Capturing Faces to Nab Crooks

Lynette Ruiz uses pencils and sketch pads to help police identify some of Orange County’s most violent, and elusive, criminals.

The forensic specialist for the Anaheim Police Department is one of a small number of police composite sketch artists in the county who try to capture the fleeting faces of alleged criminals--from murderers to robbers, rapists and child molesters--on paper.

Because some crimes do not leave physical evidence that can be analyzed by detectives, police sometimes rely on the synergy between an often traumatized or embarrassed witness and a sketch artist.

Last year, the Las Vegas Police Department asked Ruiz to sketch the face of a suspect in robberies at the MGM Grand Casino and at a casino in nearby Henderson, Nev., that resulted in two security guards being killed and several others receiving gunshot wounds.

Her work even got her a gig in Hollywood. Next year, Ruiz, 36, will make an appearance as a sketch artist in a Robert De Niro movie called “15 Minutes.”

From the days of Jack the Ripper to the Hillside Strangler and the Unabomber, when the stakes are high and the evidence scant, police around the world have often relied on sketch artists. Timothy McVeigh, convicted in the Oklahoma City bombing of a federal building that killed 168 people, was identified through a sketch.

Most recently, police say a man suspected of being a serial rapist who preyed on women in Santa Ana was identified in large part because of a composite that showed a conspicuously large pimple on the tip of his nose.

Although every composite artist has the goal of helping to catch a criminal, their styles are strikingly diverse.

Ruiz’s style is highly detailed, the faces she draws made three-dimensional by constant shading. Other artists use a more sparse style, focusing on basic features and conspicuous characteristics. These figures look less realistic.

Other composite artists use a computer. The result can be a face so realistic it is indistinguishable from a real face.

Most of the artists have little or no formal forensic training. There is no certification process, although the skill is recognized by forensic organizations like the International Assn. for Identification and the California Assn. for Identification.

The majority have other law enforcement duties. Some volunteer or are chosen because, like Ruiz, they have a knack for drawing. Others cannot boast much skill with a pencil.

“I’m not an artist. I can’t even draw,” jokes Michele Hill, an Orange County Sheriff’s Department investigator. She uses software similar to Adobe Photoshop to lead witnesses through a catalog of facial features. Her work has resulted in several “hits,” or arrests.

But forensic art is far from an exact science. Sometimes the expectations for a composite to result in an arrest are too high.

In 1985, when the Nightstalker serial killer--with his sharp, angular face, dark feline eyes and unruly hair--was finally captured, Los Angeles Police Department Chief Daryl Gates admitted that the widely circulated composite drawing of a round-faced and round-eyed man bore almost no resemblance to the famous predator.

“It’s garbage in, garbage out,” Ruiz said. “A sketch is only as good as the information an eyewitness is able to recall.”

And all composite sketches are susceptible to being misread, police say. A private citizen or even a police officer may look at a composite and then be on the lookout for a person who looks exactly like the face in the sketch.

In an observer’s eyes, any deviation from the sketch could wrongly disqualify a person from being seen as a suspect, Hill said.

Ruiz said she doesn’t use computer software because much of the technology she has seen is too life-like. The composites are created not only by piecing together the lips, noses and eyes of real-life people, but increasingly, real flesh tones replace a black-and-white format.

The composites end up looking like anything but a composite, Ruiz said.

“If a composite looks exactly like a real human being, then people will be looking for exactly that person--and the person on the sketch doesn’t really exist,” Ruiz said. Instead, police say, composites are meant to represent possibilities, by helping to identify people who could be suspects, while ruling out people who would not be.

Although Hill uses software that features the digitized features of real people, the resulting faces nevertheless bear an animated quality that endow them with a sketch-like flavor.

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In the end, probably the largest obstacle is witnesses’ inability to remember and describe what they saw.

Some witnesses can remember even the tiniest details, even if they saw a suspect only once, and only briefly. Others struggle to describe a person they had prolonged contact with. Yet others, traumatized by an experience, psychologically block out what they saw, Hill said.

But regardless of limitations, the composites are valuable.

“It’s almost like having a picture of a person,” said Det. Jay Clapper of the Anaheim Police Department’s sexual assault detail.

A sketch Ruiz drew last year led police to a serial rapist. Police recognized a strong resemblance to a person they had arrested before, Clapper said.

That person was recently convicted. He faces 25 years to life in prison, the detective said.

“Without a sketch, descriptions start running together,” Clapper said.