This Very Bad Sketch Somehow Helped Police Identify a Theft Suspect

The drawing led Lancaster Police to issue an arrest warrant.

Police car.
Getty

CRESCO, PA - OCTOBER 31: A Pocono Police car sits on the route to the hangar where Eric Matthew was captured on Thursday night, on October 31, 2014 in Cresco, Pennsylvania. Frein, a suspected cop killer, was taken into custody from a Pennsylvania airport hangar after a seven-week manhunt. (Photo by Kena Betancur/Getty Images)

Police car.

Pennsylvania authorities have issued an arrest warrant for a 44-year-old man who was identified by a hand-drawn sketch—an incredibly bad, but amusing, hand-drawn sketch. Just look for yourself:

We know what you’re thinking: How in the hell?

Though Lancaster officers admit the drawing was “cartoonish,” they claimed it actually helped them identify Hung Phuoc Nguyen as a theft suspect. The man is accused of stealing an undisclosed amount of cash from a farmers market stand on Jan. 30, according to CBS News. A witness provided the sketch to officers, who then shared the image online with a detailed description of the man. At the time, the suspect was believed to be between 30 and 40 years old, either Asian or South American, 5-foot-4 inches tall, with black hair and wide cheekbones. The information, along with the crappy sketch, reportedly led officers to pinpoint Nguyen.

“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 wrote on their Crime Watch page. “That potential suspect information was passed on to Off. [Benjamin] Rothermel. A photo array was prepared and later shown to the witness that provided Off. Rothermel with the description and sketch.”

OK? But still: How in the hell? It’s hard to believe that officers were able to find a man with nothing more than a vague description and, what appears to be, a childlike drawing of a Keebler elf. Yet, here we are.

According to CBS News, officers are now searching for Nguyen, who is facing two counts of theft by unlawful taking. 

Latest in Life