Drawing from Elusive Memory

By Sandy M. Fernandez

Jeanne Boylan was working in a small Oregon sheriff's office in 1973 when she began to wonder why the police sketches she saw didn't match descriptions she had heard from the victims. There's a better way, she thought. And there was. Today Boylan, 47, is acclaimed for developing a technique so accurate that an FBI agent who has worked with her likens the results to "something drawn from a photograph." Among her creations: the iconic portrait of the Unabomber--a dead ringer for a young Ted Kaczynski, as well as the near mirror-image drawing of Polly Klaas' killer, Richard Allen Davis. Her secret? A diligent reading--and application--of memory science.

Most sketch artists ask witnesses to examine drawings or photographs meant to jog their memories. But that process can muddy fragile recollections. "Human memories are very malleable, especially at the height of emotion," she says. "Ask, 'Did he have a moustache?' Well, he does now, because you're implanting that image." Her interviews are long chats about other topics, with only occasional questions related to the pad she holds just out of sight. "The assumption is that this work is about art," says Boylan, "but it's about the complexity of memory."

--By Sandy M. Fernandez