Tulsa Police: Suspect Sketches Have Differed From Attacker Before

The problem is, people think of a composite as a picture, but it's not. It's the recollection of one person, who at the time is enduring the most terrifying moments of her life.

Tuesday, July 8th 2014, 6:39 pm

By: News On 6

Tulsa Police: Suspect Sketches Have Differed From Attacker Before

Some people have questioned if there is another attacker because Tulsa sexual assault suspect Desmond Campbell does not resemble the composite sketch that was created with input from one of the victims.

But police are confident Campbell was the only one who attacked these seven women. Veteran detectives are not surprised the composite didn't match.

In fact, they say it's happened before in serial rape cases.

7/8/2014 Related Story: Tulsa DA: Police Had Their Man In Rape Suspect Desmond Campbell

The problem is, people think of a composite as a picture, but it's not. It's the recollection of one person, who at the time is enduring the most terrifying moments of her life.

Police say releasing a composite sketch in any case is a judgement call. Sometimes it can be helpful, and sometimes - it just muddies the waters. They say that was the situation in this case and they wish now, they hadn't released it at all.

They say all the victims were on their stomachs, it was dark, some were woken from a sleep, the rapist often had most of his face covered and often used a piece of cloth to cover the victims' eyes. He was also threatening to kill them with a knife while doing terrible things to them - not an ideal situation for coming up with a sketch.

But, they did release it in this case because the entire city was desperate to know what the rapist looked like, to put a face with their fear.

Full Coverage: Tulsa Sexual Assaults Investigation

"I say, please put on there, 'it's not a photograph, it's a victim's, who has been traumatized, recollection of what she saw,'" said Sergeant Mark Mears, Tulsa Police Sex Crimes Division.

They are not surprised DNA from the crime scenes was linked to a man who did not resemble the sketch - because they've seen it before.

Several sketches were released from the eight different victims who were attacked by a serial rapist between 2001 and 2006. Mears said if you put them all together, there were some similarities and a "whole lot of differences" to the man who was ultimately arrested and who pleaded guilty to the crimes, Gary Graham.

7/8/2014 Related Story: Tulsa Police: Serial Rape Suspect Desmond Campbell Dies

Investigators say composite sketches do have some value in investigations, if people will remember to look for similarities in some of the features, but not to expect it to be an exact match - especially in sex crimes where there are so many factors at play.

One thing this case created for a lot of people, was a new sense of awareness: looking around, watching their surroundings, double checking their doors and windows are locked. Police don't want to see people lose that, because even though they say this rapist is no longer a threat, there are sure to be more in the future.