HIGH-TECH SKETCHES: COMPUTERS HELP POLICE PUT A FACE TO CRIME

The faces Rick Schmidt draws might not even be loved by their mothers.

When someone is robbed, beaten or raped, Cpl. Schmidt helps the victim reconstruct the image of the attacker one feature at a time by building a composite facial image on a computer.

"We try to get them in here while it's still fresh in their minds," said Schmidt of the Cape Girardeau police.

Putting a face to a crime through sketches on wanted posters has been a tool of law enforcement officers for at least a few hundred years. Although officers rarely get enough information to make a good composite picture, they say a relatively inexpensive computer program can be invaluable, especially with serial crimes.

Computer-made faces of crime suspects have only been widely used by law enforcement for the past eight years, when gunmaker Smith & Wesson put noses, eyes, hairstyles and other physical attributes into an electronic form that can be picked or deleted with a mouse click.

The technology evolved from a system of transparencies devised by a detective with the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department in 1959. The original Identi-Kit had the transparencies, called "foils," of facial features that could be mixed or matched depending on the memory of a crime victim.

By 1993, the foils, which had been purchased from another company by Smith & Wesson in 1972, were computerized and expanded. The original 37 noses, 102 eye types, 40 sets of lips and 357 other transparencies grew to thousands of computerized features that are regularly updated.

The Cape Girardeau Sheriff's Department was the first agency in the area to get the computerized Identi-Kit in 1994, said detective Sgt. Eric Friedrich. The improvement on foils was great in both the amount of time needed to make a composite and the quality.

"The foils always ended up with a cartoon character look," Friedrich said.

Image slowly refined

The Identi-Kit program gives seven choices to construct a basic face, which never looks like the suspect, Schmidt said. But through innumerable refinement options a face is slowly changed as the victim works with the officer.

"Once they get in here and get over their initial fear, they get mad and they're ready to catch them," Schmidt said.

A person selects a gender, and then from a range of heights, body builds, ages, hair colors, hair lengths and styles.

"Then we get a composite, and I ask them what's wrong with this picture," Schmidt said.

Hairlines can be moved up, down or to the side. Complexions can become darker or lighter. Hats for all occasions are available.

Schmidt pointed out a surgical cap.

"It wouldn't be in there if someone didn't need it at some time," he said.

Use of Identi-Kit can be infrequent. The sheriff's office had made faces twice in the past year and a half, Friedrich said. When a few deputies first started with the program, they made faces of others around the office for practice.

Cape Girardeau police use of composite pictures varies.

"We might not do it for six months, then use it five times in three weeks," Schmidt said. "It all depends on the type of calls."

Need clear details

Police need clear recollections from victims to make a useful composite. It doesn't happen often.

"We could do it more, but these events happen so fast that a majority of the people don't get the details we need to do this," Schmidt said.

Victims from five armed robberies last month in Cape Girardeau weren't able to give police enough information for composites, although one suspect wasn't wearing a mask, he said.

Other law enforcement agencies in the area come to Cape Girardeau's police or the county sheriff's department to make pictures with the program, which costs $500, not including updates.

Even though composites are rare, they can make a difference between catching a suspect and letting him get away, Friedrich said.

When Michael Marshall pointed a shotgun at an employee of the former Pizza Haus in Fruitland, Mo., in 1998, he made an indelible impression on her memory. Friedrich sat with the woman and her boyfriend, who was also in the store during the robbery, and spent three hours picking facial features on a computer that matched the suspect.

When Marshall was arrested several hours after the robbery after attempting to run over a Hayti, Mo., police officer, he denied robbing Pizza Haus. But the composite made by Friedrich was so similar to a photograph taken after the arrest, Marshall was ultimately convicted by a jury.

"He smiled for the mug shot, and there were those same crooked teeth," Friedrich said.