Eyewitness Sketches Can Vary Widely

Have you ever wondered about the accuracy of an eyewitness sketch? Someone who has never seen the perpetrator sits down with a piece of charcoal and says, “OK, tell me what he looked like.” Not only are you dealing with the artist’s interpretation of a description, but when you bring in multiple witnesses who each may have seen things differently, the idea that the criminal is going to come face-to-face with one of these sketches and think he is looking in a mirror is unlikely.

Of course, that...