‘America’s Most Wanted’ visits South Philly

Frank Bender, renowned forensic sculptor, heard knocking yesterday morning on the door of his art-cluttered South Philadelphia studio.

Why, look, there was John Walsh, host of America's Most Wanted, the long-running Fox show that has been instrumental in getting more than 1,000 suspects arrested.

Walsh's arrival was no surprise, of course. The moment was being acted out for Saturday's 9 p.m. show, which will have at least two Philadelphia angles.

One segment will revisit the June 15 death of aspiring young teacher Beau Zabel, gunned down for his iPod while walking home from his shift at a South Philadelphia Starbucks.

Walsh retraced Zabel's steps yesterday afternoon, discussing video footage of a possible suspect taken that night. Philadelphia Det. Levi Morton said he hoped people reluctant to talk with police would feel safe calling the show's anonymous tip line, 1-800-274-6388 (1-800-CRIMETV).

A fugitive from Philadelphia could also be spotlighted on a portion called "15 Seconds of Shame." Marshall "Munch" Thomas is suspected of critically wounding a young woman last May on the edge of Temple University's main campus.

But the main story, "Baby Bones," revolves around Bender's latest sculpted likeness - a young girl whose charred remains were found in woods in Monmouth County, N.J., in 2005.

Walsh praised Bender for helping solve many cases, including the celebrated capture of John List, a North Jersey man who killed his wife and three children in 1971.

List remained at large until 1989, when the FBI challenged America's Most Wanted to help catch him.

The show turned to Bender, who, working with just a 20-year-old photograph, fashioned a bust - and added wire-rim glasses.

The likeness was so dead-on that AMW got a "ton of calls" from around Richmond, Va., and List was apprehended, Walsh said.

"That really put us in the national spotlight," Walsh said of the case.

As Walsh and two New Jersey investigators looked on, Bender pulled the cover off his latest work.

Large, brown eyes looked past a gently rounded nose, the face rendered with a soft, brown complexion.

It was the face of innocence, perhaps as young as 5, probably no older than 8.

Bender explained how he started by putting soft clay over the actual clay. A mold was then created to make a plaster copy for Bender to paint.

Walsh remarked how human Bender's reconstructions always look.

"It's a balance of art and science," Bender explained. "You cannot get an accurate rendition if you just follow science. You cannot cannot get an accurate rendition if you just follow art."

(Note: Photographs of the bust won't be available at Philly.com until Friday, under an agreement with the show's producers.)

After the filming, Detective Steve Urbanski of the New Jersey State Police, said he hopes this likeness finally cracks this case.

One of the original investigators, he's convinced the girl was never reported missing, suggesting a parent or other caregiver may have been behind the crime.

At present, state police have how many leads?

"I'll be honest with you - zero," he said.

The Zabel case is another one Walsh is hopeful of cracking.

"I think we have a good shot at catching Beau Zabel's murderer," he said.

Even though the surveillance clips don't really show the suspect's face?

"Absolutely," Walsh said. "I've caught people with busts, I've caught people with very grainy grainy video ... we've caught people just off logos on their sweatshirts, logos on their baseball caps, their habits of smoking a certain kind of cigarette or beer. We even caught a guy because he sang the same song in a bar all the time."

The show got interested in the Zabel case because of the kind of person he was, Walsh said.

"This is a kid who told his parents, I'm going to go to Philadelphia, work in the inner city and make a difference, and probably got killed by somebody in the inner city, obviously, the place he was trying to change."

To learn more about these and other cases, including missing persons, go to the show's website, www.amw.com.

It's now the most-visited website of any TV show - even more popular than American Idol's, according to Walsh.