Found Deceased IN - Abigail (Abby) Williams, 13, & Liberty (Libby) German, 14, The Delphi Murders 13 Feb 2017 #136

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Yemelyan said:
The Delphi case wasn't helped by the sketch that was released first, because, IMO, it looked too much like a photograph, which led to a feeling in the public that every feature was 100% accurate and that it was a "real" person.

Let's say you go grocery shopping and spend about the same amount of time you usually would observing other shoppers (that is to say, not that much time because you didn't realize that anything untoward was going on). Later that same week, police come to your door and tell you that you may have observed a murderer in the baking goods aisle and they are hoping you can describe him well enough to make a composite sketch of his face.

So you sit with a forensic sketch artist and they help you make a composite - by definition, creating a face, from your memory, by piecemeal. Setting aside the biological question of if piecemeal fashion is even how our brain remembers faces (there's good evidence that it's not), the sketch artist might start at the top and ask you to describe the hairline of a man you saw in the store that day. Or, they might show you a book of several different hairlines to choose from. Then they'd work their way down - looking at several different versions of eyebrows, nose shape, cheekbones, choosing a face width, lip sizes, chin. You probably are not going to be accurate on every feature. You're going off your memory and it's not that strong because you didn't realize you'd be quizzed on this later. Probably the face had one or two elements that you're pretty sure about because they were more noticeable, for whatever reason. Let's say its the nose and a widow's peak in the hair. But the eyes and chin you end up picking for the composite are more generic because you're just not sure.

So now that the sketch is done, is that a real person you're looking at? I'd say no, it's not a real person. It's your memory, and at best it's a resemblance, as Doug Carter called it. Some features may be pretty close to accurate and others are definitely off or, at least, don't contribute to what the person actually looks like. Furthermore, it is a common technique for sketch artists to slightly exaggerate those features in the image that you were confident about (think about how a cariacature artist might draw Jay Leno's chin). The hope is that by drawing them in a slightly exaggerated fashion, it would help that feature stand out to a person who knows this man well enough to recognize him from a not-totally-accurate rendering.

Let's say that both you and one other shopper were able to complete composite sketches of a man seen in the baking aisle. How similar might they be? You noticed his nose and hair. The other shopper didn't notice those things, but noticed eyes and lips. Neither of you really noticed how old the person was. The images created from the memories of each of you actually could look like different people to the brain of someone who wasn't in the store and never saw the man at all. But are they different people? Maybe you are describing one man, and the other person someone else. Maybe it's the same man, but you each noticed different things, or one of you had a better memory. We will never really know, because people notice and remember different things and these sketches are memories, not photographs. What's likely is that when the man from the grocery store is found, he won't look exactly like either sketch but there will be small things you can pull out of each one that were somewhat correct.

So what good to the public is a composite sketch then, if it's not going to look exactly like a real person? The hope is that it looks similar enough that 1. another witness in the area is triggered to come forward to describe what they observed, or 2. someone who knows that subject personally is able to recognize some of the features well enough to talk to police about their suspicions. Usually this does not occur in a vacuum. The recognition occurs because someone sees a resemblance AND puts together information about that person's actions that fit what is known about the crime.

See this in action in this case: EU graduate, former Afton cop charged with Missouri murders

A woman's 75 year old mother was raped and murdered. A witness saw a man driving a jeep in the vicinity of the crime. The composite sketch of that witness's memory was placed on a billboard that the victim's daughter drove by every day. Every day she stared at it and thought, "I don't know who that is." But one day a lightbulb went on and she realized she recognized the chin - just the chin - though the rest of the face was wrong. She realized the chin looked like that of a man she used to date years before. She went to police with that information and that man, Jeffrey Moreland, was later linked to her mother's murder by DNA as well as other murders and rapes.
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WOW!
 
Yemelyan said:
The Delphi case wasn't helped by the sketch that was released first, because, IMO, it looked too much like a photograph, which led to a feeling in the public that every feature was 100% accurate and that it was a "real" person.

Let's say you go grocery shopping and spend about the same amount of time you usually would observing other shoppers (that is to say, not that much time because you didn't realize that anything untoward was going on). Later that same week, police come to your door and tell you that you may have observed a murderer in the baking goods aisle and they are hoping you can describe him well enough to make a composite sketch of his face.

So you sit with a forensic sketch artist and they help you make a composite - by definition, creating a face, from your memory, by piecemeal. Setting aside the biological question of if piecemeal fashion is even how our brain remembers faces (there's good evidence that it's not), the sketch artist might start at the top and ask you to describe the hairline of a man you saw in the store that day. Or, they might show you a book of several different hairlines to choose from. Then they'd work their way down - looking at several different versions of eyebrows, nose shape, cheekbones, choosing a face width, lip sizes, chin. You probably are not going to be accurate on every feature. You're going off your memory and it's not that strong because you didn't realize you'd be quizzed on this later. Probably the face had one or two elements that you're pretty sure about because they were more noticeable, for whatever reason. Let's say its the nose and a widow's peak in the hair. But the eyes and chin you end up picking for the composite are more generic because you're just not sure.

So now that the sketch is done, is that a real person you're looking at? I'd say no, it's not a real person. It's your memory, and at best it's a resemblance, as Doug Carter called it. Some features may be pretty close to accurate and others are definitely off or, at least, don't contribute to what the person actually looks like. Furthermore, it is a common technique for sketch artists to slightly exaggerate those features in the image that you were confident about (think about how a cariacature artist might draw Jay Leno's chin). The hope is that by drawing them in a slightly exaggerated fashion, it would help that feature stand out to a person who knows this man well enough to recognize him from a not-totally-accurate rendering.

Let's say that both you and one other shopper were able to complete composite sketches of a man seen in the baking aisle. How similar might they be? You noticed his nose and hair. The other shopper didn't notice those things, but noticed eyes and lips. Neither of you really noticed how old the person was. The images created from the memories of each of you actually could look like different people to the brain of someone who wasn't in the store and never saw the man at all. But are they different people? Maybe you are describing one man, and the other person someone else. Maybe it's the same man, but you each noticed different things, or one of you had a better memory. We will never really know, because people notice and remember different things and these sketches are memories, not photographs. What's likely is that when the man from the grocery store is found, he won't look exactly like either sketch but there will be small things you can pull out of each one that were somewhat correct.

So what good to the public is a composite sketch then, if it's not going to look exactly like a real person? The hope is that it looks similar enough that 1. another witness in the area is triggered to come forward to describe what they observed, or 2. someone who knows that subject personally is able to recognize some of the features well enough to talk to police about their suspicions. Usually this does not occur in a vacuum. The recognition occurs because someone sees a resemblance AND puts together information about that person's actions that fit what is known about the crime.

See this in action in this case: EU graduate, former Afton cop charged with Missouri murders

A woman's 75 year old mother was raped and murdered. A witness saw a man driving a jeep in the vicinity of the crime. The composite sketch of that witness's memory was placed on a billboard that the victim's daughter drove by every day. Every day she stared at it and thought, "I don't know who that is." But one day a lightbulb went on and she realized she recognized the chin - just the chin - though the rest of the face was wrong. She realized the chin looked like that of a man she used to date years before. She went to police with that information and that man, Jeffrey Moreland, was later linked to her mother's murder by DNA as well as other murders and rapes.
Click to expand...

Excellent description of the process and the issues. The same issues come up in reconstructions of unidentified victims. Even the best recreation is an approximation of a possible face, not a photo of what the person looked like in life.

And people like us aren't the audience for either. It doesn't matter whether we think the sketches look alike or are two different people or whatever. The important thing would be whether someone who knows the person would recognize them and be motivated to tell LE.
 
carbuff said:
Excellent description of the process and the issues. The same issues come up in reconstructions of unidentified victims. Even the best recreation is an approximation of a possible face, not a photo of what the person looked like in life.

And people like us aren't the audience for either. It doesn't matter whether we think the sketches look alike or are two different people or whatever. The important thing would be whether someone who knows the person would recognize them and be motivated to tell LE.
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Someone needs to pin this to the beginning of every Delphi thread! Thank you for articulating it so well.
 
I think if BG is ever caught then we will see a little of him in both sketches. When it comes to JBC, im amazed at how much he resembles the first sketch, but yet his eye's and mouth are so familiar in the second sketch.

Even if it cant be proven, i would be shocked if he is ever dismissed as a suspect.
 
sandy_80 said:
you think BG targeted a very small time cause the locals would have no experience in dealing the case..like keyes did ?
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It would be tricky to count on this because any time it's a missing/murdered "minor of tender age" the FBI almost always gets involved immediately as a resource, which is exactly what we saw happen here (along with the resources of the state police).
 
I get that a sketch is not a photograph. I don’t expect BG to look exactly like (or even all that similar to) the man depicted in either sketch. I also know that eyewitness accounts are not infallible. In fact, eyewitness testimony is notoriously unreliable. No two people will ever describe XYZ the exact same way — even if they know what to pay attention to ahead of time and even when they know they will be asked to describe it later. Perception is a much more complicated beast than that.

Here is my problem —

If the man depicted in Sketch #1 is not the same man depicted in Sketch #2 (which is what we’ve been told by LE), it makes absolutely zero sense to say the suspect will likely resemble a combination of the two.

Either

Witness(es) #1 saw a man and described the man depicted in Sketch #1
Witness #2 saw a different man and described the man depicted in Sketch #2

OR

Witness(es) #1 and Witness #2 saw the same man and described him in vastly different ways

But, it can’t be both.

While a “combination BG” is certainly plausible in the later scenario, LE says the opposite is true — the man depicted in the first sketch is not the same man depicted in the second sketch.

And herein lies my confusion.
 
cujenn81 said:
I get that a sketch is not a photograph. I don’t expect BG to look exactly like (or even all that similar to) the man depicted in either sketch. I also know that eyewitness accounts are not infallible. In fact, eyewitness testimony is notoriously unreliable. No two people will ever describe XYZ the exact same way — even if they know what to pay attention to ahead of time and even when they know they will be asked to describe it later. Perception is a much more complicated beast than that.

Here is my problem —

If the man depicted in Sketch #1 is not the same man depicted in Sketch #2 (which is what we’ve been told by LE), it makes absolutely zero sense to say the suspect will likely resemble a combination of the two.

Either

Witness(es) #1 saw a man and described the man depicted in Sketch #1
Witness #2 saw a different man and described the man depicted in Sketch #2

OR

Witness(es) #1 and Witness #2 saw the same man and described him in vastly different ways

But, it can’t be both.

While a “combination BG” is certainly plausible in the later scenario, LE says the opposite is true — the man depicted in the first sketch is not the same man depicted in the second sketch.

And herein lies my confusion.
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Good point. This is also where we get stuck in an endless loop - does LE know the identity of the killer? How can DC say the appearance of the killer may be a combination of both sketches? Because in reality, the odds are far greater that he’ll resemble neither of the two.
 
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Becky Starkey said:
I've always thought he had a weird looking mustache, and rather than shaving it off, he just ripped it off. I can see it briefly as he lifts his head up in closer up versions of the video.
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And his whole outfit is a disguise. It's not his normal wear. Recently in Ballwin, MO was a kidnap, rape and murder in a Catholic Supply store. The perp kept a very similar disguise under his trailer home, hiding it from his wife. In fact, a lot of people thought he might have been BG.
 
cujenn81 said:
I get that a sketch is not a photograph. I don’t expect BG to look exactly like (or even all that similar to) the man depicted in either sketch. I also know that eyewitness accounts are not infallible. In fact, eyewitness testimony is notoriously unreliable. No two people will ever describe XYZ the exact same way — even if they know what to pay attention to ahead of time and even when they know they will be asked to describe it later. Perception is a much more complicated beast than that.

Here is my problem —

If the man depicted in Sketch #1 is not the same man depicted in Sketch #2 (which is what we’ve been told by LE), it makes absolutely zero sense to say the suspect will likely resemble a combination of the two.

Either

Witness(es) #1 saw a man and described the man depicted in Sketch #1
Witness #2 saw a different man and described the man depicted in Sketch #2

OR

Witness(es) #1 and Witness #2 saw the same man and described him in vastly different ways

But, it can’t be both.

While a “combination BG” is certainly plausible in the later scenario, LE says the opposite is true — the man depicted in the first sketch is not the same man depicted in the second sketch.

And herein lies my confusion.
Click to expand...

I think it could be that it's the word ISP chose to use - "man" - that's creating the confusion. The sketches do depict a "man" in the sense that it's a human face with two eyes, one nose, etc but these depictions are not actual men as @carbuff explained so well. They are more like possible faces or memories, the accuracy of which is unknown.

I think in their attempt to simplify the situation - "we now want the features of this sketch to be primary, not this other one" they used language that was too strong. It's kind of easy to understand why they did this because the whole press conference had errors in it (such as which day the vehicle was at CPS) so there was a lot to clarify. They definitely wanted people to put all their focus on the "new" sketch so they asked the public to think of these as different "men." However, if they had even used the word "face" or "depiction" instead of "man" (which would have been more correct) I think it would have made more sense to people that one sketch could be primary but that the eventual perpetrator may end up being a mixture of the two.

This is just my opinion based on what I know about how sketches are made and used. I understand that others will think "man" should be taken more at face value.

I believe that your second scenario is what likely occurred (witnesses saw the same person but described him differently; intelligence developed over time led LE to trust one depiction over the other). JMO
 
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Yemelyan said:
It would be tricky to count on this because any time it's a missing/murdered "minor of tender age" the FBI almost always gets involved immediately as a resource, which is exactly what we saw happen here (along with the resources of the state police).
Click to expand...
Exactly. Two minors were killed, so this was never going to be a crime simply handled by some “local yokels”; state police and FBI were immediately involved—and I’m assuming with Israel Keyes, though he was not dealing with minors, BUT WAS an abductor, rapist, and murderer, the same still applied.
 
minazoe said:
I don't know if they has these "real masks" five years ago but they are almost impossible to distinguish . maybe close up there is a sense something is wrong..

Old William realistic silicone face, old man masquerade for christmas full head Tricky props | Wish
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I thought about it, but never seriously, tbh. But if we believe it, then:

1) his hair may not be “his”
2) even the skin tone and hair color is questionable; I saw it as reddish, but he might be very pale
3) he may have longer neck, and different upper body anatomy
4) if one speaks in a mask, how would the voice change?

It could explain absence of anything on his face or under the girls’ nails if they were fighting him.
 
Yemelyan said:
I believe that your second scenario is what likely occurred (witnesses saw the same person but described him differently; intelligence developed over time led LE to trust one depiction over the other). JMO
Click to expand...

Yes. Statements that the sketches are not of the same person are IMHO not literally true. Trying to take them as such sends one down blind alleys.
 
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