CHAPTER 3

HISTORY OF FORENSIC DOCUMENT EXAMINATION

Learning Objectives

At the end of this chapter, the student will be able to:

 narrate the history of writing and forgery;

 enumerate the important events in the USA involving the pioneers of document examination;
and
 cite historical cases on the development of questioned document examination.

HISTORY OF WRITING
Writings are letter or symbols that are written or imprinted on a surface to represent the sounds or
words of a language. It consists of messages that convey ideas to others. Its evolution is based on man’s
desire to communicate his thoughts with others.
Examples of such early writings include records that were engraved into stone, carved in wood,
pressed into clay tab lets and marked on animal skins.
 Cave drawings are of course the most familiar of early writings. They are, in fact, the first
recorded record of prehistoric people. Cave drawings are called petroglyphs or petrograms and
they developed between 20,000 and 10,000 BC. These paintings gradually developed into word
picture or ideographs, which were used by Sumerians.
 Chinese, Aztecs, Mayas, and Egyptians. Egyptian word pictures are called hieroglyphics
(Koppenhaver, 2007).
 These word pictures developed into symbols which were then used to represent sound or syllables
called phonographs. This then developed into simplified phonetic symbols called the phonetic
alphabet, an alphabet of characters intended to represent specific sound of speech. The Sumerians
are generally credited with the development of the first alphabet.
 The Phoenician alphabet, which was used and spread by Phoenician alphabet, and has been used
by the Greeks since the 8th century BC. The word alphabet stems from the first two letters of the
Greek alphabet, alphabet and beta. Their alphabet consisted of 24 letters and included vowels.
The Greeks changed the writings the writing direction from left to right.
 The Greek alphabet evolved into the Roman alphabet or the Latin alphabet, which initially
consisted of disconnected capital letters for several centuries. Roman scribes invented the
lowercase letters that ere patterned from the capital letter. These letters simplified the forms and
made it easier to copy manuscripts.
 The Greek alphabet is still used in Greece, Cyprus, and Crete. The Cyrillic alphabet derived from
the Greek is used Russia and Eastern European countries.
PERSONALITIES IN QUESTIONED DOCUMENT EXAMINATION
ALBERT SHERMAN OSBORN
 1ST American prominent in the field of Forgery detection, and author of the seminal “Questioned
documents”
 (1910, reprinted many times) an exhaustive work indispensable even today
 By his efforts, courts began to accept the presentation of forged documents as scientific evidence
 He founded the American Society of Questioned Document Examiners on 2 September 1942.

ALBERT D. OSBORN
  3rd President of the American Society of Questioned Document Examiners.
 Served in the military during World War I.
 Upon returning from overseas in 1919, he began attending the meetings that eventually led to the
formation of the ASQDE.
 In 1942, Mr. Osborn was one of the 15 men who founded the society.
 Son of the founding president of ASQDE. Albert S.

 He was associated with A. S. Osborn in private practice for many years.

 A. D. Osborn’s sons, Paul Osborn and Russell Osborn, both became examiners of questioned
documents, as did his grandson John P. Osborn. Among Mr. Osborn’s many high-profile cases,
he was one of eight document examiners who testified for the prosecution in the case against
Bruno Hauptmann in the kidnapping/murder of the Lindbergh baby. Mr. Osborn was co-author
of the book Questioned Document Problems with his father. He was also the author of many
professional papers.

B.J. VREELAND HARING AND J. HOWARD HARING

 The father and son Haring of New York were the word famous handwriting experts who testified
on Charles A. Lindberg Jr. Kidnapping case.
 The defendant to the case was Bruno Richard Hauptmann Flemington, New Jersey in 1935.
Fourteen letters were directed to the famous parents of the kidnapped Lindberg baby was
abducted. The other letters contained follow-up ransom demands and instructions.

J. NEWTON BAKER

 A Consultative Expert in Disputed document and in 1955 he authored the book, “Law of
Disputed and Forged Documents”.

JAMES V. P. CONWAY

 Was an examiner of Questioned Documents of San Francisco, California Postal Inspector in-
charge, San Francisco Identification Laboratory U. S. Postal Inspection Service and authored
“Evidential Documents” which was published in Springfield, Illinois, USA in 1959.

HANS SCHEICKERT (1876-1944)

 A Doctor of Law and Director of the identification Bureau of the Police Department of Berlin
until 1928. He was a Criminology Professor at the University of Berlin in 1920 and well-known
handwriting expert.

DR. WILSON R. HARRISON

 Was the director of the British Government’s Office Home Office Forensic Science Society of
Questioned Document Examiners.

 Authored the book “Suspect Document Examiners Their Scientific Examination”, first published
in London in 1958. He has over twenty years’ experience in the examination of suspect
documents for the police forces of England and Wale and for many government departments.

ORDWAY HILTON
 6th president of the American Society of Questioned Document Examiners.
  Mr. Hilton was born in 1913 and grew up in Evanston, Illinois. He majored in mathematics at
Northwestern University and received a master’s degree in statistics from the same university in
1937.
 Mr. Hilton was the first questioned document examiner in the then new crime laboratory of the
Chicago Police Department. In 1944, while still on active duty as an officer in the U.S. Navy
during World War II, he attended the second meeting of the ASQDE in the Montclair, New
Jersey, home of Albert S. Osborn. In 1946, Mr. Hilton became associated with Eldbridge Stein,
the first secretary of the ASQDE, in his private practice in New York City.
 He continued the practice alone when Mr. stein retired in 1951. In 1979, Mr. Hilton moved his
practice to Landrum, South Carolina.
 A prolific writer of journal articles and professional papers, Mr. Hilton authored one of the best-
known texts in the field, “Scientific Examination of Questioned Documents”, in 1956, and a
revised edition of the text in 1982.
 He also authored Detecting and Deciphering Erased Pencil writing.
 Mr. Hilton was a Diplomat of the American Board of Forensic document examiners.
 He was instrumental in establishing the Questioned Documents Section of the American
Academy of Forensic Sciences (AAFS).
 From 1959 to 1960, Mr. Hilton served as the tenth president of the AAFS.
 He is one of the few AAFS Fellows to be names a Distinguished Fellow and one of only four
questioned document examiners to ever receive this honor.
 In 1980, he was the first recipient of the AAFS Questioned Documents Section Award, which
would be named in his honor. Ordway Hilton passed away in 1998.

ROY A. HUBER
 24th president of the American Society of Questioned Document Examiners.
 After joining the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) in 1940, Roy Huber worked as a
police constable at various detachments in the Province of Saskatchewan.
 In 1949, he transferred to the Document Section of the RCMP’s Regina Laboratory to commence
a career that would span more than fifty years. Under the tutelage of senior document examiners
Hugh Radcliffe and Chester Eaves, Mr. Huber completed his training program and moved to the
CRMP’s eastern laboratory on Ottawa.
 He wrote and presented more that 30 papers including such titles as Typist Identification, Modern
Trends in Counterfeiting, The Production and Identification of Embossing Seals, and The
Quandary of Qualified Opinions.
 In 1999, he published a book entitled “Handwriting Identification- facts and Fundamentals,”
which has become an important text in the training of forensic document examiners.
 The First ASQDE conference he attended was the 1955 meeting that was held in Houston. He
presented his first ASQDE paper titled, The Potentialities of the Blink Microscope Principle in
Typewriting Comparisons. Mr. Huber joined the Society as a Provisional Member in 1961 and
was elected a Regular member in only two meetings for reasons beyond his control.
 He served on its Board of Directors as Secretary and Vice President prior to his election to
President. Elected a Life Member in 2001, he continued to support the Society as a member of its
Nominating and Journal Committees. In 2003, Roy Huber received the Albert S. Osborn Award
of Excellence in recognition of his distinguished career and many contributions he made to both
ASQDE and the profession as a whole.

CHARLES CHABOT
 (baptized 19 March 1815- 15 0ctober 1882)
 English graphologist who, as part of the firm Netherclift, Chabot and Matheson,
  Early practitioner of questioned document examination. Chabot was born Battersea, the son of
Charles, a lithographer, and Amy Nee Pearson, a couple of Hugenot descent. Beginning as
lithographer, he developed as an expert in handwriting and
became sought after as an expert witness in a variety of famous trials including the Roupell case
and the Tichborne Case. In 1871, Chabot became involved in establishing the identity of Junius
and concluded that he was Sir Philip Francis.

WORLD’S CASES ON DISPUTED DOCUMENT

Colin Evans cited the world’s cases on disputed document are as follows:

JOHN MAGNUSON CASE

 Date 1922; Location: Marshfield, Misconsin; Signuificance: From just few scraps of bomb-
damaged paper, investigator gleaned enough evidence to capture the Yule Bomb killer. In his
final address, Magnuson’s attorney, Charles Briere, fulminated against the “so-called experts”
who had examined the scraps of the bomb, sneering that “half of them were here for their share of
the gold bag of the state.” It was a complaint about expert witness that echoes in courtrooms to
the present today.
ARTHUR PERRY CASE
 Date: 1937, Location: New York City; Significance: So many factors were combined in this case
that it has come to be regarded as an American detection classic.
 It is unnerving to consider the possible outcome of this case had Palm not happened to work late
that night.
 Without the twin interventions of fate and forensic science, it is entirely conceivable that he may
well have taken Perry’s place in the electric chair.
HITLER DIARIES CASE
 Date: 1981, Location: Hamburg, West Germany; Significance:
 History’s greatest publishing fraud was first legitimized and then exposed by scientific analysis.
In all, through outright swindle, royalties, fees, lost advertising, and sundry other commitments,
The Hitler Diaries were estimated to have cost Stern more than twenty million marks (sixteen
million dollars).
 The cost in careers, reputations, and personal humiliation was incalculable.

GRAHAM BACKHOUSE CASE

 Date 1984; Location: Horton, England;

 Significance: This case provides an example of the interdependence of forensic discipline that
helps to solve so many cases. Piece by piece, the magnitude of Backhouse’s fiendishness became
apparent.
 In early March, he had increased the insurance of Margaret’s life from fifty to a hundred thousand
pounds, waited a few weeks while spreading word of a nonexistent hate campaign, then planted
the bomb that so nearly killed her. When that attempt failed, and to divert suspicion from himself,
he had lured Bedale-Taylor to his house with the intention of killing him.
 The seriousness of his self-inflicted wounds almost fooled the authorities, but he had
underestimated the astonishing scope of modern forensic detection. On February 18, 1985,
Backhouse learned the price he would have to pay for that arrogance-two term of life
imprisonment.
IMPORTANT DATES AND PERSONALITIES

1. 3rd Century A.D. - The earliest handwriting examination cases reported.

2. 6th Century- the Roman Emperor Justinian dictated guidelines for the use of handwriting
comparisons in Roman courts.
3. 1873- the year in which the first commercially successful typewriter was introduced.
4. Albert Sherman Osborn -became the pre-eminent American pioneer in the field when he
authored "Questioned Documents," a seminal work in scientific document analysis that remains
in print and in use. He founded the American Society of Questioned Document Examiners in
1942.
5. Alfred Dreyfus - A French army officer, accused of treason through letters found attempting to
sell French secrets to Germany. Later found that Dreyfus did not write the letters.
6. Henry Mill - was an English inventor who patented the first typewriter in 1714.
7. Pellegrino Turri - an Italian inventor, invented a mechanical typing machine, one of the first
typewriters in 1801 for his blind lover Countess Carolina Fantoni da Fivizzano. He also invented
carbon paper to provide the ink for his machine.
8. Samuel Willard Soulé - (January 25,1830-July 12,1875) along with Christopher Sholes and
Carlos Glidden invented the first practical typewriter at a machine shop located in Milwaukee,
Wisconsin.