A New Wrinkle in Forensic Art

Irwin drew a composite of Jorge Rivera-Aleman, 39, who earlier this year pleaded guilty to the November 2004 rape of a 13-year-old girl in Silver Spring. The sketch, culled from a lengthy interview with another victim he was suspected of assaulting, strongly resembled Rivera-Aleman, who was arrested in January attempting to break into a Silver Spring home. The only inaccuracy in the composite was the man's hair; he might have been wearing a wig during the assault, Irwin said.

A more recent case involved another 13-year-old victim who was fondled in July by a man who stuck his hand through a car window while the girl's mother had stepped into a 7-Eleven store in Germantown. When the suspect, Federico Monzon-Santana, 30, turned himself in to police, the lead detective in the case recognized him immediately because he had seen Irwin's composite.

In that case, Irwin, who has been doing sketches for the department for three years, interviewed the victim and her mother separately. They gave him similar descriptions but differed on whether the suspect parted his hair on the right or the left. Irwin went with the victim's account, which turned out to be correct.

Not all composites lead to arrests, and they are generally not enough to demonstrate probable cause that a person has committed a crime. But they are an invaluable tool for police because they can lead to statements and physical evidence that provide enough information for an arrest. They also reassure victims and their families, Irwin said.

"It tells the victim and their family that police are exhausting all possibilities," he said.

Composites -- both hand-drawn and computer-generated -- take anywhere from two to four hours to create. Forensic artists ask open-ended questions about such features as the shape of a face, skin tone, hair type, eye color and distinct characteristics of the nose and ears. After composites are created, witnesses and victims can offer critiques and suggest changes.

Other Washington-area jurisdictions have their own methods of creating composites. Fairfax County police do most of their composites by hand, and D.C. police have a civilian employee who does them on a computer. Smaller forces, such as the Anne Arundel County Police Department, sometimes use computers to create composites but favor the old-fashioned method.

"We prefer hand sketches," Lt. David Waltemeyer, an Anne Arundel police spokesman, said, adding that the work is often given to a forensic artist from the Baltimore police.

Forensic artist and historian Karen Taylor, of Austin, Tex., said the earliest documented forensic composite was done by Scotland Yard, London's police department, for an 1881 murder.

One of the first high-profile cases in the United States in which a suspect's composite played a prominent role was the 1932 kidnapping of aviator Charles Lindbergh's 22-month-old son. The child was found dead 10 weeks after being seized. Bruno Hauptmann was convicted of kidnapping and murder in the case and was executed in 1935.

More recently, a hand-drawn composite helped lead to the arrest of Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh. A sketch was drawn by an FBI agent based on interviews with witnesses who had seen McVeigh at a Ryder rental dealership. Motel employees in Junction City, Kan., said the image strongly resembled a former guest, McVeigh, who was later found to be in a Perry, Okla., jail.

The shift toward computer-generated composites bothers some in the field who fear the technology will be used by people who are not formally trained or visually adept. But Taylor, who worked for the Texas Department of Public Safety for nearly two decades and now teaches forensic art to law enforcement officials around the country, isn't disturbed by the trend. She said computer-generated composites are a valuable tool.

"The most important factor in the composite is the interviewing skills," Taylor said. "They are more significant than whether you are doing computer-generated or hand-drawn sketches."

Taylor said most police departments don't invest enough resources to train and retain forensic artists.

"High-quality training in this field is extremely rare," she said. "I would like to think that anyone who gets involved in forensic art considers it a lifelong training."

Haba said the county police department's composites are bound to improve if the agency invests in better software for its forensic artists. The composite database she uses lacks important elements, such as features of Asian people and a broad selection of accessories such as sunglasses and hats.

"In my database, the headwear looks like it's from the 1970s," she said. "I had to create my own do-rags because we don't have do-rags in the database."