Widely Mocked ‘Cartoonish’ Sketch Helps Lancaster Police Identify Theft Suspect

Police sketches are often considered to be works of art in their own right, however, they might go utterly wrong sometimes. But what if the job is done despite it being distinctively "less impressive?"

An amateur sketch, despite being a ridiculously bad hand-drawn portrait that police said might have appeared "cartoonish" led to authorities in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, successfully identifying a suspect accused of taking cash from a business and then fleeing the scene, reports said Thursday.

Police in Lancaster have successfully identified a suspected thief and then issued a warrant for his arrest after a witness provided a hand-drawn sketch of what he looked like. The Lancaster police department published a description of the suspect with the picture Tuesday, who is alleged to have posed as an employee of a stand at the Central Market Mall, only to rob a stall and escape with an undisclosed amount of cash, Lancaster Online reported.

"We released all of those details together in our police log in the hope that someone recognizes the suspect," the police department said in a Facebook post.

"This was not done in jest."

Police have now charged homeless 44-year-old Hung Phuoc Nguyen with two counts of theft by unlawful taking and are still in search of him in order to take him into custody.

"While the sketch provided by the witness may have appeared amateurish and cartoonish, it, along with the distinctive physical descriptors, jogged the memory of at least one investigator to provide a potential suspect name," Lancaster Bureau of Police officials said in a Crime Watch blog post Wednesday.

"The witness positively identified Hung Phuoc Nguyen as the suspect that impersonated the standholder and took the money at Central Market," the blog post read.

The sketch quickly went viral online and was widely mocked for its lack of detail.

When the police report had been initially made on Jan. 30, the witness that reportedly drew the sketch also had given a brief description of the suspect to the authorities, describing him as between 30 to 40 years-old, 5'4" tall, of slight build and likely of South American or Asian descent.

"The suspect was further described as having straight, black hair that covered his ears and that he had wide-set cheekbones and a pointed chin," the Crime Watch blog added.

The sketch of the suspect, along with a description of what he allegedly did, was finally made public on Feb.6 as they have been asking for help in order to identify him and take him into custody.

All the information the authorities managed to gather about the suspect and the theft made them believe that the suspect might be Nguyen, leading them to publish his mugshot in a photo line-up.

Following which, the photo line-up was shown to the witness, who made the sketch and the police identified Nguyen as the suspect. Police are currently trying to locate Nguyen.

Any person with any kind of information regarding the suspect’s whereabouts is asked to call Lancaster police at 717-735-3300 or Lancaster City-County Crime Stoppers at 800-322-1913. People can also submit tips anonymously by texting LANCS and a message to 847411.