Okay. For some time now I have known from a good source — a family member of the witness who gave the description to law enforcement of ‘The Man in the Blue Truck’ — there was no forensic sketch artist who meticulously drew the highly-detailed original sketch. The sketch of ‘The Man in the Blue Truck’ was created with an early-1980s version of ‘Identi-Kit®.’ made by the ‘Identi-Kit® Company, Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of American firearms manufacturer Smith&Wesson, of Springfield, Massachusetts. —- My source said it was done on an ‘Etch-a-Sketch’ and I knew he did not mean that, but nevertheless, I got the clue. Now, for a while I have been asking anyone who would listen, “Who was the forensic sketch artist who drew the highly-detailed sketch of ‘The Man in the Blue Truck.” I was waiting for some type of response. —– I kinda sprang that question on law enforcement in 2015, I think it was, when then-at-the-time TV new reporter Dennis Ferrier, who has covered the unsolved double murder case of Carla Atkins, 14, and Vickie Stout, 16, for many, many years. Ferrier, the new district attorney the Twenty-Third Judicial District, which covers Stewart County, TN., Patricia Gordon, the oldest sister of Carla and Vickie and I were at the Stewart County Visitors Center while Ferrier interviewed everyone but me. I had been cordially invited to observe Ferrier interview for his ‘package’ and at the wrap up of his interviews Dennis Ferrier asked me, “Do you have any questions?” I said, “Yes, are you going to give him a copy of the sketch?” I asked the da. Ferrier said. There’s a sketch?!” See, he did not know about the original sketch either. I, myself, had not seen a copy of the sketch — which had been published only in West Tennessee newspapers and not in Stewart County, Clarksville or other Middle Tennessee newspapers — soon after the murders. None of us on the east side of the Tennessee River/Ky lake knew of a sketch. I saw it for the first time 17 years after the murders, even though I had repeatedly though the years personally and persistently asked Stewart County Sheriff David Hicks and on a few occasions Tennessee Bureau of Investigation Special Agent Jack Charlton if there was any information, new or old, they could release to the public on the unsolved murders of these two Stewart County, TN. children. “No new information!” would be Charlton’s gruff response. “Talk to Jack,” Hicks would say. But on that day in 2015 General Crouch had some new information. “There are three sketches,” Crouch told Ferrier, Gordon and myself. “Three sketches!” I think I said aloud. “How long were you going to wait before you told us about those,” I thought to myself. (I am convinced that neither the original sketch or the two ‘age progressed’ sketches of the original would have been produced to Ferrier and soon after released to all media — West, Middle and East Tennessee, about the three sketches: 1980 version Identi-kit® ; the 2000 sketch and the 2014 sketch that does seem to have the artist’s name on it. — Now I started doing some research as of late on forensic sketches, etc., and in looking for a forensic ‘Etch-a-Sketch’ I came across the ‘Identi-Kit® and low and behold on the front cover of the Identi-Kit® Manual: System of Modern Visual Identification, Lesson Two — there was ‘The Man in the Blue Truck’ peering at me with his unmistakable helmet hair and sporting a porn mustache, aka., a Magnum PIer. — Now if you look closely you will see the hair is the same in all sketches. The shading is the same. The front hair flip is the same. The hash marks at both ears of both sketches are the same. The numbers on the bottom are almost the same. The ones at the top seem to be close and the writing in the left-hand corners are similar. Yes, the facial features are a bit different, but you tell me — who could see, remember and accurately describe this kind of detailed facial features days or weeks after having seen someone very briefly, perhaps as far as 100 yards away, and not knowing they were going to be called on the recall those details? — I won’t even go into the things I want to say about the ‘age-progression’ sketches of the original Identi-Sketch® sketch. ——— Now, look at the sketches on the left that ran in the Paris Post Intelligencer fairly soon after the bodies of the girls were discovered. If you can, closely compare those newspaper sketches to the one on the right, which is the original released in 2015 to Ferrier. The newspaper sketch is a more scowling, sinister looking sketch that the one on the right, which has a bit more pleasant appearance. In ways it more closely resembles the ‘Man in the Magnum PI Mustache sketch.” — I have done a very little bit of research on ‘Identi-Kit® sketches and research tends to indicate that these sketches appear to prevent witnesses from more readily identifying potential suspects than it does in helping in identification. (My research is at its early stages, as there is scant info and research studies readily available on Identi-Kit® sketches.)
