witness or a newly discovered piece of evidence, detectives went back through the original material.
That meant reviewing old reports.
Reexamining witness statements.
Checking names.
Looking at photographs.
And comparing information that had been collected in 1975 with information generated during the decades that followed.
The approach produced something remarkable.
Detectives rediscovered the old composite sketch of the young man described by the witness.
Then they found Welch’s name in the original investigative records.
They looked for photographs of him.
One photograph, taken after a later arrest, bore a striking resemblance to the decades-old sketch.
The young man in the photograph appeared to match the physical description given by the witness.
The long hair.
The age.
The facial characteristics.
The general build.
Suddenly, a clue that had been sitting in the police files since the 1970s had a name attached to it.
A photograph and a forgotten sketch became the
