When forensic art succeeds in catching the criminal, the artist and the
witness share a bond of trust. But every once in a while, artists turn to
their police skills to detect if a witness is either no good or, for that
matter, lying.
Lieutenant Roy Paschal, a full-time forensic artist with the South Carolina
Law Enforcement Division in Columbia, had just that feeling when he met Susan
Smith. Smith claimed a man had hijacked her car with her two young children
inside. The mother later went on TV to tell her tale, while police pulled
the grisly wreckage from a nearby lake.
"I interviewed her that night to do a drawing, but there was something
about her behavior that led me to believe she wasn't telling the truth.
A behavior specialist was notified and I contacted him about my suspicions."
Paschal's gut feeling was right. Smith had murdered her own children
and invented the story.
Paschal says the interview is key. Even trauma can work to your advantage
-- the victim may be unable to shake the image of the perpetrator's face.
"People see hundreds of faces a day," he says. "We need some reason to commit
one to memory."
Paschal recalls a convenience store robbery. The robber killed one clerk
and maliciously shot the second one and left her for dead. The bullet went
through her neck, but she survived.
Paschal went to her hospital bedside, drew the picture holding the drawing
pad above the victim's face, and then ran it over to a local newspaper.
They got a quick ID and brought the suspect in.
"He denied he had anything to do with it. But then we said, 'How can
you explain this?' and slid the drawing across the table. He said, 'I
should have killed [her].' Even he recognized himself in the drawing."
Karen Taylor is a soft-spoken woman; she doesn't like to talk about
her war stories, but her work has brought the glare of media attention. Her
image is on a series of baseball cards put out by the TV show America's
Most Wanted.
Taylor not only works as a forensic artist, but also teaches the skill
to people throughout North America. Along with the technical expertise required,
her biggest talent is extracting the best description from the victims of
crime.
"You have to have a great deal of sensitivity to the victim or witness.
You're trying to pull back memory from a traumatized person," she says.
"It's major stress when you've got TV crews out in the hall and
everyone is depending on you to get that drawing right. It takes its toll.
It's not for the weak of heart, although the personal rewards are immense."
The reward comes when the criminal is caught, even if that takes years.
"When I get a phone call that we captured a [criminal], those are very
special days," she says. "Sometimes a family has spent many years not knowing
what happened to their loved one and your work has helped give them some closure."
Many forensic artists, like police constable Bill Wiley, love their work,
but only get to do it on a part-time basis.
Trained in fine art, Wiley ended up going into law enforcement. He told
his superiors about his interest and slowly worked his way into the field.
But most of the time, he's the supervisor for the underwater recovery
unit and works in explosive disposal.
Recently he helped identify a victim who was set on fire and left by the
side of the road. That required Wiley to do reconstruction work. He's
also regularly called in when there is a suicide off Niagara Falls. He'd
like to do more forensic art, but for now he's satisfied with the combination.