2021 by
By Susy Macaulay
Lengthy, detailed article.rbbm.
An Inverness forensic artist could hold the key to solving a notorious Stateside murder riddle. Hew Morrison is world-renowned thanks to his facial
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Richard Bocklage as a teenager in 1972,1974 and 1975
''Hew’s reputation brought him to the attention of author and criminologist Logan Avalos who wants him to help him crack a 41-year-old murder mystery by creating images of the perpetrator as he would look now, aged 65, for a new appeal.
Pharmacy student Richard Bocklage went on the run in September 1980 after slaying fiancée Dr Tanya Kopric in a car park in Kansas City.
He was recognised by several eyewitness, and his abandoned car was found in Canada shortly afterward. He has a capital murder rap on his head- but where is he now?''
“Hew created the 65-year-old Bocklage using photos of Bocklage’s closest living relatives – mainly his sister who is a spitting image of him, his cousin and several other next-of-kin.”
Hew, who went to art school in Edinburgh and on to Dundee University to do an MSc in forensic art and facial identification, said: “One would take pictures of as many family members as possible throughout time to see familial traits, that being general appearance and how they themselves aged, then factor all of those things in.”
Richard Gerard Bocklage was born on July 12 1957 in the St Louis suburb of Alton to parents Patricia and Vincent Bocklage.
Logan says he and his sister, born a few years later, grew up comfortably in an ‘All-American’ family, with his first cousin remembering him as ‘a very sweet and precocious small child, very normal and kind’.
Bocklage attended a strict Roman Catholic school, was bright, played football, was well-liked and had many girlfriends.
Logan said: “His first cousin stresses that Richard was perfectly normal, grew up in a perfectly normal home with his sister and very loving, caring parents.
“She says if anything Richard was maybe slightly spoiled as there were only two children in his family and 11 in mine.”
“His sweat glands were removed and left vertical scars under his armpits, which would later be a pertinent detail in his identity.”
''Richard’s family takes issue with the schizophrenia theory.
His cousin told Logan: “I never believed that he had any kind of mental illness.
“We all felt possibly he was doing some sort of drugs – speed or whatever – because he did act odd the last time we saw him at the ranch, just before the murder.”
''But it seems the real source of his seething discontent was Tatjana, for whom he sacrificed his grades and was absent from many classes to be with, Logan says.''
He said: “We simply don’t know that much about where he has been or what he’s been up to, but looking into his psychology, behavioural traits and what not, he was a very vain, arrogant, self-entitled and narcissistic person.
“I personally feel this would not have changed, if he had the gall to do what he did, then write a letter to the victim’s family taunting them after the murder, I don’t think he would feel bad about carrying on as normal, only in a different location.
“He may very well have started a new life with girlfriends, even a wife and children.”