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Length: 44 mins

Josh Clark: Hey, everybody, it’s me, Josh. And for this week’s Saturday’s Select Stuff You Should Know, I’m doing handwriting analysis. It’s pretty awesome. It’s from October, 2013 and I, uh, I just selected this one because I thought it dovetailed nicely with our Secret Service episode this week. So enjoy.

Welcome to you Stuff You Should Know, from howstuffworks.com.

JC: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I’m Josh Clark and there’s Charles W. Chuck Bryant and, uh, this is Stuff You Should Know. Jerry’s over there.

Charles W. Chuck Bryant: That’s right, we’re all here.

JC: Yeah.

CB: We’re at the ready for another, yet another, forensics podcast.

JC: Yes, we are.

CB: I thought we were done.

JC: No, I don’t know that we’re ever gonna be done. And, Chuck, not only are we never going to be finished.

CB: Yeah.

JC: This one, like every other forensics episode we’ve ever done, traces back to Alphonse Bertillon.

CB: Oh, is he the first dude?

JC: He’s the guy. He did fingerprinting.

CB: Uh-huh.

JC: He did, um, like, facial characteristics.

CB: Yeah, the, the…

JC: The mug shots?

CB: Yeah, mug shots and, and, um, what is it called? The facial sketch artist tree, he did that one too.

JC: Uh, police sketches.

CB: Yeah, and crime scene photography, even?

JC: Um…

CB: No.

JC: Maybe so. It’s entirely possible.

CB: But we owe a great debt to that man.

JC: Yeah, he was basically, like, he had his finger on the pulse of, like, forensics.

CB: Yeah.

JC: Like, every sub-discipline of the field of forensics, like, this guy virtually started it.

CB: That’d be a cool movie.

JC: At a Paris police station.

CB: Yeah.

JC: It would be.

CB: You know?

JC: Unless you were doing the research and found out he was kind of a jerk.

CB: Yeah, but who cares?

JC: Well, no, then you’d have to, like, kind of beef his character up and maybe he was, what is he? Like, uh, like he was jilted or something like that.

CB: Sure, yeah.

JC: Does he need, like, an orphan to come into his life.

CB: Yeah, like they did with Gandhi. Remember that movie?

JC: Oh, yeah.

CB: [Laughs] Made him look like a saint.

JC: Wow.

CB: Uh, so I think, at the very least, people, if not, uh, you may not be able to become forensics experts, but at the very least, you can watch all those TV shows now with a better understanding.

JC: [Chuckles] Right.

CB: You know?

JC: Is that what we’re trying to do, to help people better watch TV?

CB: Sure.

JC: Okay. Chuck…

CB: Yes.

JC: Have you ever written anything by hand?

CB: [Chuckles]

JC: You laugh, but think about this, pal.

CB: Yeah?

JC: There is a time that’s coming when there’s not gonna be much need whatsoever for that.

CB: Oh, I know, there is currently a legitimate debate on whether or not to keep teaching cursive handwriting.

JC: Yeah. I think that that debate has been answered and the people who want to keep teaching cursive just haven’t quite accepted their fate yet.

CB: Oh, is the answer no?

JC: Sure.

CB: Yeah.

JC: I mean, I was looking at a, uh, copy books, which we’ll talk about in a second.

CB: Uh-huh.

JC: Um, and apparently, the whole point to teaching penmanship lie in the, in, in an era where, if you have good penmanship, you were, like, that was a part of business.

CB: Right.

JC: Like, you need it to look respectable, put together…

CB: Have good handwriting.

JC: Yeah, like, your, your business transactions were carried out through handwriting.

CB: Yeah.

JC: Typically, and you needed to have good, clean handwriting. It said a lot about your character.

CB: Yeah.

JC: This is also at a time when people were burned to the stake for witchcraft.

CB: True.

JC: Or shortly after. So, you know, maybe don’t put that much stock into it, but there was a point in time, like, handwriting counted. It doesn’t count any longer.

CB: Yeah.

JC: And I, I’m, I’m, not saying, like, I’m, I’m definitely not waving, like, the flag of glory over the, the corpse of cursive writing, right?

CB: [Laughs] Yeah, you are.

JC: I’m not.

CB: You’re doing it right now.

JC: No, I, I don’t mean to, and that’s why I said I’m not doing that, because…

CB: Well, then put that flag down. [Laughs]

JC: I’m… Yeah. I, I, guess what I’m saying is, the writing’s on the wall as it were, uh, I’m not necessarily…

CB: Or is it typed on the wall?

JC: Happy about it. No, was the last thing anyone ever wrote in cursive was that cursive is dead?

CB: Yeah, you know, I, I can say that I don’t write, uh, by hand that much anymore, and, um, when I do now, I get weird with it. I leave out letters and have to go back and put them in.

JC: Same here.

CB: I’ll write out of order.

JC: Yeah.

CB: And even this word, I put C additional; I left out, like, three letters and had to go back and put them in. But I do it really quickly, it’s not like I’m stumped.

JC: Right.

CB: But, um, like, if I was writing cursive, I’d be stumped.

JC: Yeah. I tried to…

CB: I don’t even know how anymore.

JC: I, I’ve tried to write in cursive here or there just to see if I still have it, and I do not.

CB: You lost it.

JC: I don’t think I ever really had the Z. It’s a tough one.

CB: The zed?

JC: Remember the Z?

CB: Yeah, I could write a Z right now. Give me a spray can [Laughs].

JC: Uh, okay.

CB: Uh, but yeah, anyway, I, it, it’s weird, it’s almost like if a dyslexic thing happens now when I write.

JC: You would use a spray… You could spray paint a cursive Z?

CB: I can do that right now.

JC: I think I’d be better at spray painting a cursive Z than writing it.

CB: Yeah. Because it’d be large and…

JC: Yeah.

CB: Yeah.

JC: Um, the point is, is cursive is probably dead.

CB: Yeah.

JC: Writing things down by hand is becoming less and less, um, what is that? I’m sorry, everyone. I don’t mean to interrupt myself, but Chuck has held up one of his pages of notes and there’s some weird writing on the back. What is that?

CB: You don’t know what that is?

JC: No.

CB: My parents’ signatures. Because I was seeing if I could still duplicate them as I could back in high school.

JC: You used to do that?

CB: Sure.

JC: What for? You were a good kid in high school. Why did you need to know your parents’ signatures?

CB: Here’s what I would do. I was a good kid, but I would skip school and class sometimes.

JC: What?

CB: To, like, go fishing with Rad. [Laughs]

JC: Okay.

CB: And, uh, that’s the thing, I was a good… I wasn’t, like, doing drugs or drinking. I would skip school and, like, go fishing. Uh, and then I would write notes then forge my parents’ signature, which is not right, kids.

JC: Yeah.

CB: But, um, I wasn’t like I was off being a vandal or anything, I was just catching some trout.

JC: Catching some trout and beating foxes in the head with a hammer.

CB: [Laughs] No.

JC: Huffing Scotchgard.

CB: But I used to could, uh, really do with my parents’ signatures spot on, and I was very proud of that.

JC: Yeah. So how is it? How does it hold up compared to before? Because I don’t, I don’t have, uh, what’s called an exemplar.

CB: Yeah.

JC: Sample.

CB: [Chuckles] My mom’s little initial signature is still pretty right on…

JC: DMT.

CB: DMB. But my father’s is, um, I used to could do that one a lot better.

JC: That’s a, that’s a fine signature. Can I see it one more time?

CB: Yeah. James Allen Bryant.

JC: That’s a nice one.

CB: Yeah.

JC: Huh.

CB: All right. You’ve never forged your parents’ signature at all?

JC: No, uh, neither one of them. I’m, I may have tried.

CB: Yeah.

JC: I think, I, I remember even practicing, I think.

CB: Uh-huh.

JC: Because my dad’s seems like, just looking at it, it’s highly duplicable, um, but it’s not, really.

CB: Yeah.

JC: Like, you, you can, you can tell the, the I — I want to say the person because I refer to myself in third person a lot — um, was trying to recreate it.

CB: Yeah. Just make a potato stamp and you’re set.

JC: I’ve never tried that one.

CB: [Laughs] Well, you’ve got your signature for life with a potato stamp.

JC: Like you just carve it out?

CB: Yeah, you never did that in craft class? You carve out something in, uh, and press it on ink, in a potato and then press it on ink, and you basically can make your own stamp.

JC: No, it makes sense.

CB: Yeah.

JC: Okay.

CB: Potato stamps.

JC: No, we didn’t make those.

CB: You missed out, buddy.

JC: Um, Chuck…

CB: Yes.

JC: I feel like we’ve kind of covered a lot of, like, points of handwriting analysis.

CB: Yeah, little teasers.

JC: Before we start, too, I think we should point out that what we’re talking about, and I was dismayed to find on the internets that, when you search “handwriting analysis,” what comes up is actually graphology.

CB: Yeah, that’s, that comes up a lot.

JC: Which, if handwriting analysis, forensic handwriting analysis is really struggling, forging ahead to become a science, graphology is quite happy to not be whatsoever. It’s all, um, very unscientific.

CB: Yeah, that’s like, uh, “Can… Let me write down a sentence and you tell me what kind of person I am.”

JC: Exactly. Like, if you write, uh, using small letters, you’re actually afraid of the world and very self-conscious and you want to hide or disappear. Or another example is, if, um, like, the first letters in your first and last name are big.

CB: Yeah, in your signature.

JC: Yeah, you, you crave attention or you think overly of yourself.

CB: Yeah.

JC: Now, none this isn’t founded at all, whatsoever, it’s hokum.

CB: [Chuckles]

JC: Um, handwriting analysis, while still, like I said, struggling to be a science, is, um, much less hokum. It has one fatal flaw that’s possibly not fatal, but it’s the same flaw that, um, fingerprint analysis has.

CB: Subjectivity?

JC: Subjectivity.

CB: Yeah.

JC: That’s right, which we’ll talk about but maybe now is a good time for a message break.

CB: Hey, now we’re back.

JC: Uh, let’s talk about handwriting analysis and handwriting in general, Chuckers.

CB: Okay. Um, well, it’s, it’s “questioned documents,” is the legal term for what they’re analyzing.

JC: Yeah, and it’s not just handwriting, it could be, like, forgeries.

CB: Yeah. Dude, it could be a lot of stuff. These people, um, questioned document examiners, QDEs.

JC: Mm-hmm.

CB: Uh, they examine, uh, typewriting, computer printed documents, photocopies, uh, decipherment of altered, obliterated, or charred documents.

JC: Yeah, I’ll bet that’s a tough one.

CB: Um, examination of inks and papers, uh, erased entries, indented writings, like, you know, you wrote something on a pad and ripped it up.

JC: Yeah, there’s a whole division…

CB: [Laughs]

JC: Of people who just rub pencils on a piece of paper to see what comes up.

CB: Uh, counterfeit currency and examination of commercially printed matter. So they’re kind of all over the place.

JC: Yeah.

CB: But the sexy stuff is, and a lot of time it’s in the private sector, it’s not even for forensics, it’s, “Hey, examine signature on this document.”

JC: Right, like…

CB: “Is it real?”

JC: Did Mickey Mantle sign this baseball?

CB: Yeah, exactly.

JC: Yeah. But what they’re looking for and what the entire field of forensic handwriting analysis is based on is called the Principle of Uniqueness.

CB: Yeah.

JC: Which has been around since at least the 1920s, and is the idea, that everybody has their own brand of handwriting.

CB: Yup.

JC: And that, um, while maybe you make a, a cursive Z in a certain way.

CB: Mm-hmm.

JC: That I might make the same Z in the same way. If you take all of the characteristics that you have and put them together, you form a unique package. Your handwriting is unique in that sense. So the individual weird characteristics might be similar to other people’s weird individual characteristics.

CB: Yeah.

JC: But you can’t put 20 or 30 weird characteristics of handwriting together.

CB: Right.

JC: And compare it to anybody else’s. And so based on that, you should, logically, be able to look at one person’s handwriting and compare it to a sample of another person’s handwriting or the same person’s handwriting and see whether they match or whether they were written by two different people based on the, the number of differences or similarities between the two samples.

CB: Boom.

JC: Yeah, so let’s talk about handwriting.

CB: Yeah, and those are individual characteristics. Um, before that, you have what’s called a, or everyone has an underlying style characteristic, and that is based on the fact that, when you were a little snot nosed kid in school, they gave you what’s called a copy book, which had, I know we all remember this, words on one line and then an empty line.

JC: Yeah.

CB: Where you had to copy it.

JC: Yeah.

CB: And make it look like that. And depending on where you live, and when you live and went to school, uh, you’re gonna have a different copy book. So your underlying style characteristics are gonna be based on this original copy book that you might have some similarities with people, like for me, that grew up in the mid-70s in elementary school in DeKalb County, Georgia.

JC: Right, exactly, because you use the same copy book.

CB: Yeah.

JC: What’s awesome is a handwriting analyst could tell you what copy book you used or where you were from and when based on that, that structural analysis.

CB: Yeah, and I imagine teachers even inform that somewhat, you know?

JC: Mm-hmm.

CB: Individual instruction.

JC: For sure. Yeah, because the teacher is gonna be, like, “That’s not an R,” and, like, smack your knuckles and say, “Try again.” Um, so the, the copy book, how we learn to actually write handwriting, um, is, is based on, or creates this, um, this style characteristic, right? But then once we actually learn how to produce a letter using our hands, just through repetition, we start to add our own style to it, um, and, that, those are the individual characteristics. We stop thinking about how to make the structure.

CB: Yeah.

JC: Of a letter and we’re thinking about, um, how, you know, what we’re actually writing about.

CB: Yeah, and when it comes to forensic, uh, examination, style charact-, characteristics aren’t really what’s important. Maybe that could help rule out certain geographic areas or something.

JC: Yeah.

CB: But mainly, what they’re looking at are those individual characteristics.

JC: Right.

CB: That’s, that’s kind of where the key is when you want to track down a perp.

JC: Yeah, because, like we said, I mean the, the chances of the same person having the same set of individual characteristics.

CB: Impossible.

JC: Pretty much.

CB: Yeah. Uh, and here’s the thing, they’re not just looking for similarities, they, they say in this article it’s probably easy for even a layman to look at two sentences and compare them and say, “Well, look, these letters are the same.” What they’re looking for are the differences and therein lies the key.

JC: Yeah.

CB: The differences in two different pieces of text. One is the, uh, exemplar which is like a, basically like a comparison sample. The exemplar is a previous document that you’ve written in the past.

JC: Written by a known author.

JC: Yeah, like, “Hey, Chuck, you wrote… We found this diary entry for you from five years ago. This will be your exemplar. Now we want you to write some stuff now.”

JC: Exactly. Um, so that would be a requested exemplar if they ask you to write something now.

CB: Yeah.

JC: Um, but, either way, they know that this came from you.

CB: Yes.

JC: So it’s an exemplar, an example document, and they use those to compare it to the question document.

CB: Yeah.

JC: So whenever you’re talking handwriting analysis, you have to have two kinds of documents, an exemplar and a question document.

CB: That’s right. You want to talk about Lindbergh for a minute?

JC: Yeah. A question document, very frequently, um, is a ransom note.

CB: That’s right.

JC: And in the case of the Lindbergh baby, which Grandpa Simpson, everybody knows, kidnapped.

CB: [Laughs]

JC: Um, or is, that’s what it was?

CB: Yeah.

JC: Um, there were 14 ransom notes.

CB: Yeah, from, uh… Well, depends on who you ask. A lot of people think Bruno Hauptmann was innocent.

JC: Maybe.

CB: And executed, uh, as an innocent man.

JC: But there were still 14 ransom notes.

CB: Still 14 notes, yeah. And they, uh, when Bruno Hauptmann came in, they couldn’t find, um, many exemplars from his past so they said, “Well, let’s just get him in custody and have him write some things down.”

JC: [Chuckles] Right.

CB: [Chuckles] That’s, that’s putting it lightly.

JC: Which… That’s fine.

CB: A good idea.

JC: Procedurally speaking, that’s a requested exemplar.

CB: Yeah.

JC: Right? The thing is the police had this guy write until he was exhausted over and over again. Apparently, he wasn’t producing what they wanted him to produce so they said, “Here. See this ransom note? Copy this!”

CB: [laughs] Yeah.

JC: And the guy did it, um, and apparently every bit of handwriting analysis that they, or sample, that they got from this guy was coerced.

CB: Yeah.

JC: Um, and questionable. As questionable as the question document.

CB: That’s right. Um…

JC: But he was still convicted and executed, right?

CB: Yeah. And who knows if he was innocent or not, there’s all kinds of varying opinions on the internet, of course. But, um, at the very least, the handwriting documents in his, his samples that he gave were definitely coerced and probably not the best thing to put your case on.

JC: That was, um, an early obstacle that handwriting analysis has had to overcome, was creating procedures for the police to say, “If you’re going to request a, an exemplar.”

CB: Yeah.

JC: Like, “Here’s how you do it, here’s what to ask for.”

CB: Yeah.

JC: “Do not show them the, the question document. Don’t ask them to copy it; just have them write.”

CB: Yeah, that’s why you should always cut your ransom note out from the funny papers.

JC: Yeah.

CB: In individual letters.

JC: Plus it looks cool.

CB: And creepy.

JC: Yeah.

CB: Um, so what, what you’re looking for, if you’re going to compare things, is not, “Hey, look at this sentence and compare it to this sentence,” because that didn’t tell you much. You want numerous exemplars.

JC: Yeah.

CB: Like, you want, like, 10 documents that you can compare to 10 other documents.

JC: The reason behind that, um, is because when you write something, say you’re writing a letter, when you start, you’re all fresh-faced and bushy tailed.

CB: Yeah.

JC: And then, as you go further down the page, you get a, a little more tired, a little more fatigued.

CB: Sure.

JC: And your writing starts to fall apart. So you’re never gonna write the same way twice, um, which is…

CB: Yeah, even within a document.

JC: Right, which is a characteristic in and of itself. What’s more, um, starting a, a, a word with the letter A, you’re probably gonna produce that A differently than an A that comes in the middle of a word.

CB: Yeah, or the end.

JC: Right.

CB: Yeah, I do that for sure. And, like, certain letters, uh, will connect, um, but only certain letters. Like, I might connect my T to my H in the middle of a word.

JC: Mm-hmm.

CB: You know, but not at the beginning.

JC: Right.

CB: That kind of thing.

JC: Yeah.

CB: Uh, so what are they looking for?

JC: Well, they’re looking for several things. Letter forms…

CB: What are they looking for?

JC: They’re looking for a letter form, which is, like, um, you know, the curves, um, the, the size of the letters, but you know, the relationship between a, a letter that’s supposed to be small, like an S.

CB: Yeah.

JC: And a letter that’s supposed to be big, like maybe an H.

CB: Yeah, even the width within a single letter maybe?

JC: Right.

CB: Uh, the slant, the slope, um, whether or not, like I talked about, you connect certain letters together, links between them, um, and then, like we mentioned, where that letter falls.

JC: Right.

CB: So if you want to analyze an A, a lower case A… and we should point out, too, that apparently you can’t analyze uppercase letters only. Is that right?

JC: You can, you can analyze those…

CB: Just against each other, though.

JC: Against upper case.

CB: Okay.

JC: Uppercase and lowercase are, like, they yield nothing.

CB: That’s right.

JC: Apparently.

CB: Um, but let’s say you have a letter A, a lowercase A, you want to find, within the document, an example of an A at the beginning, uh, one in the middle, one at the end, um, and see how those compare to each other before you even compare it to the other exemplar.

JC: Yeah, like if you…

CB: Really thorough and detailed stuff.

JC: It really is. It’s um, sounds, like, very tedious work too.

CB: [Chuckles] Super tedious.

JC: Which we’ll get into in a second, exactly how tedious it is, but yeah, the point is is, if you are a handwriting analyst, you’re not going to put an A at the beginning of a word next to an A or compare it to an A in the middle of the word. They are…

CB: Right.

JC: Two different things as far as you’re concerned.

CB: Yeah. You’ll get laughed at if you do that in, in class.

JC: [Laughs] Yeah.

CB: Uh, line forms, another thing they look at.

JC: Mm-hmm.

CB: Um, how smooth it is, how dark it is, uh, indicates what kind of pressure you’re, you’re using on the paper.

JC: Mm-hmm. How quickly you’re writing.

CB: Yeah, the speed, uh, formatting, of course, spacing between letters, spacing between words, uh, whether, where your margins are, like, they’ll give you a blank sheet of paper that’s not lined and see, you know, if you, like most people typically, the sentence will go down if you don’t have a lined paper or what kind of margins you just instinctively use, or if you’re, like, a serial killer and you don’t use margins.

JC: Yeah, that’s pretty crazy.

CB: You’ll just, like, scribble all over the page.

JC: Yeah.

CB: They just should lock you up right there.

JC: Right, exactly. Like that’s, you’re basically confessing to something horrible.

CB: Uh, where do, uh, if it is lined paper where, if you make, like, a lower case Y, how does the bottom of the Y or the G or the cursive zed intersect with the line? How far down does it go? How big are your loops? Where do you cross your T? It’s like, it, mind numbingly detailed.

JC: Do you skip lines?

CB: Yeah.

JC: Do you dot your I’s with little hearts.

CB: [Laughs]

JC: That kind of thing.

CB: The bubble letter.

JC: [Chuckles] Yeah.

CB: I know some females that still sort of write that way.

JC: Yeah?

CB: Not with the, with the hearts, but definitely that very distinctive.

JC: You can still, you can tell.

CB: Fat letter. [Laughs]

JC: Yeah.

CB: I got a lot of love notes like that, you know, in my day?

JC: [Laughs] with the little heart I?

CB: Yeah and I would just write back like the serial killer.

JC: [Laughs]

CB: Those are my love notes. It’s, like, 20,000 words on a single piece of paper. [Laughs]

JC: “Yes I do like you as a matter of fact I’m sitting outside of your house right now I know what you’re doing.”

CB: [Laughs] Yeah just a big, one long run-on sentence. Um, okay, so one thing that they will do, here’s one method that they will use, is they will actually create tables.

JC: Yeah.

CB: Three tables, in all, is what you want.

JC: So you make your first table, you start with the letter A, and you go through the, um, question documents.

CB: Yeah, and this is all in the article, by the way. It’s, even has the little tables and the sample sentence they used is “I have your daughter.”

JC: Yeah.

CB: [Laughs] It’s kind of creepy.

JC: It was, but it was, like, appropriately creepy.

CB: Why don’t they just put, “Let’s play some basketball”?

JC: I hadn’t even thought of that. It seemed like, “Yeah, of course I have your daughter.”

CB: [Laughs] Okay.

JC: Huh.

CB: All right.

JC: I wonder what that says about me. [Laughs]

CB: Three tables.

JC: Uh, so, uh, the first table, what they’re gonna do is go through all the, the question documents.

CB: Uh-huh.

JC: And they’re going to write, start with the letter A if the letter A is present in the documents.

CB: Sure.

JC: They’re gonna put all the letters that are present in the documents. So for example, “I have your daughter,” um, has, uh…

CB: Two A’s.

JC: Right. Well, no, yes, it does, but they, they, the sentence itself doesn’t have all the letters of the alphabet.

CB: Right.

JC: So you’re gonna go through and figure out what letters are present in your question document.

CB: Yeah.

JC: Put those down one side, and then you’re gonna go through, starting with the letter A, and, um, find every different letter A.

CB: Yeah.

JC: So if there’s a letter A that slants to the left, you’re gonna put that down next to A in row one and then, if you’ve come across another A that slants to the left, you’re gonna skip that one because you’ve already found it. The point is you’re going to create a table of every characteristically different example of a particular letter.

CB: Yeah, and they’re doing this with digital cameras.

JC: Right. So in the article, they did it by hand.

CB: Yeah.

JC: They tried to recreate what the weird letter looked like. But yeah, they’re gonna take it a digital photo of just that letter and then compile it into a table.

CB: That’s right. Uh, and at the end, what they are doing is comparing the tables, making sure they have a match for each letter in the exemplar.

JC: Right, because they went through the, the question document, then they did the exact same thing for the exemplar.

CB: Right.

JC: And they put the two tables together and created a third table. And from that third table, they should be able to see, pretty clearly, whether, um, the person, whether the two things were written by the same person.

CB: Yeah.

JC: And so, if you’re an FBI analyst you’re gonna come up with one of, um, five, uh, possible outcomes. There’s identification.

CB: Yeah.

JC: Where you’re pretty much putting your career on the line or your professional reputation on the line.

CB: Sure.

JC: And saying, “This is written by the same person.”

CB: Right.

JC: There’s may have, which means that the, uh, similarities outweigh the differences, but you’re still not 100% sure, identification level sure.

CB: Yeah, that’s a real wussy way to go.

JC: [Chuckles] Right.

CB: You know?

JC: There’s no conclusion.

CB: Yeah.

JC: Which is, like, the similarities and differences are pretty much the same or, um, there’s just not enough evidence there or enough material to go with.

CB: Yeah.

JC: Then there’s may not have, which is the differences outweigh the similarities, but you’re still not sure; and then there’s elimination, where you’re sure that they weren’t written by the same person.

CB: Which is probably an, as equally a bold a statement as they were.

JC: Yeah.

CB: You know?

JC: I Imagine those are few and far between the identification and eliminations in, in a major case, you know?

CB: Yeah. Um, all right. So coming up, we have something on forgeries and simulation, like if you’re trying to sniff someone off the case.

JC: Whohoo.

CB: But first, we have a message break.

CB: Okay, so, um, we were talking about simulation before we broke and that’s, like, a big part of this is, if you give, and I can’t imagine, like, let’s say someone, like an officer, picked you up and, of course, you didn’t do anything, but they bring you into a room and they’re like “We, we need some handwriting examples.”

JC: Yeah.

CB: You’re gonna be freaked out.

JC: For sure.

CB: Like, how you’re writing, and you’re probably gonna write weird. Um, or if you did do it, you might try and fool them by writing weird, and by weird I mean different than you normally write.

JC: Yes, um…

CB: But not like using strange letters or something.

JC: Right, yeah. You’re gonna, maybe, um, write a little more slowly.

CB: Yeah.

JC: Or just write bigger than you do or smaller than you do or just different. Um, I saw a picture of a ransom note, not a ransom note, a stick-up note.

CB: Uh-huh.

JC: And, like, it was obviously done with, like, squiggly lines and, like, words were purposely misspelled.

CB: Oh, yeah?

JC: So that if they, if anybody ever did analyze the handwriting, what they had wouldn’t match up to any, anyone’s normal handwriting.

CB: That’s a good idea.

JC: Yeah.

CB: So, on the front end of the crime, you do the, uh, different handwriting.

JC: Right.

CB: That’s, that’s not bad.

JC: I didn’t mean to assist any…

CB: [Laughs]

JC: would be bank robbers, but yes.

CB: But after the fact, if they have the two things and you try to simulate a different writing, they’re pretty good at trying to determine whether or not you’ve done that.

JC: They are, I mean you, you can completely throw off handwriting analysis.

CB: Sure, to where, just where you get a no conclusion, at least?

JC: Right. Um, but, like you said, handwriting analysts do have ways for, they have ways of knowing whether you’re simulating your handwriting.

CB: Yeah, and like you said, there’ll, be more pen lifts, definitely be slower, and basically, the, they’ll root you out as not just writing naturally.

JC: Right.

CB: Like at a normal speed, even.

JC: Right, because you’re, you’re really putting a lot of thought into the words you’re writing, rather than just writing like you have nothing to hide.

CB: Exactly. Um, so this is all good and well and fine and it’s a legitimate field. It’s not always allowed in court, though, because, like you said, it’s subjective.

JC: Yeah, I want to say, and I don’t know why I developed an affinity for handwriting analysis, because I think fingerprinting is BS, frankly.

CB: Oh, yeah?

JC: And I remembered saying pretty much that effect in the fingerprinting episode. For some reason, handwriting analysis struck me as…

CB: More legit?

JC: Yeah, and I don’t know why, but it did. Um, and so I kind of looked around and found, as recently as June, they had a major national conference for handwriting analysts that was, um, its aim was to further the science in the measurements in the field.

CB: Yeah in, uh, Gaithersburg, Maryland?

JC: Yeah.

CB: The Measurement Science and Standards in Forensic Handwriting Analysis Conference.

JC: Right. Um, and I mean it’s not a new; it’s not a new field.

CB: Right.

JC: And they’ve subjected it to scientific testing, like, over the years, like, um, the, the principle of uniqueness, the founding principle of handwriting analysis.

CB: Yeah.

JC: It’s been tested many, many times. One of the favorite tests they like to do is to get identical twins to provide handwriting samples. Same DNA, same environmental factors, same physiology, all of these things that affect your handwriting, because I mean, like, your, your handwriting is, is changed by the fine, um, motor neurons.

CB: Yeah.

JC: That you have in your, in your body. If you’re an identical twin, you’re gonna be similar, right?

CB: Sure.

JC: You’d think your handwriting would be similar. No, handwriting analysts routinely can tell the difference between twins penmanship.

CB: Wow.

JC: Yeah. Um, so they have tested this stuff and they are, I guess, aware that it’s, it’s not a fully scientific field, and they’re taking steps to make it more scientific.

CB: Yeah, because they want to, A, protect their jobs and, B, they want it to be, like, at the end of the day, they want it to be allowed in court. You know, they don’t want it to be all for, for, for podcast fodder.

JC: Oh, I imagine also they don’t want to put away any innocent people.

CB: Sure.

JC: You know?

CB: Um, so let’s talk about another brilliant plan if you want to be a forger of things. Provide the… Both exemplars yourself. [Laughs]

JC: Right, this is pretty amazing. And this guy had, a killer name, Konrad Kujau.

CB: Kujau?

JC: Cujo. Conrad “Cujo.” I think it’s Conrad “Cujo.”

CB: K-U-J-A-U.

JC: Say Cujo.

CB: All right, Conrad Kujau, let’s call him that.

JC: Yeah.

CB: The Kuj.

JC: [Chuckles]

CB: 1980s, the Kuj was a, uh, supposed collector of Nazi memorabilia. First of all, those people freak me out, you know? Remember American Beauty?

JC: Yeah.

CB: So he was a collector of this stuff and, um, a German publishing company, he, he approached them and said, “You know what? I’ve got 60 handwritten journals written by der Führer himself.”

JC: Yeah, “That were found in a plane wreck.”

CB: Just found them. And they seemed to be genuine and they paid him $2.3 million and, uh, this, the same company, the German newspaper, also owned that publishing company. They printed stuff, they said, “Hey, let’s syndicate this out.” The London Times said, “Sure, we’ll write about this,” but they said, “But you know what? We’re the London Times, let’s get a handwriting analyst to check this stuff out.”

JC: Three of them.

CB: [Laughs]

JC: They had three, like, high-end handwriting analysts analyze the stuff, and all three of them said, “Yup, um, the same person wrote these samples who wrote the diaries. So, yeah, these are, these are Hitler’s diaries.”

JC: Yeah, because they got, they got the exemplars that were, supposedly, written by Hitler himself and said it’s the same thing, it was, this, these are legit.

JC: Right, so Kujau walks away with a cool 2.3 million in 1980s dollars, no less.

CB: Yeah.

JC: And, uh, the world has 60 previously unknown journals from Adolf Hitler. We think. Within a year, it was uncovered as a fraud.

CB: That’s right, thanks to the London Times. Um, they used, uh, ultraviolet light examination and found out that the paper, uh, wasn’t around until 1954, little bit of a problem. Anyone that knows Hitler knows that he died in 1945.

JC: [Chuckles] Open your eyes, Chuck.

CB: [Laughs] Uh, and then they did some more forensic tests and said that the ink, actually, was applied on the paper about 12 months ago.

JC: Right.

CB: Within the past year. [Laughs]

JC: Yeah.

CB: And he’s a fraud, and he wrote both sets and I don’t know why they didn’t check and… They said, “Well, we need some real examples of Hitler’s writing,” and he’s like “Uh, here.” [Laughs]

JC: No, I think that’s what they did. He had gotten, I think he was just that lucky.

CB: Wow.

JC: That he had flooded the market with fake Hitler handwriting and so that the authenticated samples that they used as exemplars just happened to be ones that he’d also forged. So it passed the handwriting analysis. Handwriting, actually handwriting analysis came out on top in that instance.

CB: Yeah.

JC: But it was still a fraud.

CB: Yeah.

JC: it was still a forgery.

CB: Amazing.

JC: So it, it came out on top as a technique, but, overall, it took a kind of a hit because it still failed.

CB: Unbelievable.

JC: Yeah.

CB: Yet, yet believable.

JC: What about John Mark Karr, you remember him?

CB: Oh, dude.

JC: Man.

CB: And I got to, it I got to admit it; if there was ever a case of judging a book by its cover.

JC: [Laughs]

CB: When I saw that guy, I was like, “Yup, he did it.”

JC: Yeah.

CB: “He’s the creepiest guy I’ve ever seen.”

JC: He is creepy. You got that right.

CB: Yeah, but he was creepy for another reason, because, uh, of course we’re talking about the Jon Benet Ramsey case. He falsely confessed to killing Jon Benet Ramsey.

JC: Which I think he did it to get a free ride from Thailand back to the US.

CB: You think?

JC: I think so. I think he liked the attention and everything too, but I think he just didn’t have any money and wanted to get back to the States so he confessed to Jon Benet’s killing.

CB: Well, he’s living as a Trans woman now.

JC: He is, and apparently trying to, um, recruit 6-year-olds and younger, prefer, preferably brunette girls, for a sex cult. Apparently, he’s trying to found a sex cult.

CB: Yeah. I only saw this article that was on several different networks in June of, like, what was it? Like, 2010? And I didn’t see anything else after that, so…

JC: I think that is very, very grown up of you to say, “Because it is hearsay.” He had one, one accuser…

CB: Yeah.

JC: And it was somebody who he was formerly close to, a girl he had been engaged to, um, who was saying she was coming forward to try to protect people. But there was no follow up, no nothing.

CB: So weird.

JC: So, who knows, Chuck? But that was very good of you.

CB: Uh, but back to the, the handwriting part of this. He, um, they compared the ransom note to a couple of exemplars from his past, the Secret Service does a lot of this by the way, and, um, one was a high school yearbook that he signed and one was a job application from Thailand and they couldn’t match it because, uh, it was inconclusive because the high school yearbook, yearbook was old and apparently in a “artistic writing style.”

JC: Yeah.

CB: So I don’t know what that means. I guess he did, like, you know, in high school you do those, like, bubble letters writing…

JC: Right, and fill them in.

CB: Yeah, or like, hey, the reflections.

JC: Like the bend on the curve, yes.

CB: [Laughs] And then the job in Thailand, he used all uppercase letters and, uh, they couldn’t compare that to the ransom notes because that was both upper and lower.

JC: Yeah.

CB: And then the DNA, obviously, sniffed him off the case and he was not the guy.

JC: No.

CB: He was just weird.

JC: He was an odd duck.

CB: Yeah, and I don’t think they, they still never caught anyone, did they?

JC: No, they never arrested anybody.

CB: Yeah, I think the last thing I heard was that the case was reopened and…

JC: Oh, really?

CB: They thought they had enough evidence for the parents, but they didn’t or something, to indict them.

JC: Oh, yeah. That was a few years back, right?

CB: Yeah.

CB: Very sad. Um, and I don’t see why it was so hard to get these exemplars. Is it that tough to find handwriting examples from someone?

JC: Sure, especially if they’re not cooperating too.

CB: Oh, well. I guess that’s true.

JC: Like, I mean, like, what do you have lying around that’s got your handwriting on it?

CB: I got a bunch of old notebooks and stuff with tons of stuff in there.

JC: Oh, well, then, you’d be an easy case.

CB: All right. Well, I better not kidnap or kill anyone.

JC: [Laughs] Right.

CB: Anytime soon.

JC: Keep your nose clean.

CB: Um, what else you got?

JC: Um, I think that’s about it for me.

CB: Oh, well, there’s the FISH system. They’re, they’re trying to, uh, bring this into the non-subjective modern age.

JC: Right.

CB: The Forensic Information System for Handwriting. Uh, that basically, they take a large body of handwritten material, digitize it, and then plot it as, uh, arithmetic and geometric values. So basically, it’ll be a numeric data base sort of like a fingerprint database. So instead of just having, like, this big diary in a locker, you have an actual numeric value that you can compare it to now.

JC: Isn’t that just using computers as, like, flak jacket from criticism? I mean, really the computer’s just carrying out program subjectivity, isn’t it?

CB: Uh, yeah, probably so, but I mean it’s really just a database, it’s not saying that it’s…

JC: Got you.

CB: Uh, like, any better way of doing things.

JC: Yeah.

CB: Um, and I just saw this from 2009, um, sort of the same thing. There’s, in the Journal of Applied Cognitive Psychology, they did a test to see if people write differently when they’re lying or not.

JC: Mm-hmm.

CB: And they do.

JC: Oh, yeah?

CB: They had them write truthful sentences and lies, and apparently you write differently when you lie.

JC: The content of the sentence, whether it was a lie or truthful?

CB: Yeah.

JC: Changed the handwriting?

CB: Yeah.

JC: Wow. That’s really interesting.

CB: Yeah, so I don’t… I guess that could help with forensics for sure. It could act as a sort of secondary lie detector at least.

JC: Right, you could be, like, I, “I am the kidnapper.”

CB: Right.

JC: You know? Have them write that. [Laughs]

CB: But I mean you couldn’t…

JC: And then…

CB: It’s not for comparisons’ sake.

JC: If it doesn’t work for, yeah well, if it doesn’t work out for comparison, you have a handwritten confession.

CB: Pretty cool. And there’s no schooling for this, by the way. You just…

JC: Really?

CB: Yeah, like, most of their, most of this forensic stuff, it’s all just, like, training, kind of job training.

JC: Okay, yeah, but there’s certification?

CB: Uh, well, there’s no college program.

JC: No, but I think you still have to become certified. I don’t think you have to. I think, like, you can advertise on the internet and just be Joe Schmoe, handwriting analyst.

CB: Yeah, that kind of thing.

JC: But I think, um, there is, um, a certification or accreditation out there.

CB: Okay, it says that, um, the training period is a minimum of two years of full-time training under the tutelage of a qualified expert.

JC: [Chuckles] A wizard.

CB: [Laughs] So, uh, yeah, forensics, the game continues.

JC: Nice. Uh, let’s see, you got anything else?

CB: No, we still have to cover shadow analysis.

JC: [Laughs] Right.

CB: [Laughs]

JC: And smell.

CB: Yeah.

JC: Smelly people.

CB: Yeah.

JC: Uh, if you want to know more about forensics, you should type that word into the search bar, it’ll bring up this handwriting analysis, um, article and a ton of other stuff. Uh, just type in, like I said, to the search bar at howstuffworks.com, and, uh, since I said “search bar,” it’s time for listener mail.

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