When I was studying Forensic Science, one of my lecturers introduced us to Francis Gessner Lee and her miniature crime scene dioramas. I was fascinated. And Lee is not the only crime scene investigator to create these little scenes. Why would they want to make models of distressing situations? I want to share my findings with you.
It seems an odd hobby, making miniature crime scene dioramas. For some hobbyists, it’s a catharsis. While other people make them in addition to their regular art. One of the most important uses of these models is in the training of crime scene investigators. The idea of models as teaching aids was first put into practice in 1940s America.
Many biographies of Francis Gessner Lee call her the ‘Mother of Forensics’. In the 1940s, Francis Gessner Lee was appointed as the first female Police Chief and Education Director in the US. She worried about the training her detectives received. While of course great investigators have a rare talent, that talent like that of musicians needs training. On scene shadowing of a qualified detective was a vital part of the procedure. But she felt something was lacking. The ability to see all the small details, no matter how apparently trivial, was the most important thing to solving a crime.
For Lee, the purpose of an investigation, was not only to find the guilty, it was also to clear the innocent (Dickenson, 2017).
Image 1: The Morrison’s Porch by Francis Gessner Lee.
Credit: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Nutshell_Studies_of_Unexplained_Death,_Two-Story_Porch_full.jpg
How does a detective train to interpret a crime scene? For this reason, Lee created her miniature crime scene dioramas, that she called her ‘Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death’. The models she created in the 1940s are still in use today.
In her capacity as Education Director, Lee ran seminars for investigators. After listening to lectures, the investigators were shown to a room containing the dioramas.
She created each of her dioramas by hand. The curtains and the dishcloths were hand sewn by Lee and she had a carpenter build the furniture. In her attempt to make each scene as lifelike as possible, each little corpse in her scenes has a stiff, movability similar to a larger body. She created this with a filling of cotton and BB pellets.
Each of her many scenes tells a story, that a potential investigator had to work through. One of the first scenes involved ‘The Morrison Porch’. The least upsetting of the dioramas is shown in image 1, where a tiny corpse is draped over the balcony of a second-story porch. Upstairs neighbours testified that the husband and wife below them, the Morrisons, argued frequently and an altercation was heard just that morning. The investigator is asked to observe the scene and should eventually notice that the bullet wound came from below, so Mr Morrison, who was in the house, could not be the murderer (Solly, 2017). Other, more graphic, dioramas can be found here.
While Francis Gessner Lee made her dioramas as training aids, other women who work crime scenes create dioramas for catharsis.
Professional Cleaner Miya Kojima is called in to clean an apartment after a person has died alone, a nd in many cases was not found for days afterwards. The Japanese have a word for these deaths, Kodokushi, or solitary deaths. Kojima decided that the advertising used by her company felt disrespectful to the dead, and preceded to create Dioramas of the scenes. She taught herself the art of creating these models from watching YouTube videos.
Image 2: A Cleaner.
Credit: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:0103Sanitation_workers_cleaning_clay_brick_fences_Baliuag_Glorietta_Park_62.jpg
Unlike Lee’s models, Kojima’s scenes are composites of the many lonely deaths she has witnessed as part of her job. In her models, the bodies are removed, but all other evidence of the incident are present, including the cats which are left behind.
Kojima says she was inspired to create these models by the experience of her own family. Her father collapsed and was only found during a chance visit by his estranged wife. If that visit had not occurred then her father could have been dead for weeks before he was discovered (Johnny, 2019). Kojima’s dioramas can be viewed here.
A link between these women, is their association with sudden death. Abigail Goldman is an Investigator for the Public Defender in Bellingham, Washington. She uses the hobby as a release from the horror, which she has to deal with in her everyday work. The models are mostly of white suburbia, as she wants to ensure that people see crime occurs everywhere in America despite the reports being mostly of ethnic minority committing crimes.
Goldman calls her models Die-oramas. Her artwork is entitled, Shadow Work, and is based on the Shadow Self of Carl Jung’s psychology. Behind every ordinary suburban scene in her work, lies a dark secret waiting to emerge into the light. While Lee based her Nutshells on real-life incidents and Kojima’s work on lonely death is a composite, Goldman’s die-oramas are purely fiction. The contrast between the ordinary every day, and the dark underside is highlighted in her models (Stein, 2019). They can be seen here.
Maria O’Brien is a retired Crime Scene Investigator from Sussex, UK. Just before the 2020 lockdowns, she found an interest in creating dioramas. Instead of moving and renovating an old house, she upcycled old doll’s houses to produce her gory scenes. Having witnessed many crime scenes in her role in the police force, she finds the act of creation to be a form of meditation to release the trauma of her former career.
Using urban photography of abandoned buildings as her inspiration, O’Brien makes her models out of discarded items found while out walking her dog.
Image 3: A woman walking a dog.
Credit: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Walking_the_dog_(1945527533).jpg
In her first Diorama, she transformed an old doll’s house into an insane asylum, including a shower constructed from a discarded perfume bottle. She not only builds crime scenes, she has created a Witches Apothecary from an old wine crate.
While the art is gruesome, it provokes a reaction in the viewer from pity, to horror and disgust (Cole-Lomas, 2023). Her models can be viewed here.
It may seem odd that most of these Creators of Miniature Crime Scene Dioramas are women, but in many cases, people see miniature work as a female craft, because girls play with doll’s houses (Stein, 2019). But there are men who make similar scenes in their work. People like Thomas Doyle, who is not associated with any form of death in his everyday job, but as part of his wider art, Doyle includes crime and murder scenes in his models (Branwen, 2008).
People are drawn to the darker side of life, that is hidden under the everyday niceness. The artists I’ve talked about in this article, use this attraction to show the deaths of people who died in unpleasant or lonely circumstances. Francis Gessner Lee made her models to ensure that investigators learned the craft of bringing about Justice. For the modern women, creating the Miniature Crime Scene Dioramas is a catharsis from the horrors of their daily work. Each one of the model makers, respectfully reminds us that these people died in circumstances that no one would wish on anyone.
Branwen, G. (2008) Thomas Doyle’s Miniature Art. MakeZine. May 8. https://makezine.com/article/craft/thomas-doyles-miniature-a/
Cole-Lomas, L. (2023) EX-Surrey Crime Scene Investigator makes Creepy Dystopian Dollhouses with Realistic Blood Splatter. SurreyLive. Jan 8. https://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/ex-surrey-crime-scene-investigator-25913450
Dickenson, E.E. (2017) The Woman Who Invented Forensics Training with Doll Houses. The New Yorker. Nov 5. https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/the-woman-who-invented-forensics-training-with-doll-houses
Johnny. (2019) Rooms Where Time Stops: Miyu Kojima’s Miniature Replicas of Lonely Deaths. Spoon&Tomago. Sept 24. https://www.spoon-tamago.com/miyu-kojima-kodokushi-book/
Solly, M. (2017) Home is Where the Corpse is—At Least in These Dollhouse Crime Scenes. Smithsonian Magazine. Oct 16. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/home-where-corpse-frances-glessner-lees-miniature-dollhouse-crime-scenes-180965204/
Stein, S. (2019) Murders In Miniature: An Interview with Abigail Goldman. Topic. March. Issue 21. https://www.topic.com/murders-in-miniature-an-interview-with-abigail-goldman
