Tag Archives: WCCO Minnesota

For the archives: Courtroom stories rarely have a happy ending.

Courtroom drawing by Suzanne Forbes working as Rachel Ketchum ca 1993 defense 1The court cases that tv stations hire artists to document are are almost always really sad.

As a courtroom artist, I was present for a lot of trials involving the rape and murder of girl children. In 1993, I worked several.

Courtroom drawing by Suzanne Forbes working as Rachel Ketchum ca 1993 prosecution and defendantThis was one of the big, highly-publicized, month-long ones I worked.

There was a Latine defendant, with learning disabilities and substance abuse problems.

Courtroom drawing by Suzanne Forbes working as Rachel Ketchum ca 1993 defense 2There was a talented, charismatic Latine defense attorney.

He was a favorite to draw with all four of us courtroom artists,

Courtroom drawing by Suzanne Forbes working as Rachel Ketchum ca 1993 defendant court recorder judge and prosecutorThere was a prosecutor who decided to bring a case despite the lack of a body, based on DNA evidence.

Then and now, it’s very hard to get a conviction without a body.

Courtroom drawing by Suzanne Forbes working as Rachel Ketchum ca 1992 to 1994 evidenceThis was when DNA evidence was still new enough that expert witnesses testified at every trial where it was used.

They explained DNA sequencing in great detail. Juries fell asleep. Including this jury of middle-aged white women.

Courtroom drawing by Suzanne Forbes working as Rachel Ketchum ca 1993 mother and familyThere was a mother on social support, who was struggling to function.

And there was a little girl who disappeared completely, leaving nothing but a little diluted blood and what could have been the defendant’s semen, in a shower curtain in a storage locker.

Courtroom drawing by Suzanne Forbes working as Rachel Ketchum ca 1993 defense 3The Latine attorney did a tremendous job, and the Latine defendant was released.

But if you were there in the courtroom, it was loss on all sides. At the time we in the press felt it was a miscarriage of justice; now that I understand racism and particularly Minnesota racism more, I don’t know.

The little girl’s body was never found.

Me in 1992, a year before this trial, with my iguana Constance.

I also experienced a lot of personal trauma during this trial. The setting, a suburban town about a half hour drive from my flat in St. Paul, was very uncomfortable for me. I hated the place. I was acutely aware of my otherness, my New York junkie queer outsider position, despite wearing what I called my “passing” clothes.

Plus, there were what my friend and fellow courtroom artist Steve Michaels called “The Ghouls”. Something about this trial brought out the worst I ever saw in the spectators. The courtroom was open to anyone, and seats for press were not reserved.

So we artists had to cluster at the courtroom door, and fight for our seats. We lived in fear of not being able to work that day, and losing our jobs; the Ghouls lived in fear of not getting in to hear about the blood traces of a little girl. (She was four).

One morning an older man I particularly hated, a prurient creep who was there every single day, scuffled with me so violently I spilled my lunch in the doorsill. As I fought free and ran for my seat ahead of him, he yelled, “If you were my daughter for one night — ” I was doing intensive therapy about childhood sexual abuse by my father during these years. Thank the Goddess I had a therapist to tell about that moment.

During this trial I got a kidney infection and worked all day with a fever of 103, in my coat, hat and gloves, with my teeth actually chattering. When the court day was over and I’d handed my drawings to the cameraman to shoot, I went to the nearby ER. Where they couldn’t believe I was on my feet. In retrospect, that might be the viral infection that led to what I am finally accepting is probably ME/CFS.

In retrospect, I probably should not have been a courtroom artist, as a traumatized sexual abuse and rape survivor with PTSD and C-PTSD.

But it is what happened, and I am still glad that I was there to be a sympathetic female face in the audience for every woman and girl child survivor I saw testify.

Until today, no modern media record of these drawings existed – if we had a fire or flood they would just be gone forever.

I didn’t have a camera, and of course there were no camera phones. So until this moment, the only documentation of these drawings that existed was the footage the WCCO-TV cameraperson shot for the night’s news. And the station kept all that footage on BETAMAX tape. 

So, I am incredibly grateful to my Patreon Patrons, whose monthly financial support makes it possible for me to take time to document my art archives.

How I became a courtroom artist.

Drawing a police misconduct trial in Minneapolis.

The case of The Frozen Head.

Courtroom art documenting a Minneapolis police misconduct trial, as Derek Chauvin’s trial begins.

Courtroom drawing by Suzanne Forbes working as Rachel Ketchum summer 1994 Lt Mike SauroMike Sauro.

Lt. Mike Sauro’s 1994 police misconduct civil trial was a big deal in Minneapolis. I was a courtroom artist for the CBS affiliate, WCCO-TV, in the ’90s, and I was there for much of it.

I strongly encourage those are interested in the Minneapolis police department and its history of misconduct and brutality trials to read this report by Human Rights Watch. It details events in Sauro’s tenure as well as other cases brought against the department. Sauro was involved in multiple cases; I only covered the police misconduct civil lawsuit filed by Craig Mische. The drawing of Sauro above is from that.

The jury found the city liable for “maintaining a custom of deliberate indifference to complaints about excessive force in the department.”

Courtroom drawing by Suzanne Forbes working as Rachel Ketchum June 17 1994Above, Craig Mische, seated with his attorney.

Mische was awarded 750K in compensatory and punitive damages for the battering he received. He looked a little like Robert Chambers, which bothered me as he was clearly the victim in this case. I think I captured his emotions well despite it.

I also recommend this recent article in Minnesota Reformer about how Minneapolis has historically protected its cops who are involved in police brutality cases.

I logged thousands of hours in the Hennepin County courthouse, listening to testimony, attorneys and expert witnesses.

Courtroom drawing by Suzanne Forbes working as Rachel Ketchum ca 1992 McKenzie trialThe juries, judges and courtroom officers in the Minneapolis courts were virtually all white, in the ’90s.

It was obviously a terrifying and grossly injust place to be for BIPOC and particularly Black people. Even the stenographers and us four courtroom artists for the tv stations were all white.

Courtroom drawing by Suzanne Forbes working as Rachel Ketchum ca 1992 1993 witness in red attorney with boxI tried to draw the way the atmosphere of white supremacy in the courtroom harmed and othered Black people.

Courtroom drawing by Suzanne Forbes working as Rachel Ketchum ca 1992I was always aware of the “Minnesota Whiteness” in my drawings; I didn’t know enough to do anything except try to represent it, then.

Rachel Ketchum aka Suzanne Forbes courtroom drawing for WCCO TV 1990sI think this drawing of a teenager the state wanted to try as an adult is probably the truest thing I ever made in the courtroom.

I wasn’t supposed to be editorial, or political, but of course I was, where I could be. The reporter I was working with on a given day sometimes asked me to draw particular people, so my editorial powers were limited.

Win or lose, defense attorneys wanted to buy my drawings of them, as did expert witnesses and police forensic specialists and out-of-town Federal prosecutors and NFL players called to the stand in an anti-trust trial. But not Sauro.

I have never been good at concealing dislike, which is probably why Mike Sauro wasn’t interested in buying his drawing!

So I still have it, and was able to find it, at this moment when it is part of the throughline of police brutality in Minneapolis and a cop culture that doesn’t seem to have ever changed. But maybe it’s time, and maybe there can be a reckoning, finally.

I desperately hope there will be justice for George Floyd.

Unicorn Riot has very good on-the-ground Minneapolis police coverage and is where I will be following the events in the Twin Cities over the next weeks.

I’ll try and get some more of these courtroom drawings photographed soon. I didn’t have a camera in those days, and of course there were no camera phones. So until this moment, the only documentation of these drawings that existed was the footage the WCCO-TV cameraperson shot for the night’s news. And the station kept all that footage on BETAMAX tape.

I am incredibly grateful to my Patreon Patrons, whose monthly financial support makes it possible for me to take time to document my art archives.

Until today, no modern media record of these drawings existed – if we had a fire or flood they would just be gone forever.