News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
Artist Leyah Jensen, a junior at Sisters High School, lent her talents to the Deschutes County Sheriff's Department last week, producing a highly accurate composite sketch of a burglary suspect.
Detectives circulated 2,600 posters featuring the sketch, and through citizen tips were able to identify 21-year-old Jeremy Dan Thompson as the suspect in a string of daytime burglaries north of LaPine.
Thompson remained at large at press time, Monday, October 13.
"She does super work," Sheriff Greg Brown said. "We started having phone calls as soon as the mail (with the poster) hit the doorstep."
More than a year ago, at the urging of an uncle, Jensen took a course in composite drawing for law enforcement, thinking she could turn her talent for fine arts into a compelling form of public service.
"For some reason I knew it was something I could do and something I was meant to do for the rest of my life," Jensen said.
Jensen did indeed prove skilled at forensic drawing - but not just because she is a talented artist.
"It's not really about art," she observed. "It's more psychological."
Perhaps the most important skill an artist brings to a sketch is the ability to draw information out of a witness. In the burglary case, Jensen interviewed a 13-year-old girl who had walked in on one of Thompson's suspected burglaries.
"The composite artist is only as good as the witness is going to be," Jensen said. "I was lucky to have that witness."
Starting with an FBI-produced book showing basic facial characteristics, the witness described to Jensen what the young burglary suspect looked like. Jensen sketched and modified, sketched and modified, until she had a solid likeness.
According to Jensen, the witness had strong impressions of the suspect's eyes and mouth. She didn't have a clear picture of the shape of his nose, so Jensen de-emphasized the nose in her sketch.
The resulting composite captured the suspect's likeness so thoroughly that more than one citizen identified the sketch as Thompson.
"Multiple people said, yeah, this is the guy," Sheriff Brown reported.
The success of her composite confirms Jensen's career course. She said she plans to major in fine arts in college, and continue to offer her forensic drawing services to law enforcement agencies.
She noted that she has talked at length with famed forensic artist Jeannie Boylan, of Bend. Boylan, who gained national recognition for her composite sketches of the Unabomber suspect and others, has offered the 17-year-old artist career guidance.
Apart from the satisfaction of doing her job well, Jensen is pleased to have done something positive for the community. Although Thompson still hasn't been caught, having his face in newspapers, on television, and on wanted posters all over the county appears to have driven him underground.
"They say there haven't been any burglaries in a week," Jensen said.
Jim Cornelius is editor in chief of The Nugget and author of “Warriors of the Wildlands: True Tales of the Frontier Partisans.” A history buff, he explores frontier history across three centuries and several continents on his podcast, The Frontier Partisans. For more information visit www.frontierpartisans.com.
Reader Comments(0)