Forensic artist who escaped serial murderer has helped catch 1,300 criminals

A forensic artist who escaped death at the hands of an evil serial murderer has helped police catch more than 1,300 criminals.

Lois Gibson, who works at Houston Police Department in Texas, USA, holds the Guinness World Records title for most criminals positively identified due to the composites of one artist.

As of February, Lois’s sketches have helped to identify 1,313 criminals.

It’s impossible to know how many lives she’s saved and how many crimes she’s prevented from ever happening.

Her career was inspired by her own terrifying brush with death.

Lois, who recently appeared on our Italian TV series Lo Show dei Record, used to dance on TV and worked as a model before going to university to earn a degree in fine arts.

But her life – and career path – changed forever when at the age of 21, she was targeted by a serial murderer and rapist.

She explained: “He attacked me and he tortured me almost to death.

The entire time he was attacking me, he was choking me and then finally, I survived... barely.

“When he left, I had blood coming out of my eyes and down my throat. So, I know what it feels like to ponder my own death at the hands of somebody for no reason but that they’re just a horrible person.”

Lois left Los Angeles after the attack and moved to Houston, where she approached police for a job.

Lois previously opened up to us about how she’s “addicted” to catching criminals.

She said: “So, the first time I worked a murder for the Houston Police Department, and it was a crummy, pitiful, sketchy sketch, but when I realized that pitiful piece of art could stop a murderer who killed the same way I almost got killed – somebody tried to kill me – I stopped someone who tried to do that in our Memorial Park.

“And I had planned to not ever do it again because doing that sketch was so horrific emotionally, but once I realized that I caught the guy, I knew I was hooked.

“You get addicted to catching criminals once you realize you can catch them with just a little bitty sketch that took less than an hour.

I’m completely addicted and I never want to quit helping catch criminals with my art.

When we caught up with her backstage following her appearance on Lo Show dei Record, she looked ahead to the future of her profession.

Lois told us she firmly believes AI computer programmes will never be able to create a composite sketch the way a human can with their own hand.

She says accurate sketches rely on human interpretation.

“I found out scientifically, it’s a fact,” she said. “I really did try, I mean, over years I took all the training on every programme. I tried really hard.”

Lois says she’s even had to redo sketches that were originally done by computer programmes because they didn’t succeed in bringing a perpetrator to justice.

“It just doesn’t even come close,” she said, “because you have to be an artist like me.

“But if you’re an artist like me and you try to do it on the computer, you go, ‘Why am I doing this when I can just draw this quicker and easier?’”

Lois has held her record for around 20 years, with the number of criminals she’s helped put behind bars steadily growing.

She’s been working as a forensic artist since 1982 and says there’s a knack to it that only a person can possess.

Lois works with victims of crime when they are in a highly emotional state, and they often think they can’t remember what their attacker looked like.

She uses various techniques to calm and distract the victim, helping unlock memories and create a sketch that’s good enough to identify the attacker.

After the very first sketch she created was shown on the news, the roommate of the assailant turned him in.

Speaking of her Guinness World Records title, Lois said: “The world record has helped me gain legitimacy for my craft because I think a lot of people don’t think the sketches are possibly effective and they are very effective, and it’s helped me prove that.”

Missed Lois’s appearance on Lo Show dei Record? Viewers in Italy can watch it now on Mediaset Infinity. Lo Show dei Record airs Sundays on Canale 5. 

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