Famous Forgery Case

In February 2007, Italian senator Marcello Dell'Utri claimed that diaries, covering the years from 1935 to 1939 had been found. Moreover, he claimed in the newspaper Corriere della Sera, these Mussolini diaries were with a lawyer at Bellinzona, in the Italian-speaking part of Switzerland. He said he examined the diaries and found that the "handwriting is clear and recognisably" that of Mussolini, though "a bit hurried". Dell'Utri stated that his claim was supported by an unknown handwriting expert. He said further that the diaries had been found in a suitcase the dictator was carrying when he was caught by partisans in Dongo, at Lake Como, while he was fleeing to Switzerland in April 1945. The books had been hidden by one of the partisans who had died recently.
These diaries occasioned much interest among historians, as it appeared that Mussolini reluctantly brought Italy into World War II and that he had tried to prevent the war. The diaries were also received with scepticism as they had not been authenticated independently. This scepticism was made more acute by memories of the 1957 forgery and the forged Hitler diaries case in 1983.
Later in February two Italian historians Emilio Gentile and Roberto Travaglini independently discovered that these diaries were indeed forged. The historians claim that these diaries had been around for some time and that someone had tried to sell these diaries to journalists before offering them to Dell'Utri. According to Gentile, the diaries contain "historical errors" and that the authors "seem to have copied various articles from old newspapers", and according to Travaglini ""there were too many elements that did not match up"".
Marcello Dell'Utri is the owner of the diaries and still claims them to be authentic.

Interest in handwriting were not first recorded until around 330 B.C, when Aristotle noted that handwriting was related to personality:

Aristotole

Speech is the expression of ideas, thoughts or desires. Handwriting is the visible form of speech. Somewhere in handwriting is an expression of the emotions underlying the writer’s thoughts, ideas, or desires. (Aristotle)

In the year of 1621 the first published work of handwrriting was found writen by an italian docter by the name of, Camillo Baldi, his tretise was writen on handwriting and character.Baldi thought handwriting was a manifestation of the writer’s temperament, personality and character.

In the late 1842 the French monk Jean Hippolyte Michon (considered to be the grandfather of modern graphology) spent years investigating thousands of samples and published a catalog on graphological signs. He coined the term “graphologie” and founded the Societe de Graphologie, which is still one of the leading institutions for the study of graphology at the university level.

In 1888, Jules-Crepieux Jamin (France) was Michon’s successor and disciple and published a study on how handwriting traits (how and what you write) influence interpretation of writing.

In 1895, the Physiology Professor Dr. Wilhelm T. Preyer (Germany) related graphic movement (writing) to mental processes. He was the first to coin the term “brain writing.”

In 1904, the psychologist Alfred Binet (France) affirmed the reliability of handwriting analysis in a published study and later developed the first standardized IQ test.

In 1910, the German Psychologist and Philosopher, Dr. Luddwig Klages, formulated a theory that handwritng had a general common rhythm as did walking and facial expressions.

In 1934, the Psychologist Dr. Max Pulver (Switzerland) showed how conscious and unconscious drives are indicated in handwriting.

It was in the early 1900’s that the American newspaperwoman, Louise Rice, brought Graphology to the United States upon her return to the United States after a European assignment. Today, Graphology is on the rise in the United States, Italy, Spain, Hungary, Poland, Iceland, Great Britain and Russia.

Class Work

Hand writing analysis consist of examining handwriting's (of two or three people) to see how they look similar and how they look different. For example in class a group experiment was done to test and see how well we could forge a classmates hand writing by writing a sentence that has every letter in the alphbet in it so your group has an idea of what your letters look like. Once you got that down then you switch paers and try to copy each others hand writing, then you try to trace it. our results were not so good for some but i could forge a signiture very well.

Newspaper headline

A State and Federal Case

Clifford was up to his neck in legal problems. There was a wealth of evidence now available that made for a potentially damaging case against him. There was evidence that Clifford had committed the federal offense of mail fraud, based on the forged letters sent to McGraw-Hill. Moreover, there was also evidence that he had violated state laws by obtaining money under false pretenses and committing perjury by lying in a sworn affidavit about his role in the hoax. Therefore, Clifford as well as his accomplices who faced similar charges, was to face an investigation by two grand juries in New York, one investigating the obstruction of state laws and the other to investigate a violation of federal laws. 

During the month of February, Clifford and his accomplices confronted both grand juries. A vast amount of evidence against Clifford, Edith and Suskind was presented in both cases. The juries viewed the forged letters and the checks cashed by Edith. They also heard testimony from experts who examined the documents involved, as well as testimony given by Suskind about his role in the affair. Moreover, those who were directly and indirectly exploited in the hoax testified before the jury, with the exception of Howard Hughes, who was enroute to Nicaragua.

Britannia Hotel, Nassau, Bahamas

 

Howard moved from his long-time residence in the Bahamas following an investigation by Bahamian immigration officials. It was believed that some of Howard’s staff had bypassed registration for work permits and immigration procedures, which were necessary for them to live and work in the Bahamas. Bahamian officials were allegedly alerted to Howard’s unregistered staff during the controversy concerning Clifford’s book. Thus, according to Fay, Chester and Linklater, Howard became an unsuspecting victim of Clifford’s grand hoax.  

On March 13, Clifford, Edith and Suskind appeared before the grand jury and pleaded guilty to their roles in the literary fraud. They made a complete confession before the federal jury and revealed the entire scheme behind the hoax. Following their declaration of guilt, further testimony was heard from several more witnesses, including that from Baroness Nina van Pallandt.

After listening to approximately one hundred witnesses, the federal jurors assessed the evidence before indicting the defendants. At about the same time, state jurors were also in the process of charging Clifford, Edith and Suskind. The state charged all three defendants on fourteen criminal counts, including possession of forged documents, intent to defraud, grand larceny for stealing monies from McGraw-Hill, perjury and conspiracy. Moreover, the federal grand jury indicted Clifford and Edith on two counts of mail fraud.    

On June 16, 1972 following a federal court hearing, Clifford and Edith were both found guilty and sentenced. Clifford received a two-and-a-half year sentence in a federal prison, whereas Edith received a total of two years. However, according to Clifford Irving’s book, most of Edith’s sentence was suspended and she served only two months in New York’s Nassau County Jail. Irving further stated that the Swiss authorities eventually caught up with Edith and sentenced her to two years in prison. Dick Suskind was sentenced by the state of New York to a half-year in prison, in which he only served five months for good conduct. On top of their sentences, they were ordered to pay back a total of more than $750,000 to Clifford’s publisher.

 

According to a CBS interview with Clifford by Mike Wallace in 2000, Clifford caused as much trouble during his stint in prison as he had prior to his sentencing. Clifford stated that he was put in three different institutions due to his bad behavior. He claimed to have been kicked out of Allenwood Penitentiary after being, “caught with a bottle of gin.” He then was placed into solitary confinement in Lewisburg penitentiary and eventually “dispelled” for not fitting in. Finally, Clifford stated that he was sent to a penitentiary in Danbury, Connecticut, where he was accused of plotting to kill a warden and provoke a prison riot.

In February 1974, Clifford was released after spending a total of seventeen months in prison. To date he’s continued with his writing and has authored approximately a dozen books. According to the CBS interview, the almost seventy-year-old Clifford currently spends his time traveling between New Mexico and Mexico. The infamous autobiography that he had written was finally published in 1999 on the internet

Famous murder case

Caught By A Hair

In 1990 in Telluride, Colorado, Eva Shoen's young daughter found her dead from a single gunshot to her head.  Her husband, Sam, came under suspicion, but he truly appeared to be the grieving, shocked husband, a victim of random violence.  The police were confident they would solve the case, because the bullet taken from Eva's skull had the distinct markings of a particular type of pistol.  However, the case eventually found its way into the cold cases file.  There just were no leads.
Three years later, the Telluride police received a call from a man in Arizona who believed that his own brother, Frank Marquis, had been the perpetrator.  Marquis had once confessed this crime, but an attempt to trap him during a phone conversation failed.  Nevertheless, when the gun was recovered, an arrest seemed a sure thing.  Unfortunately, Marquis had covered his tracks all too well—including tampering with the barrel of the gun so that the bullet fired from it could not be matched.  All they had on him was a hearsay conversation.
However, tracing Marquis's movements indicated that he had indeed been in Telluride during that weekend for a festival, and that he had a police record for rape.  This was the man, the detectives felt, and they had to find a way to get him.  Putting pressure on Marquis' travel companion, they learned that at some point along the road back, Marquis had tossed two bundles out the window of the car.  They suspected that this was the clothing he had worn to commit the crime.  Still, it was a long and winding road between Telluride and the point where Marquis had ended his journey some four hundred miles away.
Detectives scoured the roadway until they narrowed the possibilities down to four places.  As luck had it, a construction crew had recently moved a pile of dirt, exposing a bundle of clothing that the dirt had preserved.  On the shirt was a single strand of hair, which was examined in the lab against a sample taken from Eva Shoen.  Forensic trace expert Joseph Snyder analyzed the color and structure, and pronounced them a close match. 
When the investigators told Marquis of their findings, he confessed.  It was a bungled burglary, he said, indicating his knowledge of the plea-bargaining system.  Although the officers in charge of the case believed that he had in fact planned to rape Eva Shoen and had killed her in the process, they knew that this would be impossible to prove.  Marquis got a sentence of twenty-four years for manslaughter. 
Sometimes a single strand of hair will make all the difference between a case closing down and a lead that opens it in an entirely new direction.

By: Kathrine Ramsland

Importance of Hair and Fibers

Most hair comparisons deal with either head or pubic hair. If collecting head hair, a representative sampling can usually by obtained with about 50 full-length hairs. Approximately two dozen full-length pubic hairs are needed for a good sample. It is necessary to collect the entire length of each strand of hair, because a hair can show variation in color or other physical characteristics throughout the strand. If either the size of the collection or the length of each piece of hair falls below the minimum, it can be very difficult or impossible to form any connections based on these pieces of evidence.

When collecting fibers, careful examination of all fiber carriers is imperative. As this evidence cannot usually be seen with the naked eye, it is important to have somebody at the scene to specifically look for these clues. Each piece of clothing that could contain relevant fibers should be bagged separately in paper bags. Every item must be bagged separately to avoid the chance of cross-contaminating the evidence. Likewise, all articles such as carpets, rugs, and bedding should be individually folded and packaged to protect fiber evidence. If a fiber must be removed to keep it best preserved, it should be removed with forceps and placed in a small sheet of paper. Once that has been folded and labeled, it should be put in another container for safekeeping. The importance of properly collecting and preserving fibers cannot be stressed enough, as failure to follow necessary procedures could highly contaminate the evidence. This, in turn, can highly decrease the chances of finding the critical evidence needed for solving a case.

Fiber Lifting Techniques

Before trace evidence can be identified, it must be collected. When a crime is committed, crime scene investigators typically use special lights to find trace evidence that is not obvious to the naked eye. After locating a fiber or other trace material, crime scene investigators photograph it and collect it using techniques such as ‘lifting’ it with special lifting tape or collecting the sample with forceps. They also document the location of the sample and begin a meticulous record of the individuals who handle or transport the evidence as it makes its way to the forensic laboratory, where trace evidence identification occurs. Protection of trace evidence from loss or contamination is essential to ensure that it can be used in a court of law if need be.

Different Types of Fibers

A fiber is pretty much the building block of any fabric. fabric is made of yarns that are woven or knitted together, the yarn is created by fibers being twisted together. Sometimes fibers are found in things such as tennis balls and hot air balloons. the fuzz of a tennis ball is made up of; wool, nylon, and polyester. you will also find nylon in hot air baloons and sails on a boat.

There are two types of fibers: natural and synthetic. Natural fibers start as a plant growing in the ground or as animal protein. Cotton, wool, linen, and silk are the most used natural fibers. Synthetic fibers are manufactured from chemical compounds. Nylon, polyester, and acrylic are the most common.

Other Stuff about hair and Fiber Analysis

History

French scientist Edmond Locard discovered that people constantly pick up and transfer bits of dust, hair, fibers and other "trace" material without being conscious of it. Locard realized that these material exchanges were key to analyzing a crime scene, and the "Locard Exchange Principle" became the foundation of forensic science in the early 1900s.

German pathologist Rudolf Virchow later showed that hairs were not unique enough to positively match a particular suspect to a particular victim.

In the United States, Paul L. Kirk established the fundamentals of microscopic hair analysis used by scientists today, and his groundbreaking textbook, "Crime Investigation," is still an important text in criminal investigation.

Significance

• Hair is easy to transfer from one person to another. It clings to furniture, carpets and clothing, and it can last for years without decomposing. These characteristics make the hair left at a crime scene an important aspect of trace evidence. Even if a suspect tried to clean up the crime site, she would most likely leave hair behind.

  Hair is easily analyzed with modern technology, like polarized light microscopes, which bring out the color and details of a hair specimen; and comparison microscopes, which allow the scientist to analyze two pieces of hair evidence side-by-side.

Function

• Hair analysis helps investigators identify individuals involved in a crime scene. Analysts first determine whether the hair came from the victim, a suspect or an animal. If the trace hair is human and matches the hair of the victim, it may help to identify the victim. If the trace hair does not belong to the victim, it may belong to the criminal. In that case, it may provide information about the relationship between the perpetrator and the crime scene, and between the perpetrator and the victim. It may also eliminate a particular suspect, thereby exonerating him.

Comparison

The forensic analyst compares the trace hair sample taken from the crime scene with another sample from a known source, either the victim or a suspect. The samples have to come from the same area of the body, generally either from the head or the pubic area. Analysts will look at the two samples through a comparison microscope to determine if there are any matches in their shafts' medullas, cortices or cuticles. If the hair follicle is still attached to the specimen, a DNA analysis might reveal the exact identity of the criminal.

Considerations

• Forensic hair analysis has limitations. Humans share hair characteristics, like color and texture, so hair alone cannot positively identify someone as a perpetrator. Hair analysis can point to a suspect, but, without DNA evidence, forensic analysis alone cannot state positively that a specific hair sample came from one particular individual and not another. Even if the trace hair matches the known hair sample from a suspect, it would probably also match samples from many other individuals. But even with this limitation, forensic hair analysis is considered one of the most valuable tools available to crime investigators.

Read more: Forensic Analysis of Hair | eHow.com http://www.ehow.com/about_5597295_forensic-analysis-hair.html#ixzz1epM1htwv

INtroduction to Hair and Fiber Analysis

Forensic hair analysis is a scientific method of analyzing trace evidence from a crime scene. It involves examining the hair shaft, including its medulla (inner core), cortex (intermediate layer) and cuticle (outer covering) through powerful microscopes and, occasionally, finding DNA evidence in tissue left on the hair shaft. Hair evidence must be collected properly and analyzed according to protocols. Forensic hair analysts have special training and technology to make sure their work will hold up in court.

Read more: Forensic Analysis of Hair | eHow.com http://www.ehow.com/about_5597295_forensic-analysis-hair.html#ixzz1epJTvNVm

Fingerprinting Process

The technique of fingerprinting is known as dactyloscopy. Until the advent of digital scanning technologies, fingerprinting was done using ink and a card.
To create an ink fingerprint, the person's finger is first cleaned with alcohol to remove any sweat and dried thoroughly. The person rolls his or her fingertips in ink to cover the entire fingerprint area. Then, each finger is rolled onto prepared cards from one side of the fingernail to the other. These are called rolled fingerprints. Finally, all fingers of each hand are placed down on the bottom of the card at a 45-degree angle to produce a set of plain (or flat) impressions. These are used to verify the accuracy of the rolled impressions.
Today, digital scanners capture an image of the fingerprint. To create a digital fingerprint, a person places his or her finger on an optical or silicon reader surface and holds it there for a few seconds. The reader converts the information from the scan into digital data patterns. The computer then maps points on the fingerprints and uses those points to search for similar patterns in the database.
Law enforcement agents can analyze fingerprints they find at the scene of a crime. There are two different types of prints:

• 
  

  Traditional ink fingerprints typically contain rolled and flat prints.

  Robert Clare/Taxi/Getty Images
  Visible prints are made on a type of surface that creates an impression, like blood, dirt or clay.

• Latent prints are made when sweat, oil and other substances on the skin reproduce the ridge structure of the fingerprints on a glass, murder weapon or any other surface the perpetrator has touched. These prints can't be seen with the naked eye, but they can be made visible using dark powder, lasers or other light sources. Police officers can "lift" these prints with tape or take special photographs of them.

History of Fingerprinting

There are records of fingerprints being taken many centuries ago, although they weren't nearly as sophisticated as they are today. The ancient Babylonians pressed the tips of their fingertips into clay to record business transactions. The Chinese used ink-on-paper finger impressions for business and to help identify their children.

In ancient China, thumb prints were found on clay seals.

History of Fingerprinting

However, fingerprints weren't used as a method for identifying criminals until the 19th century. In 1858, an Englishman named Sir William Herschel was working as the Chief Magistrate of the Hooghly district in Jungipoor, India. In order to reduce fraud, he had the residents record their fingerprints when signing business documents.

A few years later, Scottish doctor Henry Faulds was working in Japan when he discovered fingerprints left by artists on ancient pieces of clay. This finding inspired him to begin investigating fingerprints. In 1880, Faulds wrote to his cousin, the famed naturalist Charles Darwin, and asked for help with developing a fingerprint classification system. Darwin declined, but forwarded the letter to his cousin, Sir Francis Galton.

Galton was a eugenicist who collected measurements on people around the world to determine how traits were inherited from one generation to the next. He began collecting fingerprints and eventually gathered some 8,000 different samples to analyze. In 1892, he published a book called "Fingerprints," in which he outlined a fingerprint classification system -- the first in existence. The system was based on patterns of arches, loops and whorls.

Meanwhile, a French law enforcement official named Alphonse Bertillon was developing his own system for identifying criminals. Bertillonage (or anthropometry) was a method of measuring heads, feet and other distinguishing body parts. These "spoken portraits" enabled police in different locations to apprehend suspects based on specific physical characteristics. The British Indian police adopted this system in the 1890s.

History of Fingerprinting

Around the same time, Juan Vucetich, a police officer in Buenos Aires, Argentina, was developing his own variation of a fingerprinting system. In 1892, Vucetich was called in to assist with the investigation of two boys murdered in Necochea, a village near Buenos Aires. Suspicion had fallen initially on a man named Velasquez, a love interest of the boys' mother, Francisca Rojas. But when Vucetich compared fingerprints found at the murder scene to those of both Velasquez and Rojas, they matched Rojas' exactly. She confessed to the crime. This was the first time fingerprints had been used in a criminal investigation. Vucetich called his system comparative dactyloscopy. It's still used in many Spanish-speaking countries.

Sir Edward Henry, commissioner of the Metropolitan Police of London, soon became interested in using fingerprints to nab criminals. In 1896, he added to Galton's technique, creating his own classification system based on the direction, flow, pattern and other characteristics of the friction ridges in fingerprints. Examiners would turn these characteristics into equations and classifications that could distinguish one person's print from another's. The Henry Classification System replaced the Bertillonage system as the primary method of fingerprint classification throughout most of the world.

In 1901, Scotland Yard established its first Fingerprint Bureau. The following year, fingerprints were presented as evidence for the first time in English courts. In 1903, the New York state prisons adopted the use of fingerprints, followed later by the FBI.

Modern Fingerprinting

The Henry system finally enabled law enforcement officials to classify and identify individual fing­erprints. Unfortunately, the system was very cumbersome. When fingerprints came in, detectives would have to compare them manually with the fingerprints on file for a specific criminal (that's if the person even had a record). The process would take hours or even days and didn't always produce a match. By the 1970s, computers were in existence, and the FBI knew it had to automate the process of classifying, searching for and matching fingerprints. The Japanese National Police Agency paved the way for this automation, establishing the first electronic fingerprint matching system in the 1980s. Their Automated Fingerprint Identification Systems (AFIS), eventually enabled law enforcement officials around the world to cross-check a print with millions of fingerprint records almost instantaneously.

AFIS collects digital fingerprints with sensors. Computer software then looks for patterns and minutiae points (based on Sir Edward Henry's system) to find the best match in its database.­

The first AFIS system in the U.S. was speedier than previous manual systems. However, there was no coordination between different agencies. Because many local, state and federal law enforcement departments weren't connected to the same AFIS system, they couldn't share information. That meant that if a man was arrested in Phoenix, Ariz. and his prints were on file at a police station in Duluth, Minn., there might have been no way for the Arizona police officers to find the fingerprint record.

That changed in 1999, with the introduction of Integrated AFIS (IAFIS). This system is maintained by the FBI's Criminal Justice Information Services Division. It can categorize, search and retrieve fingerprints from virtually anywhere in the country in as little as 30 minutes. It also includes mug shots and criminal histories on some 47 million people. IAFIS allows local, state and federal law enforcement agencies to have access to the same huge database of information. The IAFIS system operates 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

But IAFIS isn't just used for criminal checks. It also collects fingerprints for employment, licenses and social services programs (such as homeless shelters). When all of these uses are taken together, about one out of every six people in this country has a fingerprint record on IAFIS.