The world is filled with police and paramilitary vehicles that are unbelievably fast, incredibly durable, or just straight-up weird. Among the vehicles listed are world record-holders, amphibious conveyances, and other assorted automobiles that you have to see to believe. However, as weird as some of them are, they could be the future of law enforcement and public security.

To solve the problems that our law enforcement agencies face on a daily basis, the originators of the following vehicles have come up with some innovative ideas (although some might be rather odd). This list will take you throughout the world because this much peculiarity can’t be found in just one country, let alone one continent.

10 Hoverbike

Dubai is home to some of the most exotic police vehicles in the world, but none quite exotic as police-operated hoverbikes. That’s right, by 2020, Dubai police are expected to be patrolling the streets with these eVTOLs (electric vertical takeoff and landing vehicles) produced by Hoversurf, a one-of-a-kind business whose goal is to solve the transportation problems faced by the world.

Hoversurf’s eVTOL can hover 5 meters (16 ft) off the ground and travel at a top speed of 100 kilometers per hour (60 mph).^[1] These vehicles can fly for ten to 25 minutes with a pilot and for up to 40 minutes in “drone mode,” with no driver. Hoversurf also produces a hovercraft capable of carrying cargo and, in the law enforcement field, potentially convicts or other detainees. As advanced as this may all seem, Dubai isn’t the only one looking toward the future. Uber is working with NASA, the US Army, and aircraft companies to establish a flying vehicle network.

9 Kalashnikov Shchit

Kalashnikov has created a vehicle that is capable of dispersing crowds and protecting officers at the same time. The Shchit, or “Shield,” is quite literally a wall on wheels, featuring a 7-meter (24 ft) retractable wall capable of protecting 38 officers. In this case, “retractable” means that the wall has the ability to reduce its width to fit down narrow streets. Not only is the wall retractable, but it also has a water cannon, small holes for riot police to fire projectiles through, and a camera on the top that allows for vision from the driver cabin and potentially remote piloting.^[2]

Kalashnikov’s plans don’t stop there. According to their CEO: “In addition to the ‘Shield’ complex, we are also working to introduce new design solutions for wheeled armored vehicles on the market both for the domestic market and for export supplies.” There isn’t a set date as to when we can expect to see this hit the streets, but when it does, it will be a sight to see.

8 Tennessee Highway Patrol Trucks

The highways of Tennessee are rampant with drunk drivers, people texting while driving, and unbuckled seat belts. To catch offenders in the act, the Tennessee Highway Patrol has employed the unorthodox method of using officers in unmarked semitrucks.

The force tasked with driving these unmarked vehicles consists of 97 officers who have a commercial driver’s license, which allows them to operate the 18-wheelers on the open road.^[3] Don’t worry, though: You won’t be pulled over by a semi, as the officers only radio the offender’s vehicle description in for another policeman in a patrol vehicle to take care of. So, next time you’re tempted to break the law, be sure to check your mirrors for any officers in trucks.

7 Police Tractor

Across the pond, the UK is taking things a little slower, or rather a lot slower. With a top speed of 40 kilometers per hour (25 mph), please welcome a John Deere tractor. Specifically, it’s a John Deere 6630 that weighs 5 tons and costs around £50,000, hardly a pursuit vehicle. With its top speed in mind, its day-to-day functions would be rather passive, but should the need arise during severe flooding, it could be rather useful.

The main use of the tractor was for the Lincolnshire Police to show the initiative they were taking to put a stop to agricultural crime back in 2010.^[4] When a tractor is stolen, the impact on the livelihood of the owner is immense. The hope was that the police tractor would encourage farmers to tag their tractors to prevent loss of property.

6 Bugatti Veyron

For the opposite end of the speed spectrum, we go back to Dubai to check out the world’s fastest police vehicle, their Bugatti Veyron. With a top speed of 407 kilometers per hour (253 mph) and a price tag of $1.7 million, this is definitely the flagship of the Dubai police force. As verified by Guinness World Records, Dubai now possesses the world’s fastest police vehicle in service. The previous record-holder was an Italian police force who set it with their Lamborghini Gallardo at 370 kilometers per hour (230 mph).

The Veyron isn’t the only supercar to join the ranks of the force; it’s merely one of the 14 exotic cars that Dubai is using to break down the wall between the police and the public.^[5] Even though it has the capability to hit amazing speeds, it isn’t used as a pursuit vehicle. In fact, all it does is “patrol” tourist areas as a marketing tool.

5 Gibbs Quadski

If hoverbikes and the world’s fastest police vehicle weren’t enough for you, then look no further than Dubai’s very own amphibious ATV. Produced by Gibbs, the Quadski can transform into its aquatic configuration in just five seconds and can reach a top speed of 72 kilometers per hour (45 mph), or 38.9 knots, on both land and water.^[6] Under the hood, you can expect to find a BMW engine that has dual cooling and is capable of producing 140 horsepower.

For the base model, you can expect to pay $40,000, which is a rather modest price considering that Dubai has a Bugatti in its ranks. A two-seat version, the Quadski XL, is also available. Even though the Quadski can be outrun by other boats, the Dubai police have their own fleet of boats that can reach 144 kilometers per hour (90 mph) to back it up.

4 Electric Patrol Vehicle

The Armored Spherical Cabin Electric Patrol Vehicle, manufactured by Zhijing Qingyuan, isn’t built for its looks but rather its protection capabilities. With Level-A armor (a standard set by the Chinese ministry of public security), this patrol car can withstand most pistol bullets. In addition to the bulletproof ride, it also allows for a 360-degree view of the surrounding environment. The peculiar patrol car also took a page out of Alfa Romeo’s book by using scissor doors.

Not only is the vehicle capable of withstanding gunfire to an extent, but it is also environmentally friendly, as it runs on an electric motor. It is capable of reaching 80 kilometers per hour (50 mph). As of a month after its unveiling in October 2014, no police forces had bought any of these odd-looking vehicles, though several were showing interest.

3 Caparo T1

Unlike the tractor from earlier, this British police vehicle is capable of hitting speeds well over 40 kilometers per hour (25 mph). In 2015, a police Caparo T1 was unveiled in Birmingham. Weighing less than 500 kilograms (1,100 lb) this car looks like a Formula 1 racer and can go nearly as fast, with a top speed of more than 320 kilometers per hour (200 mph).^[8]

Although it is more than capable of reaching high speeds, there were no plans to actually use it in day-to-day law enforcement operations, except in the most extreme crimes such as being a big meanie on Facebook or Twitter. Generally, it was to be showcased around the UK.

2 Pedal Car

When you think of a police car, you probably think of a vehicle powered by a monster V8. The Hampshire Constabulary went in the opposite direction in 2010. In fact, they eliminated the whole engine aspect from their patrol car by using pedals rather than cylinders. With a max speed of 32 kilometers per hour (20 mph), this man-powered patrol car was built by an officer and students at Ringwood Comprehensive School and took an impressive 40 hours to complete.^[9]

The pedal car’s purpose was to combat antisocial behavior by breaking down barriers between the police and the youth of the UK. Admittedly, even if Fred Flintstone was in this car, just about anything could outrun it, but it’s not about actually apprehending anyone. It’s about keeping the youth focused on productive things rather than antisocial behavior. Because of the pedal car’s blistering top speed, it was entered in that year’s British Pedal Car Grand Prix.

1 Lenco BearCat G3

Every year, police officers in the US die during shoot-outs, arrests, and ambushes. Normal police cruisers just aren’t cutting it. That’s where the 8-ton Lenco BearCat G3 comes in, with a maximum capacity of ten officers and the ability to withstand .50-caliber bullets.^[10] Taking its chassis from a Ford F-550, the BearCat can reach speeds of 130 kilometers per hour (80 mph), act as a battering ram, and, should the need arise, survive a chemical weapons attack. It also features a winch.

The BearCat isn’t all talk. In Tyler, Texas, in October 2010, a gunman unloaded his AK-47’s magazine at the police force’s brand-new BearCat, and not a single officer was harmed. The BearCat is an essential tool that is being deployed across all 50 states. Not only is it good on paper, but it also provides a psychological edge in a shoot-out or a pursuit simply due to its size. This monster SWAT vehicle crushes the tractor in weight and dominates the spherical pistol-proof car in its ability to withstand gunfire. The facts prove that the BearCat is indispensable for every SWAT team in the United States.

Squirrels make cute cartoons and plush dolls. However, the real rodents glow pink, delay flights and get arrested. They gather mysteries like nuts; squirrel breeders are succumbing to a new virus and there was that purple creature nobody could explain. A dead squirrel was once purchased as art and the Prince of Wales wants to fight them with a sandwich spread.

10 The Home Wrecker

In 2014, a magistrate woke up to noises in her home in Hartlepool.^[1] Since the alarm was also screaming, the 64-year-old Margaret Bousfield assumed the worst. Instead of a burglar, she found a squirrel. It was covered in soot, which suggested the critter had entered the house through the chimney. However, the squirrel was desperate to leave. If the living room’s damage was anything to go by, it had been trying to escape for hours. By the time Margaret woke up, the creature had demolished sofas, carpets, curtains, and the window frames. She called a neighbor who opened a window and the squirrel made a speedy exit. The carpets and one sofa had to be replaced. The total damage, all else included, racked up a bill of over £7,000. It was a dark day for the insurance company (who paid).

9 They Glean Safety Levels From Birds

Birds tend to go wild when they see a predator.^[2] Other prey species, like squirrels, have learned to hide when bird calls get uptight, even when they themselves do not know where the danger is coming from. This is old news. In 2019, researchers wondered if things went the other way. Do squirrels rely on birds to tell them when it is safe to come out again? To find out, scientists cycled through parks in Ohio until they found the perfect test subjects. A bunch of eastern gray squirrels. Around 54 were chosen to listen to recordings of a red-tailed hawk, a predator that likes squirrel pie. After the hawk cries, the rodents were exposed to either background sounds or songbirds engaged in casual chatter. The latter is very different from “all clear” calls, which were left out of the study. Once the audio part was over, each squirrel’s body language was studied for three minutes. Things indeed went the other way. The squirrels that heard bird chatter after the hawk came out of hiding sooner.

8 New York Squirrels Are Tough

In 2014, a study looked at how urban squirrels adapted to city life.^[3] Their rural cousins scurry for safety whenever a person approaches. To them, humans are predators. The study found that city squirrels viewed people differently. In fact, they behaved like New Yorkers. People living in a city with 8 million others are experts on how to avoid contact, even in crowded areas like the sidewalk or subway. The squirrels being studied were Eastern grays and lived in Manhattan’s busy Lower East Side. Just like the city’s people, the squirrels ignored most things on two legs. It would appear that they no longer view humans as true predators. While the rodents have lost most of their fear and even allow people close to them, the study found that they did not like being stared at. That and other small threatening cues made them run away. To live fearlessly alongside humans but knowing when to avoid them is crucial for any species trying to survive in an urban setting. The New York squirrels aced it.

7 The Squirrel Breeder Deaths

Brain inflammation (encephalitis) happen for a variety of reasons.^[4] However, when three men died of acute encephalitis, none of the usual suspects were detected. The victims had something in common. They were all from Germany and bred an exotic species of squirrel native to Latin America. Although they lived in different areas, the men would meet to talk and trade the variegated squirrels (Sciurus variegatoides). The hobby turned deadly. Between 2011 and 2013, the breeders all showed symptoms of brain inflammation, slipped into a coma and died. Confused by the lack of the usual causes, doctors did not find out about the squirrels until further tests found a virus that belonged to the borna cluster of pathogens, a group known to exist in mammals, and for its habit of jumping between species. It was only a matter of time before the patients’ hobby surfaced and the squirrels were tested. One tested positive for VSBV-1, the virus found in the men’s brains. Nobody knows where the virus comes from nor how the animal and men were infected.

6 Nutella Birth Control

It sounds like a bad joke.^[5] Hey, did you hear that Prince Charles wants to feed squirrels Nutella as a contraceptive? True story. The royal is such a fan of the British Isles’ red squirrel, he had admitted to wanting one as a pet. However, the creature is facing its doom in another squirrel species. Around 140 years ago, the Eastern Gray from North America found its way to the Isles. They proved to be fierce competition for the reds but also arrived with a disease (Parapoxvirus). The pox reduced the native squirrels to a mere 135,000 animals. To give the red population a helping hand, the Prince of Wales hosted a meeting between squirrel experts and officially backed a strange plan in 2017. The Animal and Plant Health Agency suggested the use of traps only gray squirrels could enter. Once inside, the critters will be treated to globs of Nutella. The sandwich spread will contain GonaCon, a contraceptive that dropped fertility in rats by 90 percent.

5 A Support Squirrel Delayed A Flight

Emotional support animals can serve a great purpose.^[6] They can bring comfort and companionship to people suffering from emotional or physical issues. When unconventional species make the cut, things get weird. Early in 2018, a “support peacock” and his owner were not allowed to board an airplane. Later the same year, a similar scenario happened but this time the animal was already onboard. The squirrel was with its owner who had booked a flight from Orlando to Cleveland. When the staff found out about the rodent, the woman was asked to leave the plane. She refused. The cops arrived. Things got so hairy that the rest of the passengers had to disembark and stay outside for two hours. The owner argued that she had told Frontier Airlines beforehand about bringing a support animal. However, apparently she never mentioned it was a squirrel and rodents are not allowed on Frontier’s planes. In the end, both the woman and her squirrel lost and were escorted by the police off the aircraft.

4 Police Took A Squirrel Into Custody

In 2018, emergency services in Germany received a call.^[7] A man in Karlsruhe said he needed help because a baby squirrel was chasing him with great interest down the street. He was not kidding. The police arrived and found the caller still unable to shake off the rodent’s hot pursuit. The exhausted squirrel suddenly curled up and went to sleep. The panicked man went unnamed for obvious reasons but the officers decided to call the snoozing baby Karl-Friedrich. After they rescued the victim, the squirrel was taken into custody to become a police mascot before being taken to an animal rescue center. The baby squirrel was not psychotic or a little on the weird side. A police spokeswoman explained that when they become separated from their mothers, young squirrels could become fixated on a person as a substitute parent. In fact, when the cops took Karl-Friedrich to the shelter, the center had already received two other baby squirrels on the same day – and they also tried to adopt unwilling human parents.

3 Purple Pete

Squirrel experts know a lot about their favorite rodent.^[8] However, nobody could explain Pete. In 2008, this squirrel attended the Meoncross School in Stubbington. Under normal circumstances, he might have gone unnoticed but it is difficult not to see a bright purple animal. Dubbed Pete by staff and pupils, nobody could explain why the normally gray animal looked that way, nor the even distribution of the color. Blotches would have suggested the squirrel encountered paint or dye, but it was like Pete was born purple. As stumped as they were, the experts were sure of one thing. He was not a mutant and there was nothing natural about it. Squirrels nibble on anything, even non-organic stuff. Keeping this in mind, Pete liked to visit an old building near the school where old computer printers were stored. He might have gnawed on a purple cartridge and groomed the ink through his fur. However, it must have been the most thorough grooming in history to even out the color so well.

2 Dead Art

Maurizio Cattelan is an Italian artist with a flair for controversial humor.^[9] Among his most famous work is a piece depicting a meteor hitting the Pope. In 2012, Whitechapel Gallery hosted a Cattelan exhibition. The center-stage feature, for some reason, showed a dead squirrel that may or may not have committed suicide. The stuffed creature was slumped over a table with a tiny pistol on the floor, surrounded by a dirty kitchen and signs of drinking – as if he had long since stopped trying to live. The work’s name was Bidibidobidiboo, the spell used by the Fairy Godmother to make Cinderella look great and snag a prince. The title was ironic, suggesting that not even magic could transform this squirrel’s bad life. If you think nobody would buy a dead rodent at a tiny Formica table, think again. The work was purchased 6 years prior to the exhibition and was on loan from its owner, Patrizia Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, an avid Cattelan collector.

1 Flying Squirrels Glow Pink

In 2019, a professor shone an ultraviolet torch at a squirrel in Wisconsin.^[10] The flying squirrel glided away and its color was startling. Under the ultraviolet light, the animal’s fur glowed fluorescent pink. As weird as that was, the moment was significant. Fluorescence is well-known in other corners of the animal kingdom. Reptiles, birds, and arachnids all have species that shimmer. In mammals, however, only opossums from the Didelphidae family have this trait. To discover whether the squirrel was a fluke, researchers descended upon the Field Museum in Chicago and the Science Museum of Minnesota. They pointed ultraviolet light at 135 specimens belonging to different species. Only three types of flying squirrels from the Glaucomys genus turned pink. A clue to the unusual fur could be a characteristic they share with opossums. Both are nocturnal. Non-flying squirrels tend to be day creatures. It is plausible that the glow helps the Glaucomys clan to deal with their low-light environment, including camouflage, communication, and navigation.

One of the most interesting tools for solving crimes is the police sketch: an artistic recreation of a subject based on the memory of a witness or the remains of a victim. These sketches tend to be pretty unsuccessful for various reasons, including the unreliability of the witness’s memory and the artist’s ability.

Due to this, it is a common tactic for forensic artists to focus on exaggerating defining features of an individual to differentiate and jog the memories of potential informants. The result is often a sketch or composite that looks cartoonishly inhuman or nightmarishly alien. This is a list of 10 of those wild police sketches and their equally weird backstories. Be warned, while some of these sketches are absolutely hilarious, there is a fair share of nightmare fuel as well.

10 The Girl in the Suitcase

In 2014, two suitcases were found, each containing the body of a woman. The first was quickly identified as Laura Simonson, but the second required more work. Police released a sketch of the woman, but her body was so badly decomposed that they decided to really lean into accentuating certain features to extremely inhuman proportions. This is a common tactic utilized by sketch artists because it helps differentiate the subject from the hundreds of other human faces people see daily. It also helps jog people’s memories by highlighting and magnifying the subject’s most defining features. The result, in this case, is an artist recreation that looks like a terrifying alien-chipmunk hybrid.

Despite this, a family saw the sketch and noted that the prominent buck teeth, small lower teeth, high cheekbones, and small eyes bore a striking resemblance to a loved one they hadn’t heard from in a while. With that lead, authorities were able to compare dental records and confirm the identity of Jenny Gamez.

Jenny was killed and stashed away by a former police officer after they met online. The night she was killed was their first date. Thanks to the sketch artist who decided to enhance the features of Jenny’s face to extreme levels, law enforcement was able to identify her quickly. This is a good reminder that while it may seem disrespectful to release a sketch that ridiculous, there’s a reason for doing so.^[1]

9 Deandre Charles

Also in 2014, a Rabbi named John Raskins was visiting Miami when he was shot and killed. A witness to the crime provided their own sketch of the suspect to the police. Despite it looking like a character from Bob’s Burgers, police used the sketch to quickly find their suspect: 14-year-old Deandre Charles.

Police released a mugshot of the suspect along with the sketch they used to catch him. While the sketch was thoroughly mocked, it does sort of look like him. Like, you know those apps where you can turn yourself into a Simpsons or South Park character? It’s kind of like that.

Another crime solved by a sketch… or was it? The problem with this case is that law enforcement didn’t use the sketch as a tool to form a lead. Instead, they treated the sketch as proof in and of itself. Deandre Charles was investigated and on trial for three years before DNA evidence exonerated him.

Could you imagine being charged with murder because someone made a goofy sketch that kind of, sort of resembled you? Deandre was justifiably upset and is now suing the authorities on allegations that prosecutors had the DNA evidence to exonerate him but still pursued a guilty verdict. To Charles’s credit, he has channeled his anger into a musical career as Papito El Franklins. He’s actually pretty talented.^[2]

8 Horrible Drawing, Great Results

Jocelyn Park was visiting one of her favorite stands at the Central Market in Lancaster, PA, when she noticed an unfamiliar man standing behind the booth holding a wad of cash. After failing to subdue the man, Jocelyn contacted the police, but before she did, she thought she should jot down a description of the man while it was still fresh in her memory. That is when the graphic designer with two art degrees decided to do one better and draw the suspect. The quick sketch was… simple. The sketch quickly went viral, with people mocking it relentlessly online and newscasters stifling laughter any time it was revealed.

Jocelyn noted that she was hurt by the criticisms, but she was unwavering in her confidence that the suspect would be caught based on her artistic rendition, no matter how amateur it appeared. Sure enough, an officer saw the sketch and thought it looked like someone they knew. The officer then produced a photo lineup, and Jocelyn pointed out the same suspect. About a week after Park’s drawing, Hung Phuoc Nguyen was arrested.

After her highly ridiculed drawing resulted in an arrest, the public’s perception began to change. Many began to admit that there was a strong resemblance between Jocelyn’s sketch and the perpetrator. Jocelyn was vindicated. Nowadays, Jocelyn has started a side hobby where you can email her a photo of yourself at [email protected], and she will make a quick sketch of you. While the last story showed how dangerous a simple sketch by a witness can be if treated as evidence, this story shows the other edge of the sword.^[3]

7 The Crimes of Lettuce Head

To properly describe this absurd recreation, we first need to discuss the art of E-FITs. An E-FIT, short for electronic facial identification technique, is a computer-generated facial composite based on descriptions from a witness. People have a hard time describing facial features, but they instantly recognize a face when they see it, and that is exactly what an E-FIT attempts to do. Witnesses describe certain aspects of an individual. The computer will piece together these features and provide witnesses with slight variations of the generated composite for them to choose from until they (theoretically) hone in on the most accurate recreation.

As you can expect, this can lead to some really crazy results, but none wilder than the infamous “lettuce head.” This is an E-FIT created by an elderly victim who had £60 stolen from her handbag. The burglar was described as having “wavy blonde/greying hair,” but that was not what was released to the public. A Hampshire Constabulary spokesperson said they unleashed this new cryptid onto the world because they believed the clarity of the facial features would have made it wrong to withhold the E-FIT. They followed that up with, “We are, though, currently experiencing technical problems with the quality of the hair and are waiting for an upgrade to the system.” No kidding. Surprisingly, lettuce head has not been identified or captured. As one commenter notes, “Maybe he returned to his roots.”^[4]

6 Big Mouth

I know what you’re thinking: another E-FIT malfunction. Not so. This E-FIT was generated exactly as the victim described the perpetrator. In fact, the Warwickshire Police were aware of how ridiculous the E-FIT looked when they released it on Twitter. Going as far as to say that the victim agreed to the quality of the picture. Despite the ridicule and memes (you really should check out the post on Twitter for some comedy gold), the Warwickshire Police posted a follow-up thanking everyone for the exposure they were giving it online.

Apparently, this was a case of a distraction burglary where the suspect pretended to be a worker from a housing company, coerced his way inside the victim’s home, and stole a small sum of cash. I can definitely see why the victim was distracted, and I don’t think it was simply his charm that got him into the home.

Sadly, that seems to be the end of the story for ol’ smiley here. Unfortunate for the victim because she hasn’t received justice from the theft, but maybe it’s good for society because it lets us continue our lives without thinking about a man with a giant mouth attempting to enter our home and steal our money. He’s like the evil tooth fairy… the toothy fairy? I’ll see myself out.^[5]

5 John List Clay Bust

Extra points for this artistic recreation for deviating from the norm. While most artists on this list decided to forego realistic proportions and focus on exaggerating features to ridiculous results, this artist decided to do the opposite and create a hyper-realistic three-dimensional representation of the suspect.

In May 1989, Frank Bender, a forensic artist, appeared on the television show America’s Most Wanted with a life-like clay bust. The clay bust was an age-progressed approximation of a man named John List. List had a familiar story: nice guy, perfect family, lucrative job, perfect life. The only problem was that List got fired from his lucrative job. He pretended to go to work for weeks until the debt started piling up. List decided he wanted a do-over in life, so he shot and killed his wife, children, and mother who lived with them. After that, List went on the run and was successful for 18 years. Then the episode of America’s Most Wanted aired.

Less than two weeks after airing, the FBI went to Virginia and arrested an accountant named Robert Clark. Someone who had seen the John List episode thought Robert Clark looked a lot like the clay bust of John List and called in a tip. Fingerprint evidence confirmed that Robert Clark was John List, and he was convicted in 1990.^[6]

4 Cheryl Bowman

In the morning hours of a Houston day in 1989, individuals searching for aluminum cans stumbled upon the decomposing body of a woman. The woman wore a large amount of jewelry, had very nice teeth, and nicely polished red nails, and that’s about it. There are a lot of things that are unknown about this case, and it is unclear whether any other information regarding this case is based on fact or speculation. One thing that has made this Jane Doe case live on, however, is the unusual sketch of the woman.

The sketch depicts the woman smiling with her hand covering the top half of her face. It makes sense because this pose shows some of the defining characteristics of this woman: her jewelry, painted nails, and teeth. In addition to this, a narrative has developed that the sketch depicts the woman covering the top half of her face because she was decomposed or beaten so badly to the point that there was nothing recognizable. While I cannot find confirmation of this anywhere, it makes sense and adds to the case drama. The woman was later identified as Cheryl Bowman, but little information about how she was identified can be found.

This sketch certainly has a lot of things going for it. The hand covering the face and the cheshire-like smile create a creepy “I know something you don’t know” mystique like some kind of macabre peek-a-boo. Kudos to whoever drew this because not only did it help in getting the victim quickly identified, but it has continued to spark interest among internet sleuths who may someday discover what exactly happened to Cheryl Bowman.^[7]

3 Glenn Edwin Rundles

How about another hilariously rudimentary sketch that makes the suspect look like a cartoon character? Rundles’s sketch was released concerning a robbery at knifepoint. These sketches are released after getting approval from the victim, which is something I think is important to mention since this sketch was developed from two witnesses. This means that two people looked at this sketch and thought, “Yup, that’s him.”

An officer saw the sketch and thought it looked a lot like Rundles, who was identified by the victims. Once again, we see the sketch artist getting the last laugh. In fact, Rundles saw the sketch in the paper and thought it looked so much like him that he attempted to alter a tattoo on his neck to hide his identity. Maybe go for the fake mustache and glasses next time.^[8]

2 Selene Delgado Lopez

As we’ve seen, these police sketches have the ability to sear themselves into one’s mind. Combine that with the viral power of the internet, and a police sketch may be able to imprint itself into the mind of an entire population. In this way, these police sketches can evolve and take on an identity of their own. Such is the case of Selene Delgado Lopez.

Back in the ‘90s and ‘00s, Mexican Channel 5 (Canal 5) would air short segments between their regularly scheduled programming called “Servicio de la comunidad.” Segments would show photos of missing persons while a narrator read a description of the person and their last known whereabouts. A frequent entry on these segments was Selene Delgado Lopez. For years, her grainy photo was featured on Servico de la comunidad, but there were never any updates to her photo or personal information. Something about the photo and the frequency of her appearances struck a chord with people, and Selene became somewhat of an urban legend, with multiple theories swirling about her.

Due to the lack of information regarding Selene, a popular idea emerged that Selene was not a real person but an AI-generated image. A YouTube video surfaced comparing the facial features of Selene’s photo to multiple other photos and sketches from around the world. It appeared that Selene’s facial dimensions matched a certain police sketch extremely well. It was a police sketch of Derrick Todd Lee, the Baton Rouge serial killer.

Derrick Todd Lee tormented the Baton Rouge area in the ‘90s and early ‘00s when he was caught partly due to this sketch. Even after his capture, it’s no wonder that this sketch has continued to live on through the internet. The stark expressionless face, coupled with those wild, wide eyes, really conveys the sentiment of a cold, calculated and violent murderer. I do admit that the comparison of Selene and the sketch make them look eerily similar, but it just feels like a coincidence.

The full story of Selene Delgado Lopez is way too big for the scope of this list, but suffice it to say, it’s a wild ride. One involving a Facebook hoax, creepy videos posted by the official Canal 5 Twitter, and video game mods. All this stemmed from a creepy missing persons alert and an even creepier police sketch unleashed onto the internet.^[9]

1 The Ina Jane Doe

In 1993, two Illinoisan girls discovered a severed head tangled in the bushes of Wayne Fitzgerrell State Park near Ina, Illinois. Authorities determined that the head belonged to someone who had died within the previous two weeks but could not find a match to any local missing persons. As a result, we have what I believe to be the most terrifying police sketch ever.

So, what gives with this drawing? As mentioned before, it is a common strategy for artists to amplify certain characteristics of a person to ridiculous proportions to conjure memories from people who may recognize them. In this case, the Ina Jane Doe had Wryneck Syndrome, a twisting of the neck that causes the head to tilt at an odd angle. That explains the awkward pose. The artist also decided to exaggerate her facial asymmetry, which gives her a somewhat ghoulish appearance.

Unfortunately, the artist’s efforts did not produce any leads for law enforcement, and the case went cold. It took 29 years, but the case was eventually reexamined in 2022, and the Ina Jane Doe was identified as Susan Hope Lund via DNA analysis. It is unclear why this case was chosen for analysis, but it is possible that the notoriety of the police sketch may have drawn interest from the investigators.

It is clear that Susan bears very little resemblance to that famous sketch: her wryneck is not nearly as noticeable, nor is her facial asymmetry. While the resolution of identifying the Ina Jane Doe has been helpful to the family since her kids were led to believe by law enforcement that she abandoned them and didn’t want to be found, there still remains the mystery of her murder. To this day, that police sketch continues to make the rounds on the internet, imprinting itself into the minds of those who see it. Now it can also imprint the story of Susan Hope Lund and possibly help solve her murder.^[10]