TAMPA, Fla. — Down in the Anthropology lab at the University of South Florida, a lab assistant removes a white box from a closet filled with similar boxes.

Inside are human bones. These are the bones of a man who chose to donate his body to the department for research, but just a few tables over sit the skeletal remains for a homicide case. 

“Well the first step is always to do the biological profile," said the USF student. "So we will look and, look at all the bones and figure out the age and the sex.”

For the past six years, Anthropologist Erin Kimmerle, Ph.D. and her team at USF have worked on a project called "The Art of Forensics." This project was created by Dr. Kimmerle to help identify remains. They work with law enforcement agencies, who send some of their cold cases to USF for help.

The primary thing the project does is to recreate what a person looked like at the time of death. 

“So, we want to basically put everything we can figure out about a person into that image just to create the best likeness and most accurate sort of face as possible," said Dr. Kimmerle. “In these cold cases, we look through a lot of the notes, original crime scene notes, photographs, autopsy photographs, anything that might be, even in a photograph or a note, that has been lost to the file over time.”

The facial reconstruction is then made into a clay sculpture, digital composite, and/or drawing of what the victim looked like. 

"In hopes that somebody identifies them and in cases that are homicides, that is really the first step then for that part of the investigation," said Dr. Kimmerle. 

Twenty homicide cases are now on display at the Sulphur Springs Museum and Heritage Center in Tampa. Six of those cold cases belong to the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office. 

“Yeah, hopefully, somebody can look at this and say, ‘Hey that looks like somebody I knew back in the day.’ And that can generate a lead to us, and we start doing on interviews and maybe we can get lucky with it," said Cpl. Moises Garcia, Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office.

Cpl. Garcia walks through his six cases alongside Col. Bob Ura, who has helped with the project since it began.

“Closure is a difficult word but we can give them some comfort to know that it’s their loved one. There is an interesting case on the wall over there where a wife actually witnessed her husband kill this individual. He went to prison, but we don’t know who he is… he is still unknown from 1998," said Col. Ura. 

Cpl. Garcia points to the victim's picture on the wall. 

“In 14 years of doing murders, this is the first one I have seen where we don’t know who the person who was killed is," said Cpl. Garcia. 

These detectives and others like them have dedicated their lives to finding answers. Some of the cases are 40 years old, and finding new leads is extremely hard.

“It does personalize a case, it adds to the level of frustration. And it now you have a face, and you are wondering, how could we not identify this person yet. But as I have said, I have gone through this entire case file, there is extensive work done on this and just, we don’t know who she is," said Cpl. Garcia. 

Tips have already come in this month, with these faces now on display. Cpl. Garcia points to a digital composite of a young girl between 11 and 15 years old. 

“Really this was just a skull that was found. Dr. Kimmerle with her USF group did a reconstruction, and this is what they have come up with. We don’t know who she is, and we don’t know what the cause of death is for her," said Cpl. Garcia. 

But more than the pictures on the wall, this project helps bring these cold cases up to current investigational standards. 

"So, we do look very carefully at every bone, and try and look for anything unusual or abnormal. In this example, he actually had a healed rib fracture. So at some point, he broke his rib," Dr. Kimmerle pointed out on a donor body to show the process. “We really started to look at, wow, there are so many of these cases, and most of them are nowhere near where they need to be in terms of the current method.”

In the past six years, they've helped solve close to 12 cases and brought 140 cases up to current standards. 

This project has also sparked more people to come forward. 

“If not these individuals, what we have found over the years is that it does bring in families of missing persons who have, for one reason or another, have fallen through the cracks and they are not in our current system," said Dr. Kimmerle. 

The project will remain open to the public for viewing at the Sulphur Springs Museum and Heritage Center until November 1st. 

If you have any information on the Hillsborough County Cases, you can call Cpl. Garcia at 813-247-0546 or email him at mgarcia1@hcso.tampa.fl.us.