Lakewood, NJ - Police Say Sketch And Suspect Look Alike

Lakewood, NJ - Dover Township Patrolman Christopher McDowell, is contracted by the Ocean County Prosecutor's Office to do sketches of crime suspects throughout the county.

Police say he certainly got it right this time.
The accuracy of McDowell's sketch of the goateed suspect in the May 7 abduction and assault of a Lakewood woman helped Old Bridge police connect the dots after they arrested Lakewood resident Brandon J. Fritz on Tuesday in connection with a burglary and assault in their town.

They had the sketch in their headquarters and contacted Lakewood police after arresting Fritz. "It's crucial, that composite," Executive Assistant Ocean County Prosecutor Robert Gasser said. "I was stunned, startled - not that the composite's (merely) good, but (it is) right on the money."

While interviewing victims and witnesses, McDowell has them pick out facial features from a book of photographs. He then puts the features together in a drawing and modifies them at the direction of the victim or witness.

He said he admires the victim in the Lakewood abduction and assault for the composure she showed and the accuracy of her descriptions following such a traumatic crime.
And he downplayed his own role. "The credit for this - and I hate to use the word credit when there's been a crime - belongs to the investigators and all the legwork they did. The sketch is just another tool in the arsenal we have."

But he conceded that it's nice when his work pays off, as it did in the arrest of James Calhoun, a Lakewood man charged in a 2004 knifepoint abduction in Lakewood. "If my hands fell off tomorrow, it was all worth it," he said.