ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, March 30, 1996 TAG: 9604010028
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-3 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: FAIRFAX (AP)
SOURCE: JOHN W. FOUNTAIN THE WASHINGTON POST
COMPUTERS, which are revolutionizing the craft of piecing together likenesses of suspects, may erase the need for forensic artists, who are trying to harness the power of the computer for themselves without giving up their art.
In a tidy black briefcase, Fairfax County Detective Richard Sexton carries the tools of his trade.
Dozens of sets of eyes - bulging, wide and squinted. Heads - triangular, square and fat. A potpourri of noses, cheeks, chins and photographs of other assorted body parts.
And an eraser. Just in case.
Sexton is among a small group of forensic artists nationwide who use artistic talent to help police investigators catch the bad guys. ``A box of pencils and a pad of paper, and I'm yours,'' said Sexton, 41.
But improving computer technology is prompting Sexton and other artists to augment that pencil and paper with a mouse and keyboard, revolutionizing the century-old craft of piecing together likenesses of suspects based on witnesses' descriptions or other sketchy information.
Some experts even predict that the computer software advances eventually will eliminate the need for the artists.
The Virginia State Police still uses sketch artists in some cases but recently used a computer to create a drawing of a possible suspect in the abduction of Alicia Showalter Reynolds, a 25-year-old doctoral student from Baltimore.
The computer-generated likeness was based on interviews with more than a dozen women who said a man in a dark pickup truck tried to flag them down on Virginia 29, where Reynolds was last seen on March 2, said state police spokeswoman Lucy Caldwell. Some of those women accepted a ride from the man but weren't hurt, police said.
``Many of them have said it looks exactly like him,'' Caldwell said. ``They were amazed once they saw the completed sketch.''
Arlington County already has decided to do without full-time artists but occasionally uses artists on a free-lance basis. In those departments, officers and technicians with little or no artistic talent churn out scores of drawings of suspects each year, and officials say they are just as successful in catching criminals as those drawn by hand.
``I can't draw stick figures. But sit me down with a computer program, and I do all right,'' said Detective Michael Kyle, 47, of the Arlington County Police Department, who produces his composites on a Macintosh.
That has left the traditional pencil-and-pad artists to defend the quality of their work against the computer and to figure out how to harness the power of the computer for themselves without giving up their art.
Their bottom line: Computer-generated sketches are no match for their skill and flair and can't duplicate the human touch.
But even traditionalists marvel at the work being generated on computers. Experts say that in the last 15 years, computers have dramatically enhanced the field of ``forensic art.'' That includes reconstructing facial and other features from skeletons or badly decomposed bodies, ``aging'' pictures of missing children and drawing sketches of suspects based on victims' or witnesses' memories.
``It opens up a whole realm of possibility,'' said Glen Miller, an artist formerly with the Fairfax County police who now works almost exclusively on computer as a forensic artist at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in Arlington.
``It's unlimited as far as what we can do,'' said Miller, who described the computer- and hand-drawn approaches as being ``light years'' apart.
The job of the composite artist - whether by hand or on a computer - is a painstaking process of extracting details from witnesses or badly shaken crime victims. Most artists say the interview is 90 percent of getting a good drawing.
It's unclear how many forensic artists are working today, but the number seems relatively small.
Some police departments say the computers are powerful enough that they don't need artists to run them.
LENGTH: Medium: 81 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: AP. Fairfax County Detective Richard Sexton is among aby CNBsmall group of forensic artists nationwide who use artistic talent
to help investigators catch bad guys.