ROCKVILLE, MD-- It's somewhere between science and science fiction.
Nearly a quarter of a century after a series of rapes and murders near the Twinbrook Metro Station, a Virginia Tech company has created two composite snapshots of the suspect.
Using DNA collected at two of the crime scenes, Parabon NanoLabs of Reston, Va., developed detailed pictures of a white man with blue eyes, brown or graying hair, and a prominent, pointed chin.
Parabon claims its "phenotyping" service can predict an unknown person's ancestry, eye, hair and skin color, and the shape of his phase.
It cannot determine a person's age, so the company supplied police with two sketches, one older and one younger. It also cannot determine how much someone weighs, or if his or her appearance was changed by smoking, drinking, or other environmental factors.
But police hope the sketches will look familiar to someone. They're urging people to call if they think they recognize the face so they can determine if there is any chance he's the rapist and killer.
The last known attack by the Twinbrook rapist was Oct. 3, 1994. Police suspect he followed Le Bich-Thuy home from the Metro around 10 p.m., and attacked her at her front door almost a mile away. He dragged the research biologist into the bushes behind her home, raped her and left her for dead. Her body was not discovered for several days.
