IanPolice Sketches
August 23rd 2010 04:01
Police sketches are facial composites of an eyewitness's memory of a face, as recorded by a composite artist. In modern times advanced software can be used instead of a trained artist. Facial composites are used mainly by police in their investigation of (usually serious) crimes.
The sketches can be seen at post offices, newspapers, tv and internet reports around the country.
Exactly how accurate are police sketches?
Thanks to this article on Newsweek, here's a gallery of police sketches and associated information on infamous criminals, set alongside actual mugshots and photos of the people they depict.
Police in Phoenix attributed a string of crimes in 2005 and 2006—including murder, rape, robbery, and kidnapping—to someone they called the Baseline Killer or Baseline Rapist (after the road where the spree began). The sketch dates to July 2006. In September of that year, police arrested Mark Goudeau in connection with the crimes. In December 2007, he was convicted of 19 charges related to the rape of two sisters and sentenced to 438 years in prison. He is still awaiting trial on 74 other counts, including the nine killings of which he is accused. He has pleaded not guilty.
Dubbed the "Night Stalker," Richard Ramirez—a professed Satanist and repeat drug offender—killed at least 13 people, sexually assaulted 11, and committed 14 burglaries. His murders started in 1984 and were typically brutal offenses. As frenzy grew over his crimes, police released the sketch at left. After a store clerk recognized him from a photo in the newspaper, Ramirez was chased and finally caught by a mob of people in August 1985. Charged with 14 murders and a host of other felonies, he was found guilty of 13 counts of murder, as well as other crimes, in 1989. Prosecutors have since linked him to other crimes. He's currently on death row in California. The mug shot at right is from a 1984 booking.
Ted Kaczynski, an idiosyncratic opponent of modernization, waged a long campaign of occasional mail bombs from his cabin in the Montana wilderness, starting in 1978 and continuing through his 1996 arrest. He struck a range of targets, from universities to airlines, killing three and injuring others. In April 1995, the FBI released a sketch depicting the man they believed was the Unabomber (left). Kaczynski, shown at right in his 1994 driver's license photo from Montana, was finally caught the next year when he published a manifesto in major newspapers—his brother recognized the writing style and tipped police off. He is currently serving a life sentence in prison.
Terrorist, white supremacist, and radical pro-life activist Eric Rudolph managed to survive on the lam for five years after making the FBI's 10 Most Wanted Fugitives list. Rudolph was first wanted for the bombing of an Alabama abortion clinic in 1998, but he later admitted responsibility for the 1996 Olympic Park bombing in Atlanta as well. The sketch at left is from 1998. In 2003 he was caught (at right, he is led from a jail in Murphy, N.C., where he was arrested), and two years later he pleaded guilty to multiple state and federal murder charges to avoid the death penalty. He is serving five consecutive life sentences.
On Aug. 13, 2002, a former prison guard abducted 1-month-old Nancy Chavez from a parked minivan as her mother shopped at a Walmart in Abilene, Texas. Margarita Chavez emerged from the store to see a woman taking her child but was unable to stop her. Police released a sketch of the suspect that day. The following day, Paula Lynn Roach—the former guard—was arrested, and Nancy was reunited with her family. Roach, shown at right in an undated photo taken while she was a prison guard, pleaded guilty to kidnapping and was sentenced to 10 years in jail.
The sketches can be seen at post offices, newspapers, tv and internet reports around the country.
Exactly how accurate are police sketches?
Thanks to this article on Newsweek, here's a gallery of police sketches and associated information on infamous criminals, set alongside actual mugshots and photos of the people they depict.
Baseline Killer
Night Stalker
The Unabomber
Eric Rudolph
Paula Lynn Roach
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