WASHINGTON -- It's a crime-fighting tool that often kept secret, but hypnosis has been used in high profile cases in the D.C. area and across the country.

News4's Julie Carey recently found out how it works, and where it has provided breakthroughs.

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Forensic Hypnosis

It's called "forensic" or "investigative" hypnosis. It is hypnosis used to spur the memory of a crime victim or witness.

It involves a relaxation of the mind that permits an intense inner focus and an ability to reach into the subconscious. And sometimes it's the key to an arrest.

The public became familiar with the composite sketches produced for the D.C. serial arson case.

But, behind the scenes, in the hands of hundreds of investigators, there was another sketch.

It was produced by a man using forensic hypnosis with several witnesses. It was about to be released to the public when suspect Thomas Sweat was arrested.

"We gained additional investigative information, probably a couple of pages worth of the getaway vehicle and the physical makeup of the potential suspect," said senior special agent John Kilnapp of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.

Kilnapp is rare commodity. He's a sketch artist who's also trained in forensic hypnosis.

"It's just a state of relaxation. We try to tear down walls to a victim," Kilnapp said.

In Illinois, a woman who was the victim of a serial rapist helped create a composite sketch while hypnotized. Its publication led to an arrest.

Kilnapp said with crime victims, hypnosis may be the only way to recover the details of traumatic events they blocked out.

"I have to get them through the crime. I'll try to fast forward them through the bad part. I want them to remember the face. Sometimes they didn't see a face. I'll get them to remember a license plate number," Kilnapp said.

Virginia State Police have also turned to hypnosis. In 1996, after the body of Alicia Showwalter Reynolds was discovered, it was learned that dozens of women had been confronted by the so-called Route 29 stalker.

At least four women were hypnotized in hopes of identifying a suspect.

One woman said she even remembered a license plate number. In August she'll testify at the trial of Darrell Rice, the man investigators believe preyed on the women.

And hypnosis has produced breakthroughs in cases outside our area. Forensic hypnosis was put on the map in 1976 in California when a school bus driver and 27 students were kidnapped and buried alive.

The driver escaped, underwent hypnosis, and remembered the license plate number of the abductors' van.

Often though, forensic hypnosis is used as a last resort. That was the case in a 1981 session Carey was shown.

A year before, Sharon Dobbins Coleman had been involved in a head-on crash in Northwest Washington. Both drivers were so badly hurt they couldn't remember what happened.

So Coleman's attorney decided to try hypnosis. She recently reviewed the session and recalled her initial reaction.

"I thought he was out of his mind. It only happens on TV. It doesn't happen in real life and it's not going to happen with me," Dobbins Coleman said.

Dr. Mel Gravitz, a recognized expert, did the hypnosis. Instructing Coleman to view the accident as if it were on tv, she eventually recovered new information.

"The white car comes across the yellow line, hits me from the front part of the car on the left hand side," Coleman said in the recording.

Coleman also remembered most of the license plate number. In court, in a civil case, the jury believed Coleman's hypnotically refreshed testimony and ruled the other driver was at fault.

"Without my client's refreshed memory -- without my client being able to testify about what happened -- there would have been no case," Coleman's attorney, Michael Abelson, explained.