Faces of Evil Read online

  “Honey,” I said patiently, “does this look like the guy?”

  But Paul didn’t answer. He just pointed at the sketch.

  I had seen this kind of reaction a couple of times before in my career, both times with hospitalized witnesses dazed from drugs. It was as if they’d exhausted every single reserve of strength they had in their poor broken, injured bodies and traumatized minds. Just getting through the sketching process had left them with not one more ounce of energy simply to say, “Yes, it looks like him,” but that’s what the reaction meant.

  With a soft squeeze of gratitude on Paul’s arm, I gathered up my gear and left him as quickly as I could so he could rest. I limped on my throbbing leg back to his room. Sgt. Smith showed up just as I was leaving and it was a good thing, because by this time I was feeling weak and ill from my own infection. I had neglected to bring any fixatif to spray on the drawing, but I handed the sketch to Sgt. Smith, who thanked me profusely in his usual princely manner.

  Though I had serious misgivings about the accuracy of the drawing, since Paul had chosen each feature so quickly without hardly looking, I didn’t say anything about these doubts to Sgt. Smith.

  But as I dragged my painful way down the hall toward the elevator, I suddenly remembered what it was about that plaid shirt that had struck me.

  The Galleria Rapist. What was his name? Punching the elevator buttons, I shifted my weight to my good leg and pondered.

  Dutton.

  Yeah, that was it. Donald…Eugene…Dutton.

  A couple of days later, about 7:30 in the evening, Donald Eugene Dutton decided to shoplift a chain saw from a Sears store at Memorial City Mall in Houston.

  It made me shudder. Why would a guy like Dutton need a chain saw? It’s not like he was planning to cut firewood for the old fireplace, was he?

  I thought about his last victim, the one he’d grabbed and tried to rape before Officer Deason pulled him over that fateful night. She had escaped.

  I have a theory—and it’s just a theory, mind you, not based on any legal documents or anything Dutton is known to have said either to law enforcement or in court—but I strongly suspect that he was planning another kidnapping and sexual assault.

  And this time, I figure his plan was that his victim would not escape.

  And she would not be able to testify against him.

  With a chain saw, he could dispose of a body pretty handily, I think.

  It’s just a theory.

  But you have to wonder.

  Anyway, he decided to shoplift the chain saw—for whatever diabolical reason—but when he tried to leave the store, a manager spotted him with it and yelled, “Stop him! He’s a shoplifter!”

  Store security personnel gave chase. Dropping the chain saw, Dutton sprinted out the door and took off across the parking lot. Three bystanders joined in the chase. One of them, an off-duty DEA agent, caught up to Dutton first. Grabbing a handful of shirt and trousers, he tackled Dutton, dragged him indoors and with store security, held him in the manager’s office until an HPD officer arrived.

  By that time, my sketch had been widely distributed in the media and had been on the evening news of all three local Houston networks, as well as published in the Houston Chronicle.

  The DEA agent remarked to the HPD officer that this guy sure did seem to resemble the sketch he’d seen on TV of the man who had tried to kill Patrolman Deason.

  “Sure does,” agreed the cop.

  Almost immediately, the HPD arranged a line-up, which they videotaped and showed to Paul Deason in his hospital room.

  He picked out Donald Eugene Dutton.

  After that, a group of detectives converged on the Sears parking lot and crawled around, shining their powerful flashlights up underneath the cars.

  And before very long, they found a vehicle with pieces of Paul Deason’s uniform hanging from the undercarriage and a handmark of his skin burned into the muffler.

  Paul Deason not only survived his horrendous wounds, but as soon as he was recovered, he went right back out on patrol, where he can still be found today, protecting and serving the citizens of Houston.

  At the trial of Donald Eugene Dutton, I was called to testify and as I walked up to the wooden bench outside the courtroom to wait to be called, I spotted a police officer sitting there. He was muscular, clean-shaven and his name tag read P.A. DEASON.

  With a big smile, I said, “Well, hi, Officer Deason.”

  With a taciturn, somewhat stern expression, he folded his massive arms over his chest and said, “Can I help you, ma’am?”

  He had absolutely no idea who I was.

  A little hurt, I responded, “Oh, Paul, I’m the person who did the drawing with you in the hospital. I’m the sketch artist.”

  He was immediately apologetic. “I’m so sorry!” he cried. “I never did see your face.” Then, with a big grin, he said, “All I remember is your sweet voice and that you’re the one who cussed out that doctor.”

  Blushing, I had to laugh. Little did he know that I almost never use that kind of language, but hey, as the saying goes, desperate times call for desperate measures.

  Nevertheless, he was laughing with me and it was like we had survived a war together. We were vets.

  After we each testified, we were permitted to enter the courtroom to hear closing arguments. And though the defense attorney did his best to persuade the jury that it was only a coincidence that Dutton had in his pocket the keys to the car on which detectives found bits of Paul’s uniform and skin—they didn’t buy it.

  Donald Eugene Dutton was convicted of multiple counts that included attempted capital murder of a police officer and aggravated sexual assault and given a life sentence.

  After the trial, Paul Deason came up to me, pulled me close and kissed me on the cheek. It was a wonderful kiss, a brotherly, professional, appreciative kiss and I loved it. From that moment on, our friendship was sealed.

  He said, “I really don’t remember doing the sketch with you. All I remember was at the end, when I put my finger out to show you it looked like him.”

  Later, Paul said that he was so amazed at the likeness that we managed to produce of his assailant that it was as if I had been reading his mind that day, even though he could barely talk. He added, “She’s clairvoyant.”

  But as far as I’m concerned, this is yet another example of one brave officer’s heroism. Clinging to life with every fiber of his being, fighting against the morphine and the Demerol and whatever else was pumping through his body at the time, struggling to remember a glimpse of a face that held no expression “like a shark,” before the flash of the gun that had nearly killed him, he somehow managed to come up with the description that put one twentieth-century Texas outlaw behind bars for the rest of his life.

  As far as Deason picking out the first feature he saw in the book I’d shown him, the joke was on me. Turns out that all of Dutton’s features did resemble the first one or two displayed in the FBI Facial Identification Catalogue. Officer Deason, for all his bleary-eyed struggle, had not been trying to get rid of me, after all. He’d been picking out his assailant’s correct features.

  So thanks to Paul Deason, there won’t be any more notches on Dutton’s gun.

  Or any more cause for him to go looking for chain saws.

  Still, my most fervent hope, where Donald Eugene Dutton is concerned, is that he never, ever gets out of jail.

  Because the first thing he’d do, I’m sure, is shoplift a nice, new plaid shirt for himself.

  Chapter Ten:

  Tricky Drawings, Successful Endings

  Before long, I was working on over 300 cases a year. It was a juggling act, scheduling rapes and murders and robberies into jam-packed days. However, not only did I finally have my own office, but both of my children were in school, so I didn’t have to worry about not being there for them during the day. But life was hectic, all the same.

  In the middle of a particularly busy day, I got a call from a young
woman with one of those little-girl voices that made her sound like a child. Her name was Christina (“Tina”) Shiets. She lived in Cypress, a suburb of Houston.

  “Ms. Gibson,” she said, “I have called just about everywhere, it feels like, looking for someone to help me. I’ve written to the producers of Unsolved Mysteries—the TV show? And they’ve turned me down twice. I even called the FBI. In fact, they’re the ones who gave me your phone number.”

  I must admit, she had my attention. “What can I do for you?”

  She cleared her throat. “Well, thirty-two years ago, my mother was killed in a car accident.”

  “Oh, I’m so sorry…” I began, but she cut me off.

  “My two brothers and I were left basically orphans.”

  She paused a moment. Then her voice became clear and positive. “That’s okay, I mean, I’ve accepted that part of my life. But what I need is help finding my two brothers. We were separated not long after Mom’s death.”

  “How old were you?”

  “I was four and my brother Chris was two and my baby brother, Chip, was a year old. Anyway, my great aunt and uncle took me to raise and they would have gladly taken my brothers, but they went with their biological father. I had a different dad. Eventually, he found that he couldn’t care for them the way he’d thought. Chris and Chip were put into foster care and eventually, they were adopted.”

  I murmured sounds of sympathy and she went on. “The truth is, we were all just victims of circumstance; nobody had any real choices. But the thing is, nobody ever asked me how I felt about losing my brothers or even if I wanted to keep in touch with them. They just vanished from my life.

  “I’ve always longed for my brothers and wanted to be with them. From the time I was sixteen, I tried to find my brothers. Finally, about six months ago, I managed to track down the foster parents who first took them in and the woman gave me a couple of photographs of them and an old home movie and even the two little baby bow ties they were wearing in the photographs.”

  Before I could comment, she said, “Finding my brothers’ original foster parents, getting this tape and all, well, it’s been a tremendous breakthrough. I’ve been overjoyed. Now I’m bound and determined to find someone who can help me. Ms. Gibson, do you think you could do a drawing of my brothers’ faces, the way they would look now?”

  So, let me get this straight, I thought, you want to give me a picture of a one-year-old baby and a two-year-old toddler and want me to do a sketch of how they would look at thirty-one and thirty-two years of age?

  At that point I didn’t know any artists who had ever done an age-progression of an infant into an adult in their thirties. The computer programs of that time that were designed to do age-progressions didn’t go past the age of seventeen! In fact, one expert in the field had been asked to take an eight-year-old and age-progress her to the age of forty-two and he had refused.

  For heaven’s sake, where would I even START?

  “Ms. Gibson, I don’t know who else to ask,” said Tina, “All my life, I’ve felt this big hole in my heart where my brothers belong and I will never be able to rest until I can fill that hole. Even if…even if they’re dead or something…I just want to know.”

  Somewhat desperately, I imagined myself sitting in front of my easel, trying to warm up, preparing to take a photograph of a baby and turn him into a full-grown man.

  How would I even WARM UP?

  Then I remembered something that almost made me laugh out loud. Once I’d seen a comedian on TV, who had this routine where he said, “What about the guy who catches a bullet in his teeth? Where’s the warm-up for THAT? I mean, what does the guy do—have the guy who’s gonna shoot the gun start by just throwing the bullet in his face so he can catch it? Then, after a few times, he shoots? Where’s the warm-up for THAT?”

  Somebody else—a foolish woman, surely not me—said, “Sure, Tina. I’ll try to help you. I’ll do an age progression of your brothers.”

  Ready…aim…FIRE!

  Tina came to my home and carefully laid out the precious photos of her long-lost brothers. To my relief, they weren’t fuzzy snapshots, but high-quality studio portraits. Every detail of their baby features was clearly visible. Having transferred the brief, 8mm home movies of the boys onto VHS, Tina handed me the video and we plugged it into the VCR in my living room.

  I watched as two happy little boys romped in the ocean, gleefully chasing waves back and forth in the warm sunshine. The next scene depicted one of the boys buried in the sand, his arms and feet and rounded little tummy poking up, the other child patting the sand around him. They were both laughing. Then, briefly, a few shots of the two boys’ faces stretched into big grins, approaching a deer in a petting zoo.

  That was it.

  Tina explained that the video of the boys had originally been an old 8mm home movie and that it had been smoke damaged. She’d had the film repaired and transferred to VHS.

  By the end of the brief, happy video, any doubts I might have had about taking this case were gone.

  “I’ve worked with Unsolved Mysteries many times,” I told her. “And on three different occasions, we’ve been able to arrange family reunions because of age progressions that I’ve done for the show.”

  Looking her straight in the eye, I gave her my word. “Tina,” I promised, “I’ll help you get on Unsolved Mysteries and we’ll find your brothers.”

  We talked over a few other details of the case and Tina left.

  And I was alone, staring at a blank piece of paper, wondering what in the world I was going to do next.

  Pray.

  That’s what I did. I prayed. I was in over my head on this one and I knew it. I needed help, H-E-L-P.

  I started with the younger brother first.

  One thing I knew for sure going in was that there are certain features on the human face that remain identical from infancy to adulthood: the shapes of the nostril holes, the shapes of the eye openings, the shape of the eyebrows, the lip crease (the dark line where the lips meet), the shape of the top of the lip and the bottom lip contour. Also, the top of the ears lines up with the end of the eyes and eyebrows and the bottom of the ears lines up with the bottom of the nose.

  There are also features that do change. The iris, for instance, occupies less of the eye opening, which means more white of the eye will be visible; the iris exhibits more of the shape of a circle; the nose will lengthen; the whole face, in fact, will lengthen, from the bottom of the eyes on down. This makes the chin elongate and widen slightly. Eyebrows will take on a slightly darker, thicker-gauge of hair, but amazingly, the number and placement of those hairs will be identical to what they were when the subject was a baby. Adolescence tends to darken hair color somewhat—even more so into adulthood.

  Since this boy was a blond, I figured his hair was likely to be a light brown by now. He had a “cowlick” on one side of his forehead—this was good. Cowlicks don’t change.

  Ah-HA! I thought. My cousin had a cowlick just like the one in the photograph. I remembered how he was wearing his hair now, so I used that hairstyle on my adult rendition of baby Chip…

  …and I was on my way.

  When Tina came to pick up my drawings, she stared at them with awe, even reverence and her eyes clouded a little. For a long time, she kept gazing at them and I felt that, even if we weren’t able to find her brothers, this alone was a comfort to her.

  But I wanted her to have the real thing.

  Next we made good color copies of the drawings, the photographs of the boys, snapshots of the bow ties and I told her to have a good-quality copy made of the video she had shown me.

  “Write a letter to Unsolved Mysteries,” I instructed her, “and explain your situation briefly, including your struggle to find your brothers. Include the name, address and phone number of the boys’ former foster mother.” Then I told her to open a Federal Express account.

  When she had everything ready, I called one of my contacts, a high-ranking of
ficial at Unsolved Mysteries. I pitched Tina’s story as a segment for their “Lost Loved Ones” portion of the show. At the end, I reminded him that they’d had three successes on the program before with my sketches and added that they would be able to interview the former foster mother.

  The producer was definitely interested and asked if I could send him some materials on the case. I promised they would be there the next day.

  Within the week, Tina called breathlessly to tell me that the producers of Unsolved Mysteries would be flying her to Hollywood to tape her story.

  The program aired, and before the show had even ended, the first phone call to come into the Unsolved Mysteries hotline was from an aunt of the boys. Within minutes, the boys’ biological dad was calling. The next day, Tina was talking to her brother, Chip. Through Chip, she was able to contact her other brother, Chris.

  Chris later explained, “I knew I had a sister. I couldn’t remember her name, but I recalled that I called her ‘Sissy’ and that she took care of me and my baby brother. But every time I asked my parents, they swore I didn’t have a sister. But I knew…I knew.”

  A Christmas reunion was planned at Chip’s home in West Virginia and at long last, Tina was once again able to throw her arms around her brothers and know that she was no longer alone. It was the most joyous day of her life.

  Within only a few days of their meeting, Chris moved to Houston to be closer to his sister. In no time they figured out that they liked all the same things and to this day, share a close and loving relationship.

  Once Chris was settled in Cypress, I decided to pay Tina a visit so that I could collect current photographs of the two brothers to use in comparison to my drawings. I was anxious to see how I’d done and was gratified to find how closely my drawings resembled the two.

  However, when we finally met and I saw that Chris had a moustache and long hair, I learned a valuable lesson for use in the future: whenever you do an age progression, it’s a good idea to do one drawing clean-shaven and with short hair, then do transparent overlays with a moustache, long hair and/or glasses—or, with women—different hair styles and colors.