The first sketch is not of BG. So that is a mess up. LE basically said it themselves when telling everyone to disregard it.
No. It's not indicative that someone messed up. This is a logic problem. Akin to a Venn diagram type of thing.
Here's an example:
Child goes missing from the street where she was playing. Parents call 911. Word spreads quickly and three witnesses tell the authorities that they saw a child being dragged into a blue Toyota type vehicle. They saw a tall man with dark hair and a beard, drive off with the child. They identify the child with the one who is missing. They are certain.
When asked why they didn't call
911 they say they thought it was a parent-child dispute but how they realize it was the child being abducted.
The authorities issue a sketch based on that information and a description of the vehicle and the man, via an AMBER alert.
A year later a homeowner who had been overseas comes home and starts to hear all about the news of the kid being taken. They realize the description matches themselves. They go to authorities and tell them that their child was playing on the street that day but was not supposed to be outside at that time being so he yelled at her to get in the car. He didn't grab her or get out of the car but he was there and matches the description. His family left for a year-long job in Germany the next day, unaware that his description was published.
The authorities realize the witnesses might have seen this man and not the abductor. They realize that in the intensity of the moment perception can be somewhat skewed so while they only heard the man yell from the car and saw him motion to his kid to get in, that memory became him getting out of the car and physically shoving her inside, once they realized a child was missing.
The authorities realize they may have the wrong description. They go back through all their witness statements. They find an older lady who a year ago said she saw a man she didn't recognize, lurking in the neighborhood that day and she felt odd about him and watched him a bit. He walked around the street slowly a few times. He was short, overweight, blonde hair and no beard or mustache. Before, they made a sketch of who she recalled seeing but they had to discount her in the face of the definitive and detailed witness statements to the actual abduction itself.
The woman starts talking to neighbors about being reinterviewed.
A few months later, another neighbor discovers that the security camera they assured LE when the child was abducted, was broken due to a coincidental windstorm the night the child went missing, actually was not totally broken. Security footage from that day was preserved.
She reviews it. And sees a man walking by kids playing and staring at the kids. He's fairly visible. Short, overweight, blonde. She calls the police.
The authorities enhance the video. They talk to the kids who were playing on the street that day. A couple remember a creepy guy. The authorities work with the kids, the old lady and the video and determine the sketch never released was accurate.
That sketch is now released to the public.
Did authorities "mess up" earlier in this scenario? No. They did exactly what they should have based on the info they had at the time.
That's a made up scenario but it's one of thousands that can explain why certain evidence is published that later is changed.
We've seen this in other cases as well. Like when at first a certain car is published and then they changed what car they're looking for. This is not tv. It looks like hard work by dedicated professionals who do what they have to with what they have. IMO.
