PROVO — Karen Mayne says the secret to catching criminals is to look into their eyes.
The eyes, the composite sketch artist says, are often the most distinguishing feature on a person's face.
More importantly, the look in a criminal's eyes is something that victims can never forget.
"It's the facial features that really identify someone, particularly the eyes," said Mayne, a former graphic artist who now works as a public information officer for the Provo Police Department.
While Mayne operates in several capacities for the department, she frequently
lends her artistic talent and FBI training to law enforcement agencies throughout the state to help police locate criminal suspects.
Based on information provided by witnesses and victims, Mayne sketches a facial composite of suspects connected to various crimes, ranging from robbery to rape.
"I want their memory to be really fresh, but I don't want them to be so traumatized that they're not ready to really dig deep into their memory," Mayne said.
The process takes up to two hours as Mayne talks victims through their experience, asking questions about the lighting and location of each crime, along with specifics about the suspect's appearance.
Victims then look through the "FBI Facial Identification Catalogue" — which contains thousands of real photographs that depict facial characteristics like wide-set eyes or thin lips — and select corresponding features for Mayne to draw.
"Most people are really insecure about their memory, but once we talk about it and they can see face shapes and things like that, they feel really confident about what they can actually recall," she said.
After victims verify a strong likeness between the sketch and the perpetrator, a copy is distributed to local law enforcement and the public.
Time after time, Mayne said, someone sees the sketch and recognizes the familiar face of a friend, acquaintance or neighbor within the penciled lines of her composite drawings.
"It's remarkable how close her sketch resembles our guy," Utah County prosecutor David Sturgill said, referring to a December incident at Provo's Farrer Middle School, where a man groped two teenage girls.
Police captured Michael David Heslington within days of releasing Mayne's sketch to the public. The 27-year-old's employer and several neighbors told police that they recognized Heslington from the drawing.
Other times, however, sketches languish in a file cabinet until a suspect is arrested for another crime and connected to the original sketch.
Such was the case with Robert Allen Kartchner, a 20-year-old Orem man who faces charges of kidnapping, child abuse and attempted murder.
Over a year before police arrested Kartchner in connection to a Mapleton kidnapping, Mayne had met with an 8-year-old victim of an attempted kidnapping in Provo.
Though it was well past midnight, Mayne said, the boy wanted to meet with her while his memory was still fresh. With vivid detail, the youngster described the suspect — a thin man with a goatee and frizzy hair.
Like many of the 200 sketches Mayne has drawn, nothing came immediately of that drawing — until Kartchner's mug shot began to appear on television.
A Provo detective, along with the victim, noted the eerie similarity between Mayne's sketch and Kartchner's goatee and curly hair.
"You just never know when some cases will connect," Mayne said.
While only a fraction of her drawings ever result in a suspect's arrest, Mayne isn't discouraged. In fact, she hopes to provide her services to more organizations and more victims in the near future.
Sgt. Barry Golding of the St. George Police Department would gladly take Mayne up on her offer. Though none of the three sketches Mayne has drawn for his department have netted results, he remains optimistic that her talent will solve an ongoing homicide case.
"She's done an awesome job for us," Golding said. "Thanks to her, we've got dozens and dozens of leads. We just haven't gotten a big break."
E-mail: lwarner@desnews.com