Two brothers are abducted from a local shopping mall, but escape.

Two men wanted in abduction

Suspects: Gender: Male DOB: 1978 to 1980 Height: 5’8” Weight: 160 to 170 lbs. Eyes: Black Hair: Brown Defining Characteristics: Driving a Chevy style Astro maroon van

CASE DETAILS

The drawings made by police sketch artist, Lois Gibson, have been praised for their amazingly accuracy. Lois’ sketches have resulted in the arrest of more than 1,000 criminals. But Lois’ story goes far beyond artistic talent. She, herself, was the victim of a vicious crime.

Lois Gibson has been a police sketch artist in Texas for more than 20 years:

“To be able to look through the eyes of the victim, I think you have to have a lot of empathy. You have to be in their shoes. And I’ve gotten real good at that and I empathize greatly.”

Lois’ ability to relate to a victim of crime comes from an incident that happened when she was a young aspiring actress in Los Angeles. According to Lois, a man pretending to be a neighbor pushed his way into her home:

“He immediately started choking me. He went to my throat and just almost snapped my head off.”

The assailant sexually assaulted Lois and nearly strangled her to death before fleeing.   Lois said she never reported the crime because she was overwhelmed with shame:

The brothers jumped out of the moving vane

“I was so destroyed I couldn’t even walk out of my apartment. And the idea that I would actually tell anybody was ridiculous. It was absurd. It was undoable.”

Lois said that six weeks later, an amazing coincidence happened:

“I drove up this street that I didn’t mean to drive up. And then when I got to the top of this winding hill, I looked on a balcony, and I saw the guy who attacked me. And he was cuffed. I got to see justice. And that’s when I fell in love with what police do.”

Lois could still not bring herself to tell the authorities what the man had done to her.   But what happened that morning changed her life forever. Following her attack, Lois moved to San Antonio, got married, and had a family. She continued to keep her traumatic memories to herself. As an outlet, she began to develop her talent for art. It would become her answer to the rage she felt when she would hear news of crimes:

“I was over visiting my girlfriend and the news came on talking about a dance instructor who had been raped in front of her 11 and 12 year-old students. So I had these vicious feelings, I couldn’t stand it. And then all of a sudden, in less than a second, it hit me. And I told her, ‘Diane, I could draw that guy.   That would help the cops catch him.’ And if they did, I knew in my mind– I didn’t tell her– that would make me healed. That would heal all my bad feelings from my attack.”

But Lois realized she needed to prove to herself and the police that she could draw someone only from an eyewitness description. So a friend of hers went to a nearby gas station, looked at the attendant, then returned to describe the man to Lois:

“All of a sudden, I started reliving my attack. And I realized I needed to be able to do this really badly, and that it was gonna kill me if I couldn’t do it.”

The two women brought the sketch to the gas station and compared it to the attendant. It matched perfectly. The Houston Police Department decided to give Lois a shot. The results were astounding. Her sketches have helped capture suspects in 30% of the cases she’s worked on. According to Detective Curtis Mills of the Humble Texas Police Department:

“The drawings that Lois has done in the past for us have proven to be extremely accurate. It is almost uncanny the resemblance that the composite carries to the actual physical appearance of the individuals that we have arrested.”

Houston Police Lieutenant Ron Walker said that Lois’s drawings are different from most police sketches in a significant way:

“There’s a 3-dimensional depth there. It’s like Lois is seeing the suspect just the way the victim did.”

Lois was called in to help with a case that involved the abduction of two brothers, Jason and Phillip Bomer. The boys were at a shopping mall when they were approached by two well-dressed men who said they had a computer to sell for cheap. The men led them to a van in the mall’s parking lot. At gunpoint, Jason was forced into the back seat of the van and Phillip into the front. According to Philip Bomer, the kidnappers then headed for the freeway:

“A lot of stuff goes through your mind when you’re sitting there with a gun pointed at you, how are you gonna get out of the situation or what? That’s basically the main thing that was in my head, how am I gonna get out of this?”

As the van approached 70 miles per hour, the brothers became convinced they were going to die. Both felt there was only one thing to do: opened the door and jump out.   They both hit the freeway shoulder with devastating force. Phillip suffered cuts and asphalt burns from head to toe. Jason’s collar bone was shattered and his leg was severely fractured. Shortly after being released from the hospital, Jason sat down for a session with Lois Gibson:

“I tell the witnesses immediately, ‘Someone tried to kill me for fun, so I understand.’ And they always like hearing that. My attack has turned into a tool to relax my witnesses and help them get justice.”

Police are still looking for two men in connection with the kidnapping and attempted robbery of Jason and Phillip Bomer.

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Watch this case now on Amazon Prime in season eleven with Robert Stack and in season three with Dennis Farina. Also available on YouTube with Dennis Farina. Various seasons available now on Hulu.

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