Posted on 12/03/2001 6:25:08 AM PST by MarkWar
Drawn to Trouble
by Sandy M. Fernandez
When she listened to the victims of traumatic crimes, Jeanne Boylan "saw" something other sketch artists didn't -- and that something often helped to catch the criminal. But what was it about these terrifying cases that made her need to get involved?
[...]
Over the last twenty years, Boylan has built a storied reputation as a police sketch artist, tweezing fragmented memories out of traumatized crime victims and witnesses and spinning them into eerily accurate portraits of wanted criminals. First with the Portland, Oregon, police department and then as a freelancer hired by investigators, families, and the FBI, Boylan has been called in on someof the nation's biggest cases, including the Oklahoma City bombing, the search for Polly Klaas inPetaluma, California, and the hunt for the Unabomber -- in which her iconic portrait of Ted Kaczynski in dark glasses and a hood ended up on the cover of Newsweek. Her uncanny intuitive abilities -- and, undoubtedly, her petite, chiseled features and Barbie-doll mane of blond hair -- have won her unprecedented media attention. There are hundreds of forensic artists in the country, but by comparison Boylan is a rock star.
[...]
Las summer, with the impending execution of Timothy McVeigh -- convicted for his role in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing -- she publicly suggested that the FBI had ignored the existence of at least two other accomplices. Based on interviews with witnesses, she had sketched the images of two men who had been seen in the company of McVeigh in the days before the event. But the FBI seemed uninterested in possible co-conspirators, leaving Boylan in possession of information she could neither use nor forget.
[...]
It's that kind of attention that drove a woman named Debbie Nakanashi to call Boylan this spring. Nakanashi was a postal worker whom Boylan interviewed in Oklahoma City after a bomb ripped through the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building on April 19, 1995. Nakanashi, who worked across the street, swore that in the days before, Timothy McVeigh had come into the post office -- accompanied by a thickly built, dark-haired man who seemed like his boss. "Debbie was such a good witness. I really believed in her." But the FBI, apparently, hadn't.
[...]
Boylan also knew Nakanashi wasn't the only one promoting the accomplice theory -- she herself had interviewed two men who swore they had seen McVeigh with companions in the days leading up to the crime (they would come to be known as John Does III and IV). And so Boylan left her safe location and used her media pull to land a string of TV interviews. "At that point, I was the only [person who'd worked for the FBI] who was coming forward and saying, 'Yes, there are different people involved in this.'" (Other former Bureau members came forth later.)
[...]
Mark W.
Yep, you got it right. And Boylan is fantastic.
Notice how Ted K. bears no resemblance to her picture of the Unabomber.
Guess at what I'm trying to say.
H-el-l-o-!
Yep, you got it right. And Boylan is fantastic.
Notice how Ted K. bears no resemblance to her picture of the Unabomber.
Guess at what I'm trying to say.
H-el-l-o-!
I'm still convinced the Unabomber is Weird Al Yankovic.
While this is old news to many FReepers, at least it is getting some exposure in the media, even if it's a women's magazine.
These women's magazines are read by LOTS of people! Their ad rates are astronomical.
And ELLE has been around for a LONG time.
I wonder if this is the _start_ of more media attention to OKC. This article even mentioned that one of the guys seen with McVeigh appeared to be his "boss!"
Great stuff! (But, you know, even though I know what a large audience these women's magazines have, it still makes me shake my head -- what's next -- an _real_ expose of TWA-800 in Vogue?! (It would be better than nothing...))
Mark W.
This guy:
james.patterson@indystar.com
has been writing about OKC... might be worth sending him a link.
I just got around to checking out the publisher of ELLE. It is published in America, but it is OWNED by a giant French media conglomerate.
They are Hachette Filipacchi. Their website boasts that they are active "...in 33 Countries on 5 Continents." In the US, here they publish about a dozen other magazines, most well known. Here are their other magazines (one search engine lists "George" as well, but I don't know if that's true):
AUTOMOTIVE
Car and Driver
Cycle World
Road & Track
ENTHUSIAST
American Photo
Boating
Mobile Entertainment
Flying
Popular Photography
Premiere
Sound & Vision
Travel Holiday
SHELTER
Elle Décor
Home
Metropolitan Home
WOMEN
Elle Girl
Elle
Woman's Day
Sounds like a company with a heck of a lot of resources behind them. And since it's French, any kind of political content in their magazine raises some interesting questions and possibilities.
Mark W.
One problem with the web is a lot of people never see the stuff that's on it- even here, I rarely check back more than a few hundred posts at best. It's easy to miss things. Another minor point is that some people put more "belief" in a printed article- it's more "real" if someone bothered to print it.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.