Has the Zodiac Killer been identified? A group called Case Breakers claimed to have new evidence identifying Gary Poste as the Zodiac Killer who terrorized the San Francisco Bay Area in the late 1960s. In this interview with CNN, https://youtu.be/EKncdXxw2OU, Mike Wakshull describes the quality of the forensic evidence offered in the press release distributed by the group. Forensic evidence presented The evidence presented by the group linking the suspect to the murder of Cheri Jo Bates in Riverside, CA in 1966 is weak. An example given is a Timex watch with paint splatters was found near th ..read more

In the FX program, The Most Dangerous Animal of All, first aired on March 6, 2020, document examiner Patti Fisher inaccurately critiqued the work I performed in 2012 for the book by the same name. Ms. Fisher said a document examiner must not cherry pick letters and words when comparing the writing on various documents. She also raised the issue that there was an insufficient number of exemplars (documents known to be written by Earl Van Best, Jr.) to use for comparison with the letters written by the Zodiac killer. Both statements are correct. What is incorrect are her assumptions about how I ..read more

Use Stories Imagine that you are driving down the road at high speed. You come to a sharp curve in the road. You have a choice. Either you can slow down and properly execute the turn, or continue at your speed and crash. Logic says you will slow down to execute the turn. The same logic applies when writing features such as a lower loop in a letter f or j. You will write the straight part faster than the curved part. This is an example of using stories and analogies that makes sense to judges and juries. we need to testify in language that is relatable by the trier of fact. Several years ago wh ..read more

Speak in layman’s language The post Testify in layman’s language appeared first on Q9 Consulting, Inc. Forensic expert witness ..read more

A will is discovered in a book After his father died, the son was looking through a book his father owned. On a page of the book the son discovered a holographic will written allegedly by his father. He filed this will with the Riverside County court. The will left the entire estate to the son. His sister filed suit alleging the will discovered in the book was not written by her father and was fraudulent. Each side hired a forensic document examiner to opine as to the authenticity of the handwriting and signature on the will. I was hired by the defendant. To ensure that there was no limitation ..read more

The show #RebeccaZahau: an ID Murder Mystery on Discovery HD that aired last week on Discovery HD had many errors and attempts to bias the audience. Reporter Diane Diamond (@DiDimond) stated I allegedly made estimates about the height of the person who write “SHE SAVED HIM, CAN YOU SAVE HER” on the door at the Spreckels Mansion on Coronado, CA. I never made these estimates. The ability to estimate a person’s height based on where they write on a door or wall is not part of my training, nor do I know any literature describing this skill. A human factors expert made these observations. @DiDimond ..read more

The fake slowed down image of Nancy Pelosi speaking mainly realize how prevalent the use of software is to create false images passed off as legitimate images. In my profession as a forensic document examiner I am seeing this more frequently. I have three #forensic document cases from #attorneys involving what is called a #cut-and-paste #signatures. Traditionally, these signatures were cut from a legitimate document that a person had signed then pasted onto another document. A photocopy was made of the manufactured document. The photocopy was then presented as a copy of an original document. D ..read more

On March 28 I was honored to speak at the International Association of Scientists and Researchers conference on Forensic document examination which was held in New Delhi, India. The conference which was delivered via Zoom featured speakers from #Egypt, #Turkey, #India, the #USA and other countries. My topic was “Little known secrets about altered documents.” The presentation featured examples from cases on which I have worked. The examples include methods discovered to find the winning numbers on a California lottery ticket, using alternate light sources and Photoshop to learn what was written ..read more

In trial or deposition, the question, “Is forensic document examination a science?” is often asked of the expert witness. The expert witness must provide a valid answer to this question to sustain credibility. This article seeks to answer the question from the perspective of legal opinions and practicality. The 1993 United States Supreme Court case, Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals (92-102), 509 U.S. 579 (1993) changed the federal court requirements for expert testimony in Rule 702 of the Federal Rules of Evidence. Many states have adopted the Daubert approach, which makes the judge the ..read more

Is correct provenance of documents important for obtaining a correct opinion in a forensic document examination analysis? Forensic document examiners are asked to authenticate documents. Often this authentication requires examination of signatures and handwriting to determine whether the writer of the known documents also wrote the document in question. An issue arises whether it is important to know the source, or provenance, of the documents being examined. Is there a difference in knowing the provenance of known documents versus the provenance of the questioned documents? On page 51 of the ..read more