CHAPTER 2

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 bases on the development of questioned document
examination.

History of Writing

Writings are letters 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.
- It is a product of complicated mental and muscular customary act forming a
visible combination of certain forms of executions acquired from long
continuous practices.

If you look at the early history of every culture, you would probably find that its
primitive people had an oral language and an early stage of writing. They probably
devised some sort of means to communicate with others through visible signs that
could be understood by others.
Examples of such early writings include records that were engraved into stone,
carved in wood, pressed into clay tablets 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 pictures 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
sounds or syllables called phonographs. This then developed into simplified
phonetic symbols called the phonetic alphabet, an alphabet of characters intended
to represent specific sounds of speech. The Sumerians are generally credited with
the development of the first alphabet.

The Phoenician alphabet, which was used and spread by Phoenicians throughout
the world between 1700 and 1500 BC, consisted of 22 letters and was written from
right to left. The Phoenician alphabet was assimilated by many other cultures and
became widely used.

The Greek alphabet was derived from the 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, alpha and beta. Their alphabet consisted of 24 letters
and included vowels. The Greeks changed 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 were patterned from the capital letters. 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 in Russia and Eastern European countries.

Other forms or systems of writing were Merovingian Script (France), Germanic

Pre-Caroline (8th- 9th century in Western Europe), the Insular or Anglo-Iris Hand,
developed by the Church during the Middle Ages, the Italian Gothic and the German
Gothic developed at the start of 850 AD.

The three major cultural development in the history of writing

1. Sumerian cuneiform of Persian Gulf
- Cuneiform the oldest system of writing. Cuneiform means wedge-shaped. It
was adopted by many Semitic tribes and evolved into different versions under
the Acadians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Elamites, Hittites and Kassites.
- The Polyphones, symbols of more than one syllabic value, is the combination
of ideographs and phonetics. Homophones are different symbols with the
same phonetic value.
2. The Egyptian hieroglyphs in Middle East
- The Egyptian writing developed three different styles of symbol system – 1.
Hieroglyphics, Hieratic and Demotic.
o Hieroglyphics – are characters in any system writing in which symbols
represent objects and ideas. The word comes from a Greek term
meaning “sacred carving”. It prevailed until 500 AD. The introduction of
pen and papyrus around 2000 BC encouraged the development of
hieratic writing
o Hieratic writing that employed simpler form to depict the same figure.
It became the choice of business and private documents.
o Demotic – a highly cursive form of hieratic developed about 700 BC,
was generally used in Egypt.

3. Chinese-kanji in Asia
- It became a basis for using sound or a thing in order to describe a
particular character. This simply means as ideographs by reading a particular
thing or character for pronunciation.
- It is implied that a person who knows to write must first know how to read. It is
the reading capability of a person that comes first prior to his writing
capability.

Phoenician Script
- Is an important “trunk” in the alphabet tree.
- Arabic, Hebrew, Latin and Greek scripts are all descendant from Phoenician
- Is a direct descendant of the Proto-Sinaitic Script.
 - Phoenician is a “consonantal alphabet” also known as “abjad” and only
contains letters representing consonants. Vowels are generally omitted in this
phase of the writing system.
- Two classes of writing that evolved: calligraphy and tachygraphy. Calligraphy
is for book hand forms and tachygraphy is for document hand forms.

Proto-Sinaitic Script

The major change between Proto-Sinaitic Script and Phoenician is graphical. The
Phoenician letter shapes grew to be more abstract and linear, in comparison to the
more “pictographic” shape of proto-sinaitic
STAGES OF CHINESE WRITING

Jiaguwen or Oracle Bone Script

- Earliest form of Chinese writing, used from the Middle to late Shang dynasty
(approximately 1500 BCE to 1000 BCE)
- This script was etched onto turtle shells and animal bones, which were then
used for divination in the royal Shang court.
- Scholars have been using oracle bones as historical documents to investigate
the reigns of later Shang monarchs, and surprisingly confirming the veracity of
the traditional list of Chinese emperors that was deemed mythological rather
than historical.
- The shapes of these characters are often described as “ pictographic”
Dazhuan or Greater Seal
- This stage of Chinese writing flourished from the Late Shang to the Western
Chou Dynasties
- Unlike Jiaguwen, which was carved on bones, Dazhuan mainly appeared on
cast bronze vessels.
- Jiaguwen and Dazhuan overlapped in time and they might have been the
same script but as they were inscribed on different materials their visual styles
differ due to the quality of the surfaces.
Xiaozhuan or Lesser Seal
- This elegant script is the direct parent of the modern, unsimplified Chinese
script.
- Xiaozhuan characters are more stylized and less “pictographic” but also
exhibits systematic and extensive use of radicals much like modern Chinese.
- This script has survived the passage of time and continues to be used in the
present age in calligraphy and seals.
Lishu or Clerkly Script
- This script was used by government bureaucrats.
 - Lishu became widely used in the Qin and Han dynasties when the
bureaucrats needed a fast and efficient script too handle state matters.
- Lishu characters have less strokes and a more flowing style, therefore easily
adaptable to brushes and pens.
- Occasionally used in the modern age.
PHILIPPINES
- Baybayin or Alibata – which originated from Javanese script “Old Kawi”
sometimes in 14th century during pre-Hispanic occupation.
- It was likewise followed by “Mangyan scripts” which are diacritical in marking
or severe execution of completion strokes with frequent text rotation of 90
degrees counter-clockwise of reading from the bottom to the top

Baybayin script

MANGYAN SYLLABIC SCRIPT

- Tagbanwa script also known as Apurahuano.
- It is the indigenous writing in the Philippines until 17th century found
somewhere in the northern part of Palawan.
- Tagbanwa is also a syllabic alphabet wherein each consonant has a vowel. It
is traditionally written on bamboo in vertical columns form bottom to top and
left to right.
- Another Philippine script known as “Buhid Script”. It is closely related to
“baybayin” writings as still presently used by “mangyans” to write their
language.

Tagbanwa script
ALPHABETICAL WRITING
- Common in standard set of letters in basic writing symbols.
- It is being pronounced in the form of language represented by syllables and
classified according to vowels.
- It is written in capital and small letters either in a separate or connected
writing executions.
- This writing is commonly adopted worldwide as medium of writing
communication in order to convey message to someone or anybody.

System of Writing

The result of combination as basis of designs of writing formation both alphabetical

and numeral writings are generally influenced from the fundamental way of learning
particular from the learning institution where writing was taught. This is called as
influence factor from teachers being adopted by students. The students or pupils
shall adopt idealism of writing formation from teacher’s writing executions as result of
cognitive writing behavior.
Stages of Writing Development
 The acquisition of writing development is by act of copying the form and
structures of writing executions as generally figure out by the writer to adapt
the uniform strokes in a particular writing formation such as alphabet as
universally adapted in the present system of writings.
 The pre-learning acquisition always emanates from the family whose elder
members already undergone learning of writings.
 These pre-teaching education in the family are traditional practices to young
members prior to formal education. It’s primary parental responsibility to their
children in order to guide them towards development instead to remain
illiterate, and eventually belongs to group of people with no capability to read
and write.
1.School form Stage
• This is the primary stage of writing development that the individual person will
begin art of copying writing execution formally from the penmanship copybook
 or blackboard illustration of different letters for him to copy and adapt by way
of imitation or painstaking drawing in slow copying forms of letters.
• This stage of writing acquisition requires preferential attention due to its
beginning of learning.
• It shows that acquisition of writing is seriously taken by the learner for his
another stage of writing degree capability.
Progression Stage
• As the writing acquisition of the writer develops, it likewise shows the progress
of writing development which cannot be denied to any individual who acquired
knowledge in writing executions.
• The writer will no longer go back its status of copying but will execute his
liberty in writing within the formation of letters being required to common
understanding of alphabetical writing.
• This is the pre-mastery stage of writing knowledge by an individual person in
acquiring capability to write on developing continuing process.
Mastery Stage
• This knowledge of writing execution is a result of automatic execution without
any thinking on regulated forms of writing but due to subjective mental
maturity on how to execute handwriting freely.
• This stage of writing execution capacity is considered as unconscious
coordinated movement that result to contribute establishing creation of
characteristics to handwriting individuality.

History of Forgery

The practice of forgery, or the falsification and alteration of writing with intent to
defraud, is as old as writing itself. The crime of forgery has been practiced since
ancient times where writing existed. Below are important events in the history of
forgery (Koppenhaver, 2007).

 80 BC Romans prohibited the falsification of documents that transferred land

to heirs.
 Middle Ages - Forgery became prevalent in Europe.
 1562 - England passed a statute prohibiting forgery of publicly recorded and
officially sealed documents, specifically those pertaining to titles for land.
 1726 - False endorsement on an unsealed private document became a crime
punishable by pillory, fines, imprisonment, and even death.
 1819 - England issued one pound bills inscribed on ordinary white paper with
a simple pen and ink, resulting in massive forgeries and the arrest of 94,000
people, 7,700 of which were sentenced to death. .
 1823 - The United States enacted the principal federal forgery statute that
prohibited false making, forgery, or the alteration of any writing for the
purpose of obtaining financial gain.
 1962 - The American Law Institute’s Model Penal Code simplified and defined
the elements of forgery and became the standard for defining the crime of
forgery.
Expert Witnesses and Pioneers of Document Examination

In 539 AD in Rome, the Justinian Code permitted judges to appoint experts to

give testimony in court regarding the genuineness of a writing based on a
comparison with other admitted genuine writings (Koppenhaver, 2007).

The English followed the Justinian Code, but only allowed witnesses to testify
regarding the authenticity of signatures if they had knowledge of or had seen the
disputed signature written. Experts were allowed to make comparisons in non-jury
trials, but handwriting samples that were not part of the case were not allowed to be
used for the comparison of handwriting by the Witnesses. This prohibition against
standards of comparison in court cases hampered identification. The English
Parliament changed this practice in 1854 by allowing the introduction of genuine
writing that was not part of the court case for the purpose of comparing.

The United States of America based their laws on the English common law
and permitted comparisons in court cases. Below are important events in the history
of document examination in the USA:

 1812 - The earliest record of expert comparison testimony in America was in

Sauve v. Dawson, where a signature on a promissory note was proved
genuine. However, handwriting identification did not become popular until
much later in 19th century.
 1814 - In Homer v. Wallis, 11 Mass. 309, the court permitted the submission
of writings and the evidence of witnesses on the comparison of a disputed
writing.
 1914 - Congress enacted the Statute of 1913, which accepted such
comparisons to be used as competent evidence in court to prove or disprove
the genuineness of a person’s handwriting.
 1867 - The first significant forgery case was tried in Massachusetts involving
the traced signatures of Sylvia Ann Howland of New Bedford. The most
significant testimony came from Dr. Benjamin Piece, a mathematician from
Harvard who testified on the mathematical probability of identical strokes
being made in two different signatures. He claimed that the likelihood of 30
strokes occurring in two separate signatures could occur only once in
931,000,000,000,000,000,000. His methodology was subsequently proven to
be inaccurate.
 1894 - Handwriting identification became sufficiently well-known that two New
York experts published books on the subject: William E. Hagan published
Disputed Handwriting and Persifor Fraser published A Manual for the Study of
Documents (re titled Bibliotics or the Study of Documents).
 1900 - Daniel Ames wrote Ames on Forgery, one of the first books on
document examination. Around this time, handwriting experts who were
mostly calligraphers began to testify in court as expert Witnesses.
 1900 - Roland B. Molineux was convicted for first degree murder. Molineux
mailed a bottle labeled ‘Emerson’s Bromo-Seltzer’ but had powder containing
cyanide of mercury. It was ingested by an innocent victim who died by
 poisoning. The landmark case involved at least 17 handwriting experts,
including Albert Osborn, the father of document examination.
 1902 - Albert T. Patrick was convicted for conspiring to murder his millionaire
client, William Marsh Rice. The Rice Will Case required handwriting testimony
to prove that Patrick forged Rice’s name on several checks and a will after he
had murdered Rice. Albert Osborn testified in this case to the fact that the
checks and will were traced forgeries. He was allowed to use photographs on
transparent paper to show that the four questioned signatures were identical.
 1904 - John H. -Wigmore wrote The Law of Evidence, which revolutionized
the legal profession regarding expert testimony.
 1910 - Albert Osborn published his seminal book Questioned Documents, the
first comprehensive book on the subject and considered as the “bible” of
document examination. The principles of handwriting identification that he
described are still the basis for the comparison of handwriting today.
 1930 - The first scientific police laboratory was established
 1932 - The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) opened their laboratory with
one document examiner.

Historical Cases

Forensic document examination developed as an organized discipline throughout the

twentieth century, particularly in the USA. One milestone is the publication of Albert
S. Osborn’s Questioned Documents in 1910, which is now considered the beginning
of modern questioned document examination. The book continues to be recognized
as an authoritative resource on the examination of handwriting and other traditional
documents. Osborn’s determination to advance the subject did not end in the
publication of books and appearance on court trials as an expert witness. He also
founded the American Society of Questioned Document Examiners in 1942
(Tilstone, Savage, 81. Clark, 2006).

Below are some historical cases that involved questioned documents and
contributed to the advancement of forensic document examination as a discipline in
the twentieth century.

1. The Dreyfus Affair in 1894

Handwriting identification played a major role in the Dreyfus Affair, a political scandal
in France that began in 1894. Captain Alfred Dreyfus French general staff officer,
was accused of treason by court martial and sentenced to life imprisonment for
allegedly communicating French military secrets to Germans (Tilstone, Savage, 85
Clark, 2006).

The questioned document was a one-page handwritten document listing secret

French army documents discovered by a French spy in the German embassy. The
main evidence against him was the testimony of highly esteemed Alphonse Bertillon
who is recognized the father of forensic criminal identification of criminals because of
his research in anthropometry (the first scientific system used by police to identify
criminals). Bertillon had no training or true expertise in handwriting identification, but
his testimony that the incriminating document had been written by Dreyfus was
sufficient to result in a conviction.
In 1898 it was discovered that much of the evidence used against Dreyfus had been
forged by another army officer. The high court of appeals ordered a new court-
martial, but Dreyfus was again convicted. This aroused anger worldwide with the
miscarriage of justice and many were convinced that the military court was simply
unable to admit error.

Dreyfus was eventually issued a pardon by the president of the Republic and was
fully exonerated by the court of appeals in 1906. He was reinstated into the army
with the rank of major and awarded the Legion of Honor. All the accusations against
him were confirmed to be baseless when the original incriminating questioned
document was released 1931. Bertillon was embarrassed by his flagrant error, and
the affair cast a dark cloud over the remainder of his career.

2. The Bobby Franks kidnap and murder in 1924

Another case that advanced the discipline of questioned document examination was
the kidnap and murder of Bobby Franks in the affluent suburb of Kenwood, near
Chicago in 1924. Bobby Franks, the son of a millionaire in Chicago, was picked up in
a car on his way home from high school and murdered on May 21, 1924. Since he
did not return home by dinnertime that day, his parents started a search, thinking he
may have been with a friend. However, they received a phone call that Bobby had
been kidnapped and a typewritten note demanding ransom the next morning. They
notified the police, but while considering their response to the kidnappers’ demands,
a dead body was found a little distance away and was identified as Bobby’s
(Tilstone, Savage, 85 Clark, 2006).

Eventually suspicion centered on two wealthy and well educated young men,
Richard Loeb and Nathan Leopold, who desired to commit the perfect crime. They
spent months planning the murder, the disposal of the body, and the method of
receiving ransom money with little or no risk of being caught.
Leopold and Loeb had alibis that appeared strong and the defense was
represented by the legendary Clarence Darrow. Leopold owned a typewriter, but it
was excluded as the source of the ransom note. By chance, police discovered that
he used the typewriter of his study group in law school. Pages of notes used in this
typewriter were compared to the ransom demand and demonstrated to be identical.

Leopold and Loeb were tried and convicted for the murder and kidnapping of Bobby
Franks. The trial became a media spectacle and the crime was presented as a cold-
blooded intellectual exercise pursued by two privileged youths who were driven by
the thrill of the kill. The case is significant in the field of forensic document
examination because it established the acceptability of typewriter examination as
evidence.

3. The Lindbergh Kidnapping Trial in 1935

The Lindbergh kidnapping case is considered by many to be the most
significant case in the history of document examination. The eight document
examiners who testified for the state included Albert Osborn; they demonstrated that
Bruno Richard Hauptmann was the author of the ransom note (Koppenhaver, 2007)
 Charles A. Lindbergh Jr., the 20-month old son of famous aviator Charles
Lindbergh, was kidnapped from the family home in New Jersey on the evening of
March 1, 1932. A handwritten ransom note was found at the scene. The case
became one of murder when the child’s body was discovered two months later.
After an investigation that lasted more than two years and a highly publicized
trial in 1935, Bruno Richard Hauptmann, an illegal German immigrant, was found
guilty of murder in the first degree and sentenced to death. The handwriting on the
ransom note was compared to samples from Hauptman by several document
examiners who concluded that the note had been written by Hauptman. Document
examination was one of three items of evidence central to the case. The others were
tracing of special bills used to pay the ransom and the physical nature of a ladder
found at the scene, part of which could be traced to timber at Hauptman’s home
(Tilstone, Savage, & Clark, 2006)

4. The Clifford Irving and the Howard Hughes Biography in 1972

Howard Hughes was an American business magnate, investor, aviator,

aerospace engineer, film maker and philanthropist. He made big-budget Hollywood
films in the 1920s, set multiple world air speed records as an aviator, and acquired
and expanded Trans World Airlines, which later merged with American Airlines. He
was remembered as an eccentric and one of the wealthiest people in the world.
However, he did not make public appearances and preferred privacy and solitude.

In 1971, Clifford Irving convinced the publishers of McGraw-Hill that Howard Hughes
authorized him to write an autobiography. Irving forged letters from Hughes to
support the claim that he was requesting Irving’s assistance in writing his
autobiography. Irving even fabricated a contract between himself and Hughes to
divide the money paid by McGraw-Hill for the book. Life magazine also purchased
the rights to run excerpts of Howard Hughes’ autobiography (Koppenhaver, 2007).

Close associates of Hughes expressed doubts on the authenticity of the manuscript,

while others vouched for its validity. Forensic document examiners then became
involved, specifically the firm of Osborn, Osborn and Osborn. Brothers Paul and
Russell Osborn compared samples of Hughes’ known writing with the Irving forgeries
and declared that the letters were written by the same hand.

By January 7, 1972 Howard Hughes broke his fourteen years of silence and exposed
Clifford Irving. He denounced Irving’s claims, stating that he never met Clifford Irving,
never authorized anyone to write his autobiography, and never cashed any checks
from McGraw-Hill. Clifford Irving and his conspirators pleaded guilty of forgery and
served prison terms. Robert A. Cabanne testified that Hughes had not penned the
questioned documents.

5. The Mormon Will in 1978

Howard Hughes died in 1976, apparently without leaving a will. Numerous

documents purporting to be the true will of Howard Hughes surfaced, thus becoming
the most valuable and challenged will-related case that document examiners have
testified on. The most notorious of these questioned wills include the notorious
“Mormon will,” a handwritten will discover at the headquarters of the Mormon Church
(also called the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints or the LDS Church) in
Salt Lake City, Utah. The will left a huge sum to the Mormon Church, although
Hughes only employed many LDS members and was not a member of the church
himself (Tilstone, Savage, & Clark, 2006).

The will had many strange discrepancies, most glaring of which was that it left one-
sixteenth of the estate to a Utah gas station operator named Melvin Dummar. The
purported will was three pages long, allowing ample volume of material for document
examiners to study. Their unanimous conclusion was that it was not authentic.

Dummar claimed that he was awarded a huge part of the vast estate because he
saved allegedly saved Hughes in a Nevada desert in 1967. Dummar’s claims
resulted in a series of court battles which had all ruled that the Mormon will was a
forgery.

6. The Hitler Diaries in 1983

In 1983, the world was stunned with the “discovery” of the Hitler diaries. Document
examiners and historians declared mixed reports regarding its authenticity. However,
forensic laboratory testing revealed that elements in the paper contained modern ink
that was not manufactured until 1956 (Adolf Hitler died in 1945). The Hitler diaries
were the most ambitious hoax of the century (Koppenhaver, 2007).

.Linguistic and historical experts initially vouched for the authenticity of the purported
diaries. Document examiners supported this claim because the diaries matched the
samples from which they compared Hitler’s handwriting. The historians were proven
wrong after extensive examination showed that the material contained errors and
historical inaccuracies (Tilstone, Savage, & Clark, 2006).

However, the handwriting experts were correct in claiming that the diaries and the
samples were written by the same person. This is because the samples themselves
were forged. The forger was Konrad Kujau, a dealer in military memorabilia, who had
forged Hitler’s handwriting for many years even before fake diaries. The Hitler
exemplars used by the examiners for comparison were actually forged by Kujau.
This was a significant in the field of forensic document examination because it
highlighted the importance of selecting a competent examiner and ensuring
adequate control of samples for comparison (Koppenhaver, 2007).

Other cases

Frank W. Abagnale – a reformed master forger, describes in his book the art of
stealing of issued parking ticket by receiving a refund out of forgery and falsified
parking ticket and successfully transacted while the proceed was deposited to his
bank account in Argentina. The check was cashed, and the money was transferred.
He was never arrested and the money was never recovered. He started his crime life
as teenager by changing his driver’s license to make him 10 years older. He came
up to print his account number in a magnetic ink on deposit slip and return to the
bank counter. By the time that the bank discovered the fraudulent scheme, he has
penetrated severe monetary losses to the bank,
 Frank Abagnale is now a leading consultant in forgery, fraudulence and other
form of falsifications by many refutable financial and banking institutions as security
and protective outfit against frauds and deceptions.

In the Philippines of mid 1960’s

Jose “Peping” Ignacio – tagged as “golden hand”
Copying and falsifying the signatures of several important documents
affecting the national interest and damaged the banking institutions. His forgery and
falsification by simulating signatures contributed scandals during President Diosdado
Macapagal’s administration involving the signatures of some senators and other
government officials in the landmark case of STONEHILL VS. DIOKNO. This case
involved issues on economic sabotage and tax evasion involving tobacco trading
business wherein several signatures of some senators and other government
officials allegedly having received “payolas” appears on the records recovered by the
government. Eventually, the involved government officials denied the signatures and
claimed that it was made by Ignacio.

References:
Forensic Examination of Questioned Documents second edition
By PCINSP Mary Grace P. Alvarez, PhD

The Questioned Document Examination and Practices

By Dr. Gregorio Bacay Mendoza, Jr. Reg. Crim., M.S. Crim., Ph.D. Crim.

Forensic Questioned Document examination

By Jonas Arabejo Gonzales