NEW ORLEANS, La. — Late on the night of Jan. 18, just 24 hours after the murder of Wendy Byrne in the French Quarter, New Orleans police released a pair of computerized composite sketches of two teenagers suspected in the crime.
In one, a doe-eyed youth with a buzz cut and pointy ears peers out from the page. The other features a teen with twists in his hair that fall to the tops of his ears.
When the teens' mothers turned their sons over to New Orleans police detectives days later, police leaders heralded the "incredible" accuracy of the composites, saying one mother recognized her son from the publicized sketch and called police.
The episode seemed to underscore the utility of composite sketches as a crime-fighting tool. After all, police said they had few leads beyond the drawings, and yet they still made arrests.
But despite such success stories, the use and accuracy of such sketches, dating back many years, remains a hotly debated topic in the law enforcement community.
Several studies have shown sketches are unreliable when it comes to identifying suspects, and many academics have decried their use. But most police departments, including New Orleans', still see them as a valuable tool. And in some instances, such as the Byrne shooting, the portraits seem to work.
NOPD Deputy Chief Kirk Bouyelas is a believer. On Monday, he acknowledged that sketches aren't perfect, but said they are helpful nonetheless.
"It's not the be-all, end-all," Bouyelas said. "But some of these cases would never be solved if it wasn't for these composites."
— Sketching a memory —
The New Orleans Police Department's use of composite sketches has evolved over the years from a pen-and-pencil drawing to a sophisticated computer program that shades and stretches and tweaks features to reflect the memory of a witness or victim.
More than 10 years ago, a citizen fundraising group for the 8th District bought the computer sketching program and donated it to the district station. Use of the computer sketch expanded to other districts, and late last year Superintendent Warren Riley started a pilot program in which a single veteran detective would handle composite sketching.
Officer Stephanie Taillon has completed about 25 sketches in the past few months, and the frequency is picking up, she said. Detectives investigating a crime — ranging from theft to murder — contact Taillon when they have a witness or victim who can provide a decent description.
To start, Taillon sits with the person and picks one of 57 possible foreheads from the computerized list. The citizen and officer then go through options for a suspect's eyes, nose, mouth, chin and hair. Taillon can add accessories such as earrings, hats, sunglasses and tattoos.
In the Byrne case, the detectives had early leads that revolved around nicknames, Bouyelas said. Then the victims of a pickpocketing that occurred minutes before Byrne's shooting sat down with Taillon. In about 45 minutes, the sketch — later linked to suspect Reggie Douglas — was complete.
"We release the composites (to the media), then, boom," Bouyelas said. "We got this kid."
Riley has said Douglas' mother saw the sketch, recognized her son and called police. In a news conference last week, Riley said: "The composite of the first subject with the dreadlocks was so close and so accurate, it's incredible."
With Douglas, 15, in custody, the mother of 15-year-old Drey Lewis — a friend of Douglas' who was never sketched by police — turned in her son. Police said the teens confessed to their roles in the fatal shooting and attempted armed robbery. A third suspect, Ernest Cloud, 14, who was the subject of a second sketch released by police, surrendered to authorities Thursday night.
It's not clear what role, if any, the sketch played in Cloud's arrest. By the time he turned himself in, police knew his name, thanks to his friends' confessions.
— Memory can be suspect —
But the first sketch was the linchpin, and some analysts say it was a good one.
"In this case, it seems to be a pretty reasonable match," Tulane University criminologist Peter Scharf said, looking at the sketch of Douglas and his mug shot side-by-side. "Yeah, these are good."
But when sketches are poor, the result can be trouble, said Scharf, a longtime critic of the NOPD. Inaccurate composite sketches can lead investigations astray, he said, causing tunnel vision among detectives and prompting citizens to look for a face that resembles the created portrait — but not the criminal. The result, he said, could be the targeting of an innocent person.
In a study completed last year, three university researchers showed nearly 400 college students 12 police sketches of suspects — some computerized, some hand-drawn — alongside a photograph of the suspect's face. They were asked if the two images depicted the same person.
Overall, the students said 70 percent of the time that the sketches were not of the same person.
American University professor John C. Watson, one of the researchers, called police sketches "highly suspect."
The biggest x-factor in whether a sketch is going to be helpful or harmful is the reliability of the victim's memory, which is often difficult to gauge. Watson said witnesses are under stress during a crime, and emotion makes it hard to nail down important facial details.
Afterward, the witness is asked to interpret his or her memory for a third person, who in turn interprets that in a sketch. "The level of distortion increases," Watson said.
Lisa Hasel, a postdoctoral scholar at Iowa State University who has conducted extensive research on such sketches, said their use also can make it harder for victims to identify suspects after they get caught.
A person's memory of facial features, eyes and body type often gets confused by the features drawn by a sketch artist.
"Then it's hard to remember, as you look at the person arrested, whether they resemble the sketch or the perpetrator," she said.