@Springrain those photos of WCJD post mortem that all over the web will have been the toughest for her family. The post embalming, not much better, as her features are Mannequin-ized to be presentable for the funeral. JMO.
I'm assuming at this point they have to have seen the PM photos, and like you said I imagine it's very rough for them. The post embalming one might even be worse, since I imagine her features were even further warped, by the embalming process, decomp, makeup, etc. I guess I really had not thought before about how, all things considered, she might not look like what we expected. Maybe the beating genuinely did warp her face so much that her family wouldn't be able to recognize her from the PM photos. I didn't think they were that graphic, but I am now starting to wonder if the swelling she suffered made her unrecognizable.
@Springrain
I never gave unidentified remains or postmortem photos/reconstructions any thought until a post about Marcia King, then Buckskin Girl, randomly popped up in my social media. So, you have a point.
I also imagine it would be scary for the family of a missing loved one to go looking on line, for fear of stumbling on pictures and articles they might not want to see.
Since we as a community tend to spend a lot of time reading about the Unidentified and interacting with others who do I feel like it's very easy to forget that so many people, most people, are just unaware of it entirely! That's why social media outreach is so important imo. If not directly for solving a case via having a relative see a recon and saying, "Oh, that looks like Abigail, she ran away from home in 1976" (I'm making up details), even though that's ideal, it may also lead to missing people being put in NamUs, relatives of MPs submitting DNA to GEDMatch, etc.
I personally found out about the Unidentified in the most random, completely coincidental and weird way, I imagine many of us have had similar experiences!
There should be decency laws to prohibit, or at least limit post mortem pictures. With the technologies available to us today, excellent renderings of the decedent can be created. We need to protect their dignity in death.
MOO.
Amateur opinion and speculation
I can see both sides of the debate to prohibit or limit PM photos. I personally don't have definitive feelings on the topic in general, but for the very graphic ones, I see no need to post them "for identification purposes" and I find it very disrespectful. A great example of this, imo, was the PM photo of Evelyn Colon, fka Beth Doe, going around Instagram. It was supposed to be for ID purposes, but she was, imo, not recognizable. She had had her nose cut off, she was decapitated (granted, they didn't show that in the photo, but still), she had her ears cut off, and she had been a bit decomposed. I see no reason why that should ever have been public. For ones with less severe injuries or may have died of natural causes, I can see the benefit, but there are also cons of doing so - as you said, it is preferable that they have dignity and not have images of their dead bodies forever on the Internet. But, if the recons are lacking, it can sometimes be the best thing. I don't know. And then there is the fact that when/if the UID gets identified, those photos are still up - the Internet is forever. Typing in Marcia King, Tammy Jo Alexander, Debra Jackson, Margaret Fetterholf, etc. brings up photos of them in life, but also in death, because again, the Internet is forever. And now they are not necessary for identification purposes any longer. I don't know. I feel like it's a tough subject for sure, but I definitely think they should be limited if not necessary or too graphic (I will always say Evelyn Colon's photos should not have been made public).
