then we switch up to her journey within the FBI, including the good, the bad, and the incredibly ugly, and even delve into some of the aftermath at the Bureau!
Get your copy of "Clay and Bones ..." here: https://bit.ly/4dVzK6A.
Find out more about Lisa here: https://www.lisabaileyofficial.com/
Check out Jessica Freeburg's website and get tickets to her events here: https://jessicafreeburg.com/upcoming-events/
and check out Jess on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@jessicafreeburgwrites
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome into the best in True Crime Podcasting. |
| 0:25.6 | This is True Crime Tuesday. |
| 0:26.7 | I'm your host, Tim Dennis. |
| 0:27.9 | Great show today, folks. |
| 0:29.5 | We're going to dive into dumb crime, stupid criminals in just a bit with Jessica |
| 0:33.9 | Freiburg. |
| 0:34.4 | But first, I want to talk to you about a very interesting topic that |
| 0:38.7 | came across my desk, one that's really fascinating. |
| 0:41.9 | We're going to get into forensic art today along with a former FBI forensic artist, one |
| 0:47.3 | who is incredibly skilled at what she does. |
| 0:50.6 | I'll tell you this much, the book that I got the chance to read this past weekend |
| 0:55.6 | enthralled me to the point where I learned a disturbing fact, folks. |
| 1:02.2 | And I'm going to talk to with Lisa Bailey here in just a second. |
| 1:06.7 | I'll tell you, little things stick out when you read a book, right? |
| 1:12.0 | And there was one thing that stuck out when I read Lisa's book here. |
| 1:16.1 | I'll tell you a little bit about Lisa Bailey. |
| 1:17.8 | We'll bring her in and then I'm going to tell you about this one fact that stuck out about the book that she's going to say, |
| 1:24.9 | okay, of all the things you learned about me, why that, Tim? |
| 1:28.4 | Okay, so here we go. |
| 1:30.0 | Lisa Bailey is a retired FBI forensic artist, adjunct faculty member of the FBI Academy, |
| 1:35.6 | and instructor of the FBI forensic facial imaging class. |
| 1:39.2 | She's been featured prominently in major news outlets, such as the Washington Post, |
... |
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