CRIME VICTIM BECOMES GUINNESS BOOK OF RECORDS CELEBRATED FORENSIC 
ARTIST AND NOW REVEALS HER MOST RIVETING TRUE CRIME CASES

	
	“The more horrible the crime, the more vivid the memory,” 
says Lois Gibson, who has coaxed from the subconscious, buried 
memories of traumatized crime victims fragments of details—the 
shape of the nose, the cut of the hair, the prominence of the 
jaw—that allow her to painstakingly draw the eerily accurate 
portraits leading to the capture of vicious criminals in almost 
one thousand cases.  But for Gibson, a twenty-two-year veteran 
with the Houston Police Department and hailed as the most successful 
forensic artist in history by the Guinness Book of World Records, 
it all began in a very personal way.
	Pretty and outgoing, twenty-one-year-old Gibson was living 
in Los Angeles when she answered a knock on her door, thinking it 
was a neighbor.  It wasn’t.  A man forced his way into her apartment, 
choking, beating and, ultimately, raping her.  She blacked out 
repeatedly; nevertheless, the image of his face was seared into her 
brain.  Until the day she saw the man being led out of his house in 
handcuffs by police, Gibson suffered.  Gaining justice and peace of 
mind at last, she made a vow to use her artistic talent and the power 
she held in her hands—pencil and sketch pad—to help other anguished 
crime victims gain it, too.
	FACES OF EVIL: MURDERERS, KIDNAPPERS, RAPISTS AND THE FORENSIC 
ARTIST WHO PUTS THEM BEHIND BARS, by Lois Gibson and Deanie Francis Mills 
(New Horizon Press, January, 2005) is Lois’s compelling story of how she 
became a celebrated forensic artist working with the FBI, U.S. Marshal’s 
Service and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, as well as the Houston 
police, interwoven with chilling tales of twelve of her most suspense-filled 
cases.  She takes the reader into the gritty world of forensic police 
work, dogged detectives and frightened, tormented victims of crime.
	Among the riveting cases of which Gibson tells are the heartrending, 
inspiring case of a nine-year-old girl who was attacked and beaten by the 
man who raped and murdered her mother, yet survived and who was able, with 
the forensic artist’s gentle, perceptive prodding, to remember details about 
the perpetrator.  The rapist was caught later that day, using Gibson’s 
portrait, and now sits on death row.  Another case involved Gibson extracting 
a profile from a witness who caught only a fleeting glimpse of a rapist who 
brutally attacked a blind, pregnant woman. Gibson’s insight and skilled 
artistry helped translate the reluctant witness’s description into a life-like 
image.  Her work with a hero cop, gravely wounded and in ICU, who—though 
drifting in and out of consciousness after being shot in the back and the 
face and dragged under a car—gave Gibson enough information to create a 
sketch that police used to catch his assailant, an escaped convict.  Working 
with television’s Unsolved Mysteries, Gibson’s on-the-mark portrait reunited 
a family after a thirty-year separation.
	Part therapist, part mind reader, all artist, Gibson puts a human 
face on the hunger for justice and the inspiring role she shows victims 
they can undertake.  A fascinating true-crime book like no other, FACES OF EVIL 
combines a look into the dark world of crime scenes and forensic detection with 
Lois Gibson’s deeply personal and passionate story of using her talents and 
insights to rid the world of evildoers.

About the Authors

Lois Gibson, a twenty-two year veteran forensic artist with the Houston Police 
Department, also works with the FBI, the U.S. Marshal’s Service and other 
investigative organizations.  The holder of the Guinness World Record Certificate 
in Forensic Art, she holds a B.A. in Fine Arts from the University of Texas, 
and teaches at Northwestern University.  Recently profiled in People, 
Oprah Winfrey’s “O” Magazine, Reader’s Digest, Dateline NBC and Unsolved Mysteries, 
and she is a regular consultant on America’s Most Wanted.  Gibson resides in 
Houston, Texas, with her family.

Deanie Francis Mills is a widely published author of fiction and nonfiction, 
whose work appears in Redbook, Good Housekeeping and Parents magazines.  She is 
the author of the thrillers, Torch, Tightrope, Losers Weepers, and Ordeal.  She 
lives in Hermleigh, Texas, with her family.


FACES OF EVIL
MURDERERS, RAPISTS AND THE FORENSIC ARTIST
WHO PUTS THEM BEHIND BARS
By Lois Gibson and Deanie Francis Mills
New Horizon Press
January 2005
$24.95 Hardcover
ISBN: 0-88282-258-6