Gary Gerardot, a retired detective, used to draw composite sketches for Fort Wayne police. He shows some of his sketches at his home in Leo-Cedarville.
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For five or six hours, the woman described to police the man she said sexually assaulted her.
She was asked about the man’s face, about its shape. She was asked about his eyes and mouth. Did he have a beard? What about his weight? Sometimes she had to take a break.
Every time she began again, though, there was a trained sketch artist from the Indiana State Police working with her. He helped her to remember details.
Most importantly, he used a pencil to capture on paper the face of a stranger who came to her rural home southeast of Hamilton and forced her to perform a sex act at knifepoint.
For the DeKalb County Sheriff’s Department, which worked the case last month, bringing in the sketch artist was unusual.
The sketch artist has become a rarity on police forces in northeast Indiana. So have once-popular computer programs that produce composite drawings of faces. Both tools have been eschewed in a world more focused on mug shots and photographic evidence that can be digitally enhanced by computer whizzes to help solve crimes.
But sketch artists and those computer programs are still a starting point to solve crimes in which police have a witness with a good memory and good descriptive skills.
“A lot of agencies aren’t utilizing it, or they’re not aware of someone who is able to do it,” said Master Trooper Taylor D. Bryant, who works out of the Indiana State Police Lowell Post and did the sketch in the DeKalb County case. “I’m slowly trying to get the word out that I’m here to assist their agencies, wanting to assist their agencies.”
Some veteran detectives rave about the old computer programs while others argue that sketch artists like Bryant, whose services are available to any police department in the state, provide a valuable jumping-off point.
Sheriff’s officers in DeKalb hope Bryant’s sketch of a pudgy-faced man splashed across newspapers and television screens will lead to a suspect.
And the drawing has provided some leads, though the 5-foot-5, 200-pound man in his 30s has yet to be found.
Eyes remembered
Officer Jerry Hosier never used a sketch pad and pencil. He made his composites at a keyboard and monitor.
And though he hadn’t seen the face in years, he immediately recognized the mug shot of Jose A. Ramirez when it recently recently popped up on a computer screen.
“I remember those eyes,” said Hosier, of the Allen County Sheriff’s Department.
Now working in the civil division, Hosier was once a specialist with a facial-imaging computer program that was widely used by the department’s detective division.
The program allowed him to help witnesses choose from hundreds of facial features, various sizes and shapes of heads, eyes, noses, mouths, ears and hairstyles.
Hosier could tinker with each aspect of the face, too. A nose could be elongated, eyes spread apart and a chin made bigger. A face could also be blurred, because in a high-stress situation a person doesn’t always get a good look at another person.
At the end, a witness would rate the composite on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being a very good likeness.
In 2005, a woman who had been robbed at knifepoint outside a local truck stop described an angry young Hispanic man with short hair and a cocked eyebrow. When Hosier showed her his completed composite, she threw up in his office.
It was that close to the man who robbed her, Hosier said.
“Usually, you’re lucky to get a witness to rate one a 4 or a 5,” said Sgt. Michael Vaughn, who worked closely with Hosier when both were in the detective bureau and who also used the computer program many times. “She rated that one an 8.”
The sketch eventually helped police place a photo array before the woman, who picked out then-17-year-old Jose Ramirez as her attacker. He was charged as an adult in Allen Superior Court and convicted of robbery. His 10-year prison term is scheduled to end next year.
In 2003, Allen County police used the same computer system to produce a composite of a man who was robbing pharmacies of OxyContin in several states.
The man wore different hats and changed the frame of his glasses for each robbery, but police eventually got a good enough composite to post in pharmacies in Ohio, Indiana and Michigan.
Shortly thereafter, Steven Mayer was arrested with his girlfriend.
He admitted to more than 70 pharmacy robberies in the three states and is serving a 35-year sentence in an Ohio prison.
“They were as good as gold,” said Vaughn of the various composites produced by the computer system.
But today, the sheriff’s department uses them only “once in a blue moon,” according to Detective Troy Hershberger, who now heads the bureau.
According to Hershberger, if the department has surveillance video of a crime, the video can be enhanced digitally and there is little need for a sketch artist to talk to witnesses.
Fort Wayne police did away with the computer program in the 1990s, according to Deputy Chief Karl Niblick.
The current computer system is able to spit out various mug shots after a few descriptive words are entered, giving police an instant photo array to show witnesses, Niblick said.
Old school
Gary Gerardot never had technology at his fingertips. When he put together the face of a robber, a shooter or a rapist, he relied on paper and pencil and a witness he would sometimes have to coax for information.
A former detective with Fort Wayne police, Gerardot spent years as the department’s sketch artist before he retired from the force in 1987. An artist in his free time, he was called to the station one day and asked to sketch someone.
It turned out to be a fellow officer.
The sketch was so good, the department began using him over and over, and he began honing his trade on the job.
That included learning one of the toughest jobs of a sketch artist: dealing with victims who have been through traumatic experiences, helping them sort out their memories and getting them to relive something terrible.
“Some people start out OK, but then things sometimes fall apart,” Gerardot said. “You run into the same problems again and again.
“You have to figure out what people are thinking when they’ve seen someone and what their personalities are.”
Bryant had to take a three-week FBI course in Fredericksburg, Va., that included training on how to interview witnesses who have been through traumatic crimes.
In the past year or so, he has done 10 sketches for various departments.
“You have to ascertain whether someone is telling a lie or the truth,” he said.
And though few departments seem to realize he is available, Bryant said he hopes that changes.
It already has in DeKalb County, according to Chief Deputy Jay Oberholtzer.
The sheriff’s department had never had anyone accessible to do such sketches, he said.
“It’s an excellent tool,” Oberholtzer said. “Now that we know the service is available, we would definitely give him a call again.”
