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Those who sought the fictional Michael Myers never saw his face. They only had that lifeless mask. For those of us who have sought his real life incarnation we haven’t even had that. For us the mask was diverse but equally lifeless images on police sketch pads or assembled on standard Identikits. But the lifeless and often morose images were too radically different to create confidence. And indeed none of them came from witnesses who saw the perp in action. They were of “suspicious” men seen in the vicinity of an attack. Therefore we not only didn’t have a single mask to rip off, we may not even have had the right mask.
So what could the hunt for the true Night Predator come down to? Discouragingly for both police and amateur alike— nothing. There is DNA— the genetic fingerprint. But no one can hunt that. Tangibly, there is nothing but a 40 year old MO and patterns that reveal movements and suspicions about profession. Only after suspicion can one go for DNA. But there is no image.
Until recently. Of the 20 or so sketches in the public domain, Sacramento County Sheriffs finally honed it down to a spectrum of 3 for the national news conference in June 2016. These are:
  
They are sufficiently different, and in some cases radically different, that it still proved frustrating. The second one comes from the Maggiore Double Murder. The last one is a sketch based on earlier Identikits. First and foremost it is obvious by the hair it is from an Identikit purporting to be the Ripon Court Shooter. This is that Identikit.
Clearly, the 3rd sketch above has to be based on more than the Ripon Court suspect Identikit. And with the recent Sac Co. Sheriff info dump (February 27, 2018) we can see what it must have been. It seems clear that already 2 years ago the Sarda Way Incident of September 1973 was weighing heavily on detectives. This is that Identikit:
Even though 4 years separates the two Identikits above, the resemblance is remarkable. He was described with sunken cheeks, but heavy cheek lines and bags under the eyes— features from the Sarda Way Identikit that could easily find their way onto the 3rd sketch shown at the press conference.
Moreover, on more than one occasion in proximity to an EAR attack a prowler resembling the Sarda Way attacker was seen and followed a near similar means of accessing the house and backyard.
Could they be of different prowlers with near the same style in prowling? Let’s introduce another sketch below.
Aside from its general similarity to the above Identikits, what is impressive about this sketch is that it is of a suspicious person seen prior to the Summer of 1977 (incident unqualified). We are now talking about a similar looking man seen in proximity to EAR attacks that has a remarkable similarity again to the preceding identikits, especially the oldest one from 1973. It is, however, a sketch and not a rigid identikit, so that the long face is somewhat more normalized here.
In general we are looking at a longish face, casual hair (common at the time), parted to right or middle. Eyes have deep lines under them, with darkened bags to some extent. Thin lips and nose. His cheeks are more sunken, but he has noticeable cheek lines by his mouth. As such he could probably pass for a bit older than he was.
Averaging all the victim and witness accounts of prowlers, EAR is between 5.6 to 5.10, probably dark brown hair, hazel eyes, and has unusual agility. He was probably around 30 in 1977, but may have been younger and able to pass as older.
Like all the others, the sketches above give us a morose mask, but they finally give us a consistent mask. Most importantly, the two Identikits are from eyewitnesses of the perpetrator in action. They are not of a “suspicious person seen in the neighborhood,” this last concept being one of the most elastic there is.
To find the reality behind this old 1970s monster of the night is to see for the first time the real life Michael Myers. Are we looking at his effigy above at least? Is it close enough that we can say we have come close to finally seeing the face of supreme evil, the true Night Stalker?
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