1) A facial recognition company (that uses facial metrics as the means of correlation) had the teen's face added to the database of hundreds of thousands, and then checked if the adult face drew that as a match. While it did not come up as the best match, it was in the top 20 or so in the category of "worth a second look by human analyst"
2) The FBI analyst, though initially skeptical (because of the presumed facial mole of which you spoke) was eventually convinced (then again, he had access to all data on which to base his decision)
3) as I said before, the iris scanning software company was contracted to do the match. Once they had a crisp photo to work with of the new woman, their software put the odds at 1 in 100 million that the adult was not the same as the earlier photo.
So, I point this out only to say that, there would have to be many preconceived notions to fool all these people, working for four different agencies.
I readily admit, I do not have access to all of the analysis done by various "experts" and orgnizations. I also have no reason to believe anyone is intentionally trying to deceive anyone.
My whole opinion is based on the earliest reports that the woman in the original photograph was found (which are somewhat different than the current accounts) and my personal analysis of a number of photographs, not all of which seem well known. I believe most, and probably all those who have testified that this is indeed one and the same woman are sincere. They may also be correct.
Nevertheless, I have seldom been wrong before in recognizing faces. I will not be dissappointed if I discover I am wrong, only a little surprised.
While I do not think there is really anything at stake in all of this, there is one thing I was originally interested in, but have failed to follow up on. A long time ago I made a polite request for a copy of the original model release for the photo originally feature in the NGM. I never received any response at all. I now wish I had followed up on that request, because I suspect there was no model release. If there were, it would be interesting to compare signatures with the woman now believed to be the originally photographed person. (I have been, among many other things, a professional photographer, thus my interest in model releases.)
If there is no model release, some enterprising lawyer could probably make himself and the woman now accepted as the original "model" an interesting settlement with NGM. However, I do not know if there was a model release or not, and there very well may have been one, and the comparison of signatures may already have been made. I wonder why this would not have been reported, however. (Maybe it was. My wife and I do not watch TV, so, some things that are not published in other places or on the Internet do get by us.)
Hank