Portraits of Guilt

Rating:
Summary: A powerful book
Review: I had just a passing acquaintance with Jeanne Boylan when she worked in the Detectives Division of the Portland Police Bureau in Oregon in the late 1980s and early 1990s. After leaving Portland, she took her incredible crime-fighting skills all over the country to help solve some of the biggest cases in the last several years.

It's nearly impossible not to follow her career since she is in the news frequently and has been a regular on at least one TV program. Her crime fighting weapon? A pencil.

Jeanne Boylan is more than a sketch artist; virtually every large PD has one of those. She brings to the craft a talent that is so rare, so seeming mystical, that she's been called on to assist in virtually every high-profile manhunt in the last couple of decades, such as the Unabomber, Polly Klaas kidnaping, Susan Smith child drownings, Oklahoma City bombing, and the murder of Ennis Cosby, son of the actor, Bill Cosby.

Boylan also brings to the task of "facial identification art" a unique understanding of mental trauma and an ability to probe deeply into victims' subconscious minds. Alone in a room, she talks to crime victims for hours, discussing their hobbies and interests, while interspersing questions that pry out true memories of the perpetrator's face. The end result is a sketch, a portrait, really, that looks eerily like the suspect's face.

In her new, best-selling book, Portraits of Guilt: The Woman Who Profiles the Faces of America's Deadliest Criminals, Boylan explains how she works to reach under the layers of pain, beyond the contamination done by well-meaning police officers who, in their haste to find the perpetrator, bombard the victims' memory with photographs of possible suspects. She probes deeply into the victims' psyche to find the pure image of the face that was seared into the brain, sometimes for only a few seconds, at the moment of trauma.

Boylan narrates her own story--how she got started and why she feels the need to accept every case the FBI gives her. Although she doesn't reveal in great detail how she is able to almost psychically formulate a portrait, she does make it clear how law enforcement's antiquated way usually buries the evidence, making her tough job even tougher.

As the book progresses chronologically through her cases, Boylan reveals the slow disintegration of her marriage, while simultaneously her career takes off to a level of near celebrity status.

Boylan discusses why she is compelled to continue to help police agencies and crime victims, though at times the work takes its toll on her personally. She also talks about her workshops where she teaches law enforcement about human memory, why it should be considered evidence and how it should be protected. She feels good that she is influencing the way in which police departments interview crime victims, though their acceptance is a slow process.

This is a fascinating book with lots of fresh insights into many of the most infamous cases in recent history. For example, the evidence she uncovered in the Oklahoma City bombing will leave you curious as to whether all the suspects are in custody.

I strongly recommend this book.

Rating:
Summary: Portraits of Guilt
Review: Wow! Portraits of Guilt is a must read, true story that draws you in with riveting details of some of the highest profile crimes committed in the past decade. Ms. Boylan takes us into the hearts and minds of the witnesses, friends and family of those involved in these crimes as well as through her professional and personal heartbreaks and triumphs.

But, above all, this is the story of a woman, considered a maverick in her field, dedicated to helping investigative authoritites change the way eyewitness investigations are conducted. As I read each case history, her "unorthodox" method of interviewing a witness seemed to make perfect sense - Psychology 101.

You wont put this book down until you've turned that last page, still in thought, and closed the back cover.

Rating:
Summary: The Elizabeth Smart case. Payment for patience.
Review: I became interested in this author after seeing her speak about eyewitness memory on the Oprah Winfrey Show. I found the book, read it and then noticed a composite drawing in the Elizabeth Smart case that seemed to bear no likeness to the man arrested for the kidnapping. Jeanne Boylan's name was periodically associated with the case and I felt let down that she'd so badly erred in doing the less than stellar drawing. (Though now we know that the man was caught because the Smart family realized his religious name, announced it to the public and then were given real photos by the man's own family that were aired on TV which then resulted in his subsequent identification and quick arrest.)

Now, in more recent news reports, I found out that Jeanne Boylan actually interviewed the younger sister of Elizabeth about her memory of the abduction night and that the poor suspect drawing the media was showing was not from her interviews, but was from a local portrait person and was not taken from the little sister's sighting the night of the abduction but rather was taken from the family who knew the man and had spent many hours with him. Now I understood why the descrepancy.

I felt relief. I momentarily thought Jeanne Boylan had lost her skills. Now I understand the difference between her interview and the drawing that is now linked to the case but does not look like the kidnapper.

I look forward to the sequel of 'Portraits of Guilt' and to reading more about what happens to eyewitness's memories when the sightings are endured during moments of fright and fear and how that forces their vision very deep into the recesses of their mind as it did for Elizabeth's little sister.

Praise the Lord that with help and encouragement, Elizabeth's little sister finally remembered the religious name with the help of the loving Smart family, the apparently astute police and Jeanne Boylan who all had fiercely guarded the young child's evolving memory while it was gradually surfacing so that the kidnapper was finally caught. Good things come to those who wait!

Rating:
Summary: A true detective story
Review: If you want to consider yourself well informed about what goes on behind the headlines, you must read this book. The author was involved in the biggest crime stories of the decade, from the tragic Polly Klaas case, through the Unibomber and the Oklahoma City bombing. She brings an insiders knowledge of how law enforcement works (or doesn't work) to her book, but thats just the tip of the iceberg. Portraits of Guilt succeeds on many levels. Its a true story of a woman with a unique talent who is often forced to fight an entrenched system, and who pays a personal price for her convictions. Many people suffer when a violent crime occurs...not only the victim. I found the events surrounding the Polly Klaas investigation particularly heartbreaking and at the same time inspiring. She was there for Oklahoma City and she did the Unibomber picture that made headlines around the world and led to his eventual identification and capture. The way Ms. Boylan got her witnesses to re-live what they saw brings a strong psychological angle to the story, and challenges the "by the book" method most law enforcement agencies use. Through it all, the author never loses her courage and sense of purpose. She pays a high price for her dedication and confronts the ghosts of her own past as well. The stories about the less "high profile" cases are equally involving. An amazing story. Well written and multi-dimensional. I could not put it down.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent book about trauma and memory
Review: I've read a lot of good books about healing from trauma and the effects trauma has upon memory. I've also read a lot of books about the fallibility of memory that do not correctly take into account the actual experience of the trauma. Jeanne Boylan has succeeded in writing the first book that accurately addresses both sides of the understanding of memory. She clearly illustrates the way that traumatic memory can be malleable in the presence of suggestion. It is through the insight of Jeanne Boylan's work that we can keep the innocent people out of jail and the guilty people can be handled accordingly.

She succeeds at what she does because she has both a natural ability and a deep understanding of trauma and memory. She also succeeds because she knows how to reach the heart. She works from her intuition as well as her logical understanding. Her kind and gentle nature is a true asset in the work that she does, and she could not achieve what she has achieved without it. In addition to all of this she has the added gift of being an incredible artist. Jeanne Boylan was born to do the work that she does; it is an inborn gift, which was further honed by her own personal experience of trauma and surviving a crime.

Jeanne Boylan describes traumatic memory as being like a fifty-cent piece that has been tossed below eight feet of water. The memory gets buried by the intense emotional trauma, but at the same time is locked into memory. As the emotions arise our minds protect us by blurring the image, like the movement of water. We can still see it, but it is distorted. With the right approach the memory of the trauma can be brought back to the eyewitness's conscious memory in it's original condition, just as the fifty-cent piece can be retrieved from the water fully intact.

Jeanne Boylan works with survivors to draw near perfect portraits of the criminals. Her technique is the art form. She says, "The answers to uncovering memory reside in understanding the powerful inner workings of the human mind-- and more importantly, in the power of the human heart. (p. 11)" She says "The higher the degree of personal trauma, the harder the mind works to discard or bury the image, but, also, the more likely it will have been encoded into memory in the first place, even if it is housed at a much deeper level of recall... Sometimes if we can coach the conscious mind to move aside we can still access the original untainted image--if there is reason enough for it to have been retained in memory. (p.13)" It is the release of emotions, no matter what form, that helps reach the image. She uses an interview technique, which brings the person into a safe space in order to access the memory without the emotions blocking it, and she uses carefully worded questions to prevent suggestions from distorting the original memory.

During her chapters about the devastating kidnap and murder of twelve year old Polly Klass, she provides new insight into how to recognize the veracity of an eyewitness account. She explains that when witnesses remember the trauma or the attacker differently that this is actually a sign that they are telling the truth because no two people remember an experience identically. The discrepancies help to validate and preserve the images and details of the memory for later needs (as long as suggestion has not been introduced). There is usually one stronger witness, however that witness will often have a degree of self-doubt that can be increased when she/he encounters discrepancies among the other witnesses. Jeanne Boylan was the first person on the case of Polly Klass to treat the witnesses (also twelve years old) with the validation and support that they needed.

The chapter about the abduction and torture of Sister Dianna Ortiz was the most powerful aspect of the book, for me. Anyone who has experienced a similar trauma will find a lot of healing and peace in reading this chapter. We watch Sister Dianna Ortiz work through the intense PTSD, become empowered, speak out and overcome the accusations that her experiences were a figment of her imagination. Sister Dianna Ortiz speaks of her healing, "Healing comes in many forms. I know I will always carry the memory of what happened to me on November second, 1989. For more than six and one-half years I have allowed my Guatemalan torturers and Alejandro to haunt me. Many times, I've felt like they danced within me. Many times I've felt that if I got close to anyone, I was going to contaminate them with the evilness that they left inside me. But today, I can sit here and say that that evil does not exist inside me anymore, and that is because of the work that I was able to accomplish with Jeanne Boylan. (p.282)... The images of my torturers and Alejandro have always stayed within me, and I have held myself responsible for the horrible things that happened on that November day, but today, because I was able, with the help of Jeanne Boylan, to put a face to these monsters, I can put them away from me. They no longer live in my soul. Until I faced them, I could never be free. (p283)"

In the next chapter called Awakenings Jeanne Boylan says, "Though I knew instinctively the importance of freeing a victim of the evil left from an attack, never before had I realized so clearly the emotional power that floods the soul when the residual grip of an assailant is finally loosened, and gently removed from the heart. (p. 286)"

Jeannie Boylan ends the book with the conclusion she left us wanting to hear since the Prologue. She weaves in her own experience, and powerfully does for herself what she has already done for so many others.

Rating:
Summary: Found this book in "Oprah's Books"
Review: I found this book on Oprah's website under "Oprah's Books" and think highly of her choices so ordered it. I'm happy I did. It was a fast moving, compelling read and gave me a view into a world I knew nothing about. I feel entertained, educated and wiser from reading it. What more could you ask... I endorse the book, author and Oprah's good taste.

Rating:
Summary: Ahead of her time
Review: I am a reseacher in the area of human memory. My university studies and thesis are in the area of crime victim recall and memory malleability. I was given Miss Boylan's book by a fellow doctoral student who said simply, "Read this. This woman gets it."

To my astonishment, this was true and to know that there is a woman struggling essentially all alone to enlighten police about the seriousness of memory malleability made me want to jump into the pages of this book and yell to the police she works with that there is scientific data backing up every word she says about this topic.

Miss Boylan unfortunately writes in too kind a fashion, seemingly concerned about offending the masses, but sometimes creating change requires the proverbial 2 X 4 to create the desired impact. Although I appreciate Miss Boylan's subtle and polite manner, my only complaint about this book and her story is that she should and could have been much more hard hitting in her critique of what has historically gone wrong in criminal investigations. With what she's experienced, she is entitled to be direct.

With the knowledge we in the academic world have now of how memory works, there is no excuse for the mistakes made in past cases to continue to take place. Jeanne Boylan should scream her message and take her lumps. I'd rather see her save lives than to worry about winning a popularity contest. She can speak from inside the world of police, whereas "us" in our ivory towers, don't have access to the real world as she does.

Boylan relied on us to give her the foundation for her work and my predecessor's findings of three decades now, but those of us doing the empirical research have to rely on people like her to deliver our findings to the point of practical application in the police world. She can be the go-between from our world to inside real life criminal investigations.

Overall, Portraits of Guilt is a great book, great 'on the mark' insights into crime victim memory and some lessons in Boylan's stories that had better be paid attention to before we lose more lives such as Polly Klaas. (Her book is dedicated to the Klaas girl's memory.)

I give this book a five star rating for it's general level of readibility and for her stunning insights into trauma victim memory malleability, but Miss Boylan, if you write a second book, and I hope you do, next time, take the gloves off and try to come out swinging.

Rating:
Summary: O Magazine was right
Review: Oprah was right. This is a story of a strong woman in a corrupt world who still possesses the idealism to fight back. I found the book to be well written and a very enlightening read. I am ordering several copies for my neices to read. I think Jeanne Boylan is an excellent role model for teenagers.

Rating:
Summary: All The Right Stuff
Review: "Portraits of Guilt" is like a buffet of literature. It has comedy, it has reality, it makes you cry, makes you ponder, forces your eyes open to the inside world of police. I read a great deal, but I seldom experience the gambit of emotion and the new insights into a world other than my own, as intensely as I did in this book. I highly recommend it to all ages and all interests. It has something for everyone and a lot for the discerning reader. Leaves you satisfied.

Rating:
Summary: Happy Not To Be Her
Review: I was exhausted after reading this book! I felt so much compassion for Jeanne Boylan and her struggles. Many of the police she works with are resentful of her expertise, her peers are cruel and jealous, and her own husband finds her success as something that outshines his own. Yet this woman cannot give up the fight for justice. The obstacles in her path are like a minefield but in the interest of helping others, she takes step after step, putting her own welfare aside in favor of doing the right thing. I would never trade her places, but then, I am not made of the substance this woman is. My hat is off to her and anything ever happens to someone I love, I hope she will be there for me as well. I felt smaller after I read this story, but also thankful for people out there like this author.