WEBVTT - SYSK Selects: How Handwriting Analysis Works 0:00:00.040 --> 0:00:03.600 M. Hey everybody, it's me Josh and for this week's 0:00:03.600 --> 0:00:08.840 Saturday Select Stuff you should know, I'm doing handwriting analysis. 0:00:08.920 --> 0:00:12.799 It's pretty awesome. It's from October two thirteen, and uh 0:00:12.960 --> 0:00:15.480 I just selected this one because I thought it dovetailed 0:00:15.560 --> 0:00:19.120 nicely with our Secret Service episode this week. So enjoy. 0:00:22.920 --> 0:00:29.960 M Welcome to Stuff you should Know from how Stuff 0:00:29.960 --> 0:00:38.120 Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm 0:00:38.200 --> 0:00:40.760 Josh Clark, and there's Charles c V, Chuck Bryant and 0:00:41.080 --> 0:00:43.880 this stuff you should know. Cherry's over there. That's right, 0:00:45.320 --> 0:00:49.559 we're all here. Yeah, we're at the ready for another 0:00:49.760 --> 0:00:54.000 yet another forensics podcast. Yes we are. I thought we 0:00:54.000 --> 0:00:57.080 were done. No, I don't know that wherever we're gonna 0:00:57.120 --> 0:00:59.720 be done? He and Chuck not only are we never 0:00:59.760 --> 0:01:04.200 going to be finished. This one, like every other forensics 0:01:04.200 --> 0:01:09.040 episode we've ever done, traces back to Alphonse Bertillon. Oh 0:01:09.200 --> 0:01:12.319 is he the first dude? He's the guy he did fingerprinting, 0:01:12.760 --> 0:01:18.120 he did um like facial characteristics. Yeah, the the mug shots, Yeah, 0:01:18.160 --> 0:01:21.760 mug shots and um, what's it called the facial sketch 0:01:21.880 --> 0:01:29.280 artist dree, police sketches and crime scene photography even um 0:01:29.319 --> 0:01:32.199 maybe so it's entirely possible. Well, we owe a great 0:01:32.200 --> 0:01:34.399 debt to that man. Yeah, he was basically like he 0:01:34.440 --> 0:01:37.160 had his finger on the pulse of like forensics. Yeah, 0:01:37.280 --> 0:01:41.240 like every subdiscipline of the field of forensics. Like this 0:01:41.280 --> 0:01:45.400 guy virtually started it at a Paris police station. Yeah, 0:01:45.720 --> 0:01:48.560 it would be you know, unless you were doing the 0:01:48.560 --> 0:01:51.760 research and found out he was kind of a jerk. Yeah, 0:01:51.840 --> 0:01:53.800 but who cares. Well, no, then you have to like 0:01:53.880 --> 0:01:56.920 kind of beef his character up and maybe he was 0:01:57.000 --> 0:02:00.480 what is he like? Um, like he was alted or 0:02:00.520 --> 0:02:03.160 something like that. Does he need like an orphan to 0:02:03.240 --> 0:02:06.160 come into his life? Elected with Gandhi? Remember that movie? 0:02:06.240 --> 0:02:10.840 Oh yeah, made him look like a saint. Uh. So 0:02:10.880 --> 0:02:15.000 I think at the very least people if not uh 0:02:15.160 --> 0:02:17.800 you may not be able to become forensics experts, but 0:02:17.840 --> 0:02:19.399 at the very least you can watch all those TV 0:02:19.480 --> 0:02:23.239 shows now with a better understanding, right, you know? Is 0:02:23.280 --> 0:02:25.040 that what we're trying to do to help people better 0:02:25.080 --> 0:02:31.080 watch TV? Chuck? Yes, have you ever written anything by hand? 0:02:32.280 --> 0:02:35.440 You laugh? But think about this, Pale. There's a time 0:02:35.760 --> 0:02:39.000 that's coming when there's not gonna be much need whatsoever 0:02:39.040 --> 0:02:42.120 for that. I know there is currently a legitimate debate 0:02:42.200 --> 0:02:45.120 on whether or not to keep teaching cursive handwriting. Yeah, 0:02:45.280 --> 0:02:47.200 I think that the debate has been answered, and the 0:02:47.200 --> 0:02:51.480 people who want to keep teaching cursive just haven't quite 0:02:51.520 --> 0:02:55.160 accepted their fate yet. Those the answer, No, sure, Yeah, 0:02:55.520 --> 0:02:59.040 I mean I was looking at a copybooks, which we'll 0:02:59.080 --> 0:03:02.440 talk about in a second, um, And apparently the whole 0:03:02.520 --> 0:03:06.960 point to teaching penmanship lie in the in the in 0:03:07.040 --> 0:03:10.960 an era where if you had good penmanship, you were 0:03:11.040 --> 0:03:13.960 like that was a part of business, Like you needed 0:03:14.000 --> 0:03:18.920 to look respectable, put together. Yeah, like your your business 0:03:18.919 --> 0:03:22.400 transactions were carried out through handwriting too typically, and you 0:03:22.440 --> 0:03:25.360 needed to have good, clean handwriting said a lot about 0:03:25.360 --> 0:03:27.960 your character. This is also at a time when people 0:03:27.960 --> 0:03:31.680 were burned to the steak for witchcraft shortly after, so 0:03:32.000 --> 0:03:33.920 you know, maybe you don't put that much stock into it, 0:03:33.960 --> 0:03:37.400 but there was a point in time when like handwriting counted. 0:03:37.960 --> 0:03:41.920 It doesn't count any longer. And I'm I'm not saying like, 0:03:42.000 --> 0:03:45.240 I'm definitely not waving like the flag of glory over 0:03:45.400 --> 0:03:49.760 the corpse of cursive writing, right, I'm not. You're doing 0:03:49.760 --> 0:03:51.720 it right now? No, I don't mean to, And that's 0:03:51.720 --> 0:03:56.520 why I said I'm not doing that because, yeah, I 0:03:56.520 --> 0:03:58.960 guess what I'm saying is the writings on the wall, 0:03:59.040 --> 0:04:03.680 as it were. I'm not necessarily about it now. It's 0:04:03.680 --> 0:04:05.720 the last thing anyone ever wrote in cursive was that 0:04:05.760 --> 0:04:08.640 cursive is dead. Yeah, you know, I can say that. 0:04:09.240 --> 0:04:13.040 I don't write by hand that much anymore, and um 0:04:13.120 --> 0:04:15.680 when I do now, I get weird with it. I 0:04:15.800 --> 0:04:17.479 leave out letters and have to go back and put 0:04:17.480 --> 0:04:20.599 them in here. I'll write out of order, and even 0:04:20.640 --> 0:04:23.600 this word I put c additional. I left out like 0:04:23.640 --> 0:04:25.479 three letters and had to go back and put them in. 0:04:25.520 --> 0:04:27.680 But I do it really quickly. It's not like I'm stumped. 0:04:28.400 --> 0:04:30.120 But um, like if I was writing in cursive, i'd 0:04:30.120 --> 0:04:33.240 be stumped. Yeah, I tried to know how. I've tried 0:04:33.279 --> 0:04:35.080 to write cursive here there, just to see if I 0:04:35.120 --> 0:04:37.279 still have it, and I do not lost it. I 0:04:37.279 --> 0:04:40.200 don't think I ever really had the Z. It's a 0:04:40.320 --> 0:04:43.680 tough one, remember the Z. Yeah, I could write a 0:04:43.760 --> 0:04:49.920 Z right now, um spreak in uh okay, but yeah, anyway, 0:04:50.440 --> 0:04:53.920 it's weird. It's almost like a dyslexic thing happens now 0:04:53.920 --> 0:04:56.840 when I write. You would use this spa. You could 0:04:56.839 --> 0:04:59.400 spray pain and cursive. Z I could do that right now? 0:04:59.480 --> 0:05:02.080 I think I be better at spray painting and cursives 0:05:02.080 --> 0:05:08.200 even writing it, yeah, because it'd be large and yeah yeah. Um, 0:05:08.400 --> 0:05:12.960 the point is its cursive is probably dead. Writing things 0:05:13.000 --> 0:05:17.320 down by hand is becoming less and less. Um, what 0:05:17.520 --> 0:05:20.520 is that? I'm sorry everyone, I don't mean to interrupt myself, 0:05:20.560 --> 0:05:22.680 but Chuck has held up one of his pages of 0:05:22.760 --> 0:05:25.200 notes and there's some weird writing on the back. What 0:05:25.320 --> 0:05:28.920 is that? You know? What? That is? My parents signatures? 0:05:28.920 --> 0:05:31.320 Because I was seeing if I could still duplicate them 0:05:31.360 --> 0:05:33.080 as I could back in high school. You used to 0:05:33.160 --> 0:05:37.040 do that? Sure? What for You're a good kid in 0:05:37.120 --> 0:05:39.360 high school? What did you need to know your parents signatures? 0:05:39.520 --> 0:05:40.720 Here's what I would do. I was a good kid, 0:05:40.760 --> 0:05:43.680 but I would skip school and class sometimes. What did 0:05:43.720 --> 0:05:47.400 like go fishing with rad and Uh that's the thing. 0:05:47.400 --> 0:05:49.279 I wasn't good. I wasn't like doing drugs or drinking. 0:05:49.320 --> 0:05:51.640 I would skip school and like go fishing. Uh. And 0:05:51.640 --> 0:05:54.520 then I would write notes then forge my parents signature, 0:05:54.520 --> 0:05:58.359 which is not right kids. But um, it wasn't like 0:05:58.400 --> 0:05:59.920 I was off being a vandal or anything. I was 0:06:00.040 --> 0:06:03.240 is catching some trout, catching some trout and beating foxes 0:06:03.240 --> 0:06:05.960 in the head of the hammer, huffing Scotch guard. But 0:06:06.120 --> 0:06:09.160 I used to could really do with my parents signature 0:06:09.240 --> 0:06:11.400 spot on, and I was very proud of that. Yeah, 0:06:11.560 --> 0:06:13.599 so how is it? How is it hold up comparing 0:06:13.720 --> 0:06:17.080 before because I don't I don't have what's called an exemplar. 0:06:18.360 --> 0:06:21.680 My mom's little initial signature is still pretty right on 0:06:22.440 --> 0:06:25.560 m T d MB, but my father's is UM. I 0:06:25.640 --> 0:06:27.279 used to could do that one a lot better. That's 0:06:27.279 --> 0:06:29.080 a that's a fine signature. Can I see it all 0:06:29.160 --> 0:06:33.880 more time? James Allen Bryant, that's a nice one. Yeah, huh, 0:06:34.839 --> 0:06:38.279 all right. You've never forged your parents signature? Don't know, uh, 0:06:38.520 --> 0:06:41.080 neither one of them. I may have tried, I think 0:06:41.080 --> 0:06:45.280 I remember even practicing. I think because my dad seems 0:06:45.320 --> 0:06:49.160 like just looking at it, it's highly duplicable. Um, but 0:06:49.520 --> 0:06:54.080 it's not really like you. You can you can tell that. 0:06:54.760 --> 0:06:57.320 I I want to say the person because I refer 0:06:57.400 --> 0:07:00.919 to myself a third person A lot um was trying 0:07:00.960 --> 0:07:04.719 to recreate it. Just make a potato stamp and your set. 0:07:05.480 --> 0:07:08.520 I've never tried that one. You got your signature for 0:07:08.520 --> 0:07:11.160 life with a potato snamp like you just carve out Yeah, 0:07:11.240 --> 0:07:13.080 you never did that in craft class. You carve out 0:07:13.160 --> 0:07:16.200 something in a and press it on inc and a 0:07:16.240 --> 0:07:18.640 potato and then press it on ink and you basically 0:07:18.680 --> 0:07:22.240 can make your own stamp. No it makes sense. Yeah, 0:07:22.880 --> 0:07:26.880 potato stamps. No, we didn't make those. You missed out, buddy, 0:07:27.120 --> 0:07:30.160 um chuck. I feel like we've kind of covered a 0:07:30.160 --> 0:07:34.320 lot of like points of handwriting analysis, little teasers before 0:07:34.360 --> 0:07:36.360 we start too. I think we should point out that 0:07:36.400 --> 0:07:38.760 what we're talking about, and I was just made to 0:07:38.800 --> 0:07:41.720 find on the internets that when you search handwriting analysis, 0:07:41.800 --> 0:07:45.680 what comes up is actually graphology. Yeah, that's that comes 0:07:45.720 --> 0:07:49.480 up a lot. Which if handwriting analysis, friends of handwriting 0:07:49.480 --> 0:07:53.200 analysis is really struggling forging ahead to become a science, 0:07:53.600 --> 0:07:58.280 graphology is quite happy to not be whatsoever. It's all, um, 0:07:59.480 --> 0:08:02.880 very un scientific. That's like, can let me write down 0:08:02.880 --> 0:08:04.480 a sentence and you tell me what kind of person 0:08:04.520 --> 0:08:07.960 I am? Exactly Like if you write using small letters, 0:08:08.080 --> 0:08:10.840 you're actually afraid of the world and very self conscious 0:08:10.840 --> 0:08:14.280 and you want to hide or disappear. Or another example 0:08:14.360 --> 0:08:17.760 is if um, like the first letters in your first 0:08:17.800 --> 0:08:20.880 and last name are big, your signature. Yeah, you you 0:08:21.040 --> 0:08:25.600 crave attention or you think overly of yourself. None of 0:08:25.640 --> 0:08:32.600 this is founded at allever. It's HOKEM. Handwriting analysis while still, 0:08:32.640 --> 0:08:35.800 like I said, struggling to be a science is um 0:08:35.880 --> 0:08:41.160 much less. HOKEM has one fatal flaw that's possibly not fatal, 0:08:41.480 --> 0:08:44.640 but it's the same flaw that UM fingerprint analysis has. 0:08:45.280 --> 0:08:49.560 Subject subjectivity, that's right, which we'll talk about. But maybe 0:08:49.559 --> 0:09:08.280 now is a good time for a message. But hey, 0:09:08.280 --> 0:09:11.040 now we're back. Um, let's talk about handwriting analysis in 0:09:11.080 --> 0:09:16.199 handwriting in general. Chuckers Okay, Um, well it's it's questioned 0:09:16.280 --> 0:09:20.920 documents is the legal term for what they're analyzing. Yeah, 0:09:20.960 --> 0:09:24.280 it's not just handwriting. It could be like forgeries. Yeah, dude, 0:09:24.280 --> 0:09:26.319 it could be a lot of stuff. These people UM 0:09:26.520 --> 0:09:31.199 questioned document examiners q d s. Uh. They examined typewriting, 0:09:31.640 --> 0:09:37.079 computer printed documents, photo copies, uh, decipherment of altered, obliterated, 0:09:37.120 --> 0:09:40.080 or charred documents. Yeah, but that's a tough one. Um. 0:09:40.080 --> 0:09:46.000 Examination of inks and papers, erased entries, indented writings like 0:09:46.080 --> 0:09:47.520 you know, you wrote something on a pad and ripped 0:09:47.520 --> 0:09:50.560 it up. Yeah. There's a whole division of people who 0:09:50.640 --> 0:09:52.920 just rubbed pencils on a piece of paper to see 0:09:52.920 --> 0:09:56.839 what comes up, counterfeit currency, and examination of commercially printed matter. 0:09:57.280 --> 0:09:59.320 So they're kind of all over the place, but the 0:09:59.360 --> 0:10:01.880 sexy stuff is and a lot of times, just in 0:10:01.880 --> 0:10:06.080 the private sector, it's not even for forensics. It's hey, 0:10:06.080 --> 0:10:08.880 examine the signature on this document, right, like, real it, 0:10:09.000 --> 0:10:12.320 did Mickey Mantill sign this baseball? Yeah? Exactly. Yeah. But 0:10:12.360 --> 0:10:14.800 what they're looking for, and what the entire field of 0:10:14.920 --> 0:10:18.280 forensic handwriting analysis is based on, is called the principle 0:10:18.360 --> 0:10:21.120 of uniqueness, which has been around since at least the 0:10:21.200 --> 0:10:25.840 nineteen twenties, and it is the idea that everybody has 0:10:25.920 --> 0:10:31.240 their own brand of handwriting and that um, while maybe 0:10:31.280 --> 0:10:37.080 you make a cursive Z in a certain way, that 0:10:37.559 --> 0:10:40.280 I might make the same Z in the same way. 0:10:40.640 --> 0:10:43.520 If you take all of the characteristics that you have 0:10:44.120 --> 0:10:47.439 and put them together, you form a unique package. Your 0:10:47.440 --> 0:10:51.800 handwriting is unique in that sense. So the individual weird 0:10:51.920 --> 0:10:56.080 characteristics might be similar to other people's weird individual characteristics, 0:10:56.120 --> 0:10:59.679 but you can't put twenty or thirty weird characteristics of 0:10:59.760 --> 0:11:03.680 hand writing together and compared to anybody else's. And so 0:11:03.800 --> 0:11:06.360 based on that, you should logically be able to look 0:11:06.400 --> 0:11:09.200 at one person's handwriting and compared it to a sample 0:11:09.240 --> 0:11:12.200 of another person's handwriting or the same person's handwriting, and 0:11:12.280 --> 0:11:15.160 see whether they match or whether they were written by 0:11:15.200 --> 0:11:18.880 two different people based on the the number of differences 0:11:18.960 --> 0:11:23.400 or similarities between the two samples. Boom, Yeah, so let's 0:11:23.400 --> 0:11:27.160 talk about handwriting. Yeah, and those are individual characteristics. Um. 0:11:27.200 --> 0:11:30.240 Before that, you have what's called or everyone has an 0:11:30.320 --> 0:11:34.440 underlying style characteristic, and that is based on the fact 0:11:34.440 --> 0:11:37.679 that when you were a little snot nose kid in school, 0:11:37.720 --> 0:11:40.880 they gave you what's called a copybook which had I know, 0:11:40.920 --> 0:11:43.640 we all remember this words on one line and then 0:11:43.679 --> 0:11:46.200 an empty line where you had to copy it and 0:11:46.240 --> 0:11:48.360 make it look like that. And depending on where you 0:11:48.400 --> 0:11:51.840 live and when you live and went to school, Uh, 0:11:51.960 --> 0:11:55.880 you're gonna have a different copybook. So you're underlying style 0:11:56.280 --> 0:11:59.840 characteristics are going to be based on this original copybook 0:12:00.120 --> 0:12:03.640 that you might have some similarities with people like for 0:12:03.720 --> 0:12:07.440 me that grew up in the mid seventies and elementary 0:12:07.440 --> 0:12:10.240 school in decapp County, Georgia. Right exactly because you use 0:12:10.320 --> 0:12:14.920 the same copybook. What's awesome is a handwriting analyst could 0:12:14.920 --> 0:12:17.400 tell you what copybook you used or where you were 0:12:17.440 --> 0:12:21.319 from and when based on that that structural analysis. Yeah, 0:12:21.360 --> 0:12:23.760 and I imagine teachers even informed that somewhat you know, 0:12:24.160 --> 0:12:26.920 individual instruction for sure, Yeah, because the teacher is going 0:12:26.960 --> 0:12:28.920 to be like, that's not in our and like smack 0:12:28.920 --> 0:12:33.920 your knuckles and say try again. Um. So the copybook 0:12:34.760 --> 0:12:40.240 how we learn to actually write handwriting UM is based 0:12:40.280 --> 0:12:44.800 on or creates this um the style characteristic. Right. But 0:12:44.880 --> 0:12:48.079 then once we actually learn how to produce a letter 0:12:48.600 --> 0:12:52.440 using our hands, just through repetition, we start to add 0:12:52.440 --> 0:12:55.440 our own style to it. Um. And that those are 0:12:55.440 --> 0:12:58.840 the individual characteristics. We stopped thinking about how to make 0:12:58.920 --> 0:13:02.880 the structure of a letter and we're thinking about, um, 0:13:03.000 --> 0:13:06.240 how you know what we're actually writing about. Yeah. And 0:13:06.280 --> 0:13:11.480 when it comes to forensic examination, style characteristics aren't really 0:13:11.520 --> 0:13:16.959 what's important. Maybe that could help rule out certain geographic 0:13:17.000 --> 0:13:20.280 areas or something, but mainly what they're looking at are 0:13:20.320 --> 0:13:23.760 those individual characteristics. That's that's kind of where the key 0:13:23.840 --> 0:13:25.760 is when you want to track down a purpose. Yeah, 0:13:25.760 --> 0:13:28.000 because like we said, I mean the chances of the 0:13:28.040 --> 0:13:34.400 same person having the same set of individual characteristic pretty much. Yeah. Uh. 0:13:34.400 --> 0:13:36.560 And here's the thing, they're not just looking for similarities. 0:13:36.920 --> 0:13:39.760 They say in this article. It's probably easy for even 0:13:40.320 --> 0:13:42.840 a layman to look at two sentences and compare them 0:13:42.840 --> 0:13:44.800 and say, well, look, these letters are the same. What 0:13:44.840 --> 0:13:47.560 they're looking for are the differences, and there in lies 0:13:47.600 --> 0:13:52.040 the key the differences and two different pieces of text. 0:13:52.600 --> 0:13:58.199 One is the exemplar, which is basically a comparison sample. 0:13:58.240 --> 0:14:01.280 The exemplar is a preview, this document that you've written 0:14:01.280 --> 0:14:05.640 in the past, written by a known author. Yeah, like, hey, Chuck, 0:14:05.720 --> 0:14:08.040 you wrote We found this diary entry for you from 0:14:08.080 --> 0:14:11.080 five years ago. This will be your exemplar. Now we 0:14:11.120 --> 0:14:14.439 want you to write some stuff now exactly. Um. So 0:14:14.600 --> 0:14:16.880 that would be a requested exemplar if they asked you 0:14:16.920 --> 0:14:20.440 to write something now, um. But either way, they know 0:14:20.800 --> 0:14:23.680 that this came from you. So it's an exemplar, an 0:14:23.680 --> 0:14:27.480 example document, and they use those to compare to the 0:14:27.600 --> 0:14:31.520 question document. So whenever you're talking handwriting analysis, you have 0:14:31.600 --> 0:14:33.800 to have two kinds of documents. An exemplar in a 0:14:33.920 --> 0:14:36.760 question document, that's right, you want to talk about Lindbergh 0:14:36.760 --> 0:14:40.800 for a minute, Yeah, a question document very frequently, um, 0:14:40.920 --> 0:14:43.400 is a ransom note. That's right. And in the case 0:14:43.400 --> 0:14:47.040 of the Lindbergh baby, which Grandpa Simpson everybody knows kidnapped, 0:14:47.560 --> 0:14:50.800 um or is that's what it was. Yeah, Um, there 0:14:50.800 --> 0:14:55.800 were fourteen ransom notes, yeah from uh. Well depends on 0:14:55.800 --> 0:14:57.880 who you asked. A lot of people think Bruno Houtman 0:14:58.240 --> 0:15:02.000 was innocent, maybe an executed uh as an innocent man. 0:15:02.200 --> 0:15:05.480 But there was still fourteen ransom notes. Still fourteen notes. Yeah, 0:15:05.520 --> 0:15:08.760 And they when Bruno Holtman came in, they couldn't find, 0:15:09.560 --> 0:15:13.080 um many exemplars from his past, so they said, well, 0:15:13.160 --> 0:15:15.920 let's just get him in custody and have him write 0:15:16.040 --> 0:15:19.640 some things down, right, And that's just put putting it lightly, 0:15:19.760 --> 0:15:24.720 which that's fine, good idea procedurally speaking, that's a requested exemplar. 0:15:25.080 --> 0:15:28.280 All right. The thing is the police had this guy 0:15:28.400 --> 0:15:32.120 right until he was exhausted over and over again. Apparently 0:15:32.120 --> 0:15:34.280 he wasn't producing what they wanted him to produce. So 0:15:34.320 --> 0:15:37.440 they said, here see this ransom note, copy this, yea, 0:15:38.000 --> 0:15:42.840 and the guy did it. Um. And apparently every bit 0:15:42.880 --> 0:15:45.880 of handwriting analysis that they are a sample that they 0:15:45.920 --> 0:15:50.600 got from this guy was coerced um and questionable as 0:15:50.680 --> 0:15:55.040 questionable as the question document. That's right, Um, But he 0:15:55.120 --> 0:15:58.360 was still convicted and executed, right, yeah, and who knows 0:15:58.400 --> 0:16:00.280 if he was innocent or not. There's all kinds of 0:16:00.520 --> 0:16:04.040 varying opinions on the Internet, of course, but at the 0:16:04.120 --> 0:16:08.920 very least, the handwriting documents in his his samples that 0:16:08.960 --> 0:16:11.680 he gave were definitely coerced and probably not the best 0:16:12.000 --> 0:16:15.080 thing to put your case on. And that was an 0:16:15.080 --> 0:16:18.400 early obstacle that handwriting analysis has had to overcome, was 0:16:19.360 --> 0:16:23.400 creating procedures for the police to say if you're going 0:16:23.440 --> 0:16:26.720 to request an examplar, like, here's how you do it, 0:16:26.760 --> 0:16:30.840 here's what to ask for. Do not show them the 0:16:31.640 --> 0:16:34.600 question document, don't ask them to copy, just have them right. 0:16:34.800 --> 0:16:36.840 That's why you should always cut your ransom note out 0:16:36.880 --> 0:16:40.120 from the funny papers and individual letters. Plus it looks 0:16:40.160 --> 0:16:44.320 cool and creepy. Yeah. Um, so, what what you're looking 0:16:44.360 --> 0:16:47.160 for if you're going to compare things is not hey, 0:16:47.360 --> 0:16:50.040 look at the sentence and compared to the sentence, because 0:16:50.080 --> 0:16:54.120 that doesn't tell you much. You want numerous exemplars. You 0:16:54.160 --> 0:16:56.360 want like ten documents that you can compare to ten 0:16:56.400 --> 0:16:59.880 other documents. The reason behind that um is because when 0:17:00.760 --> 0:17:04.000 you write something, so you're writing a letter. When you 0:17:04.119 --> 0:17:07.440 start you're all fresh faced and bushy tailed, and then 0:17:07.440 --> 0:17:10.359 as you go further down the page, you get a 0:17:10.440 --> 0:17:13.240 little more tired, a little more fatigued, and your writing 0:17:13.240 --> 0:17:16.080 starts to fall apart. So you're never gonna write the 0:17:16.080 --> 0:17:19.840 same way twice. Um, which even within a document, right, 0:17:19.880 --> 0:17:23.640 which is a characteristic in and of itself. What's more, Um, 0:17:23.640 --> 0:17:27.760 starting a word with the letter A, you're probably going 0:17:27.800 --> 0:17:29.880 to produce that A differently than an A that comes 0:17:29.880 --> 0:17:32.640 in the middle of a word or at the end. Yeah, 0:17:32.720 --> 0:17:38.040 I do that for sure. And like certain letters will connect, um, 0:17:38.080 --> 0:17:40.000 but only certain letters, Like I might connect to my 0:17:40.040 --> 0:17:41.800 T to my H in the middle of a word, 0:17:42.359 --> 0:17:46.119 you know, but not at the beginning that kind of thing. Uh. 0:17:46.160 --> 0:17:48.800 So what are they looking for, Well, they're looking for 0:17:48.840 --> 0:17:53.919 several things are looking for They're looking for a letter form, 0:17:53.960 --> 0:17:58.280 which is like, um, you know the curves, um, the 0:17:59.720 --> 0:18:02.200 saw eyes of the letters. But you know, the relationship 0:18:02.240 --> 0:18:04.920 between a letter that's supposed to be small like an 0:18:05.119 --> 0:18:07.280 S and a letter that's supposed to be big like 0:18:07.320 --> 0:18:10.359 maybe an H. Yeah, even the width within a single letter, 0:18:10.400 --> 0:18:15.320 maybe the slant the slope, um, whether or not, like 0:18:15.359 --> 0:18:20.479 I talked about, you connect certain letters together links between them. Um. 0:18:20.560 --> 0:18:22.920 And then like we mentioned where that letter falls. So 0:18:23.400 --> 0:18:26.679 if you want to analyze an A a lower case A, 0:18:27.720 --> 0:18:29.760 and we should point out to that, apparently you can't 0:18:29.880 --> 0:18:33.640 analyze upper case letters only. Is that right? You can 0:18:33.840 --> 0:18:36.719 you can analyze those just against each other though, Okay, 0:18:36.960 --> 0:18:39.480 upper case and lower case or like they yield nothing. 0:18:39.680 --> 0:18:42.200 That's right apparently. Um. But let's say you have a letter, 0:18:42.280 --> 0:18:45.359 a lower case A. You want to find within the 0:18:45.400 --> 0:18:48.760 document an example of an A at the beginning, one 0:18:48.800 --> 0:18:51.960 in the middle, one at the end um and see 0:18:52.080 --> 0:18:54.800 how those compared to each other before you even compare 0:18:54.800 --> 0:18:56.879 it to the other exemplar. Yeah, like, if you really 0:18:57.040 --> 0:19:00.240 thorough in detailed stuff, it really is. It's it's like 0:19:00.320 --> 0:19:02.960 very tedious words to super tedious, which we'll get into 0:19:03.040 --> 0:19:05.240 in a second exactly how tedious it is. But yeah, 0:19:05.280 --> 0:19:08.200 the point is, if you are a handwriting analyst, you're 0:19:08.240 --> 0:19:10.439 not gonna put an A at the beginning of a 0:19:10.480 --> 0:19:12.840 word next to an A or compare it to an 0:19:12.840 --> 0:19:14.640 A in the middle of the word. They write two 0:19:14.680 --> 0:19:17.040 different things as far as you're concerned. Yeah, you get 0:19:17.080 --> 0:19:20.919 laughed at if you do that. In in class line forms, 0:19:20.960 --> 0:19:23.399 another thing they look at um, how smooth it is, 0:19:23.480 --> 0:19:26.480 how dark it is, indicates what kind of pressure you're 0:19:26.600 --> 0:19:30.199 you're using on the paper? How U Yeah, the speed 0:19:30.560 --> 0:19:35.440 formatting of course, spacing between letters, spacing between words, um, 0:19:35.480 --> 0:19:37.879 whether where your margins are. Like they'll give you a 0:19:37.880 --> 0:19:41.439 blank sheet of paper that's not lined and see you know, 0:19:41.520 --> 0:19:45.000 if you, like most people, typically the sentence will go 0:19:45.080 --> 0:19:48.119 down if you don't have a line paper, or what 0:19:48.200 --> 0:19:51.480 kind of margins you just instinctively use, or if you're 0:19:51.480 --> 0:19:54.160 like a serial killer and you don't use margins. Yeah, 0:19:54.200 --> 0:19:57.760 that's just pretty scribble all over the page. Yeah, they 0:19:57.800 --> 0:19:59.880 just should just let you up right there, right exactly, 0:20:00.160 --> 0:20:03.439 Like that's you're basically confessing to something horrible. Where do 0:20:03.800 --> 0:20:05.800 if it is line paper? Where if you make like 0:20:05.840 --> 0:20:09.080 a lower case why, how does the bottom of the 0:20:09.280 --> 0:20:12.800 Y or the G or the curse of Z intersect 0:20:12.880 --> 0:20:15.200 with the line? How far down does it go? How 0:20:15.240 --> 0:20:18.160 big your loops? Where do you cross your tea? It's 0:20:18.200 --> 0:20:22.320 like it's mind numbingly details. Do you skip lines? Yeah? 0:20:22.560 --> 0:20:25.600 Do you dot your eyes with little hearts? That kind 0:20:25.600 --> 0:20:29.360 of thing, the bubble letters? I know some females it's 0:20:29.359 --> 0:20:32.239 still sort of right that way, not with the with 0:20:32.320 --> 0:20:37.440 the hearts, but definitely that very distinctive you can. Yeah, 0:20:38.920 --> 0:20:41.480 I got a lot of love notes like that, you know, 0:20:41.640 --> 0:20:44.440 in my day with the little heart eye. Yeah, and 0:20:44.480 --> 0:20:46.800 I would right back like the serial killer. Those were 0:20:46.840 --> 0:20:50.280 my just like words on a single piece that they 0:20:50.320 --> 0:20:51.920 do like you. It isn't a matter of fact, I'm 0:20:51.920 --> 0:20:54.040 sitting outside of your house right now, I know what 0:20:54.080 --> 0:20:59.679 you're doing. Just a big, one long run on sentence. Um. Okay. 0:20:59.680 --> 0:21:01.840 So one thing that they will do, here's one method 0:21:01.840 --> 0:21:05.680 that they will use is they will actually create tables. Yeah, 0:21:05.920 --> 0:21:07.760 three tables and all of us what you want. So 0:21:07.840 --> 0:21:10.520 you make your first table. You start with the letter A, 0:21:11.440 --> 0:21:16.160 and you go through the the um question documents. Yeah, 0:21:16.200 --> 0:21:17.720 and this is all on the article by the way, 0:21:17.760 --> 0:21:20.639 it's even has the little tables and the sample sentence 0:21:20.680 --> 0:21:24.480 they used is I have your daughter. Yeah. It's kind 0:21:24.480 --> 0:21:27.000 of creepy, it was, but it was like appropriately creepy. 0:21:27.040 --> 0:21:30.520 Why couldn't they just put let's play some basketball. I 0:21:30.560 --> 0:21:33.119 hadn't even thought of that. It seemed like, yeah, of course, 0:21:33.359 --> 0:21:36.560 I have your daughter. Okay, alright, what that says about? 0:21:36.680 --> 0:21:40.040 So the three tables? Uh so the first table, what 0:21:40.080 --> 0:21:42.800 they're gonna do is go through all the question documents 0:21:43.160 --> 0:21:45.480 and they're going to write start with the letter A. 0:21:45.920 --> 0:21:48.200 If the letter A is present in the documentary, they're 0:21:48.200 --> 0:21:50.440 gonna put all the letters that are present in the documents. 0:21:50.440 --> 0:21:56.240 So for example, I have your daughter, UM has uh right, Well, no, 0:21:56.640 --> 0:22:00.720 yes it does. But they they they sentence itself doesn't 0:22:00.760 --> 0:22:02.400 have all the letters of the alphabet. So you're gonna 0:22:02.440 --> 0:22:04.240 go through and figure out what letters are present in 0:22:04.240 --> 0:22:07.760 your question document put those down one side, and then 0:22:07.800 --> 0:22:11.160 you're gonna go through, starting with the letter A, and 0:22:11.400 --> 0:22:15.680 um find every different letter A. So if there's a 0:22:15.760 --> 0:22:18.080 letter A that slants to the left, you're gonna put 0:22:18.119 --> 0:22:21.080 that down next to A in row one. And then 0:22:21.280 --> 0:22:23.640 if you've come across another A that science the left, 0:22:23.640 --> 0:22:25.479 you're gonna skip that one because you've already found it. 0:22:25.800 --> 0:22:27.800 What the point is you're going to create a table 0:22:28.000 --> 0:22:33.520 of every characteristically different example of a particular letter yea. 0:22:33.600 --> 0:22:36.919 And they're doing this with digital cameras, right, So in 0:22:37.000 --> 0:22:39.280 the article they did it by hand. They try to 0:22:39.359 --> 0:22:41.840 recreate what the weird letter looked like. But yeah, they're 0:22:41.840 --> 0:22:44.879 going to take a digital photo of just that letter 0:22:45.480 --> 0:22:49.160 and then compile it into a table. That's right. Uh. 0:22:49.160 --> 0:22:51.200 And at the end what they are doing is comparing 0:22:51.200 --> 0:22:54.120 the tables making sure they have a match for each 0:22:54.240 --> 0:22:58.040 letter in the exemplar, right, because they went through the 0:22:58.720 --> 0:23:01.879 question document, then they the exact same thing for the exemplar, 0:23:02.080 --> 0:23:04.000 and they put the two tables together and created a 0:23:04.040 --> 0:23:07.439 third table. And from that third table they should be 0:23:07.440 --> 0:23:12.280 able to see pretty clearly whether um, the person, whether 0:23:12.320 --> 0:23:14.720