Famous Forgery Cases -Mussolini Diaries

In 1957 Amaliaand Rosa Panvini, 86 forged thirty volumes of the “diaries” of former Italian dictator, Benito Mussolini. An experts examined the diaries and thought that since such a great number diaries they were real. Eight years later the diaries were bought by the Sunday Times for $150,000 and were soon declared a fake and the women were arrested.

Footprint Analysis

In this lab, we were told to leave a footprint impression in the record the characteristics of the impression. We recorded weather information, time, date, location, and direction of the footprint. Then we wrote down properties of the (length and width) of the shoe impression that was left. We were able to determine the gender and size of the person who left the print. Males leave a deeper impression because of their size and a larger print because they usually have larger feet unlike women. With this lab, we were able to see the techniques used by analysts in recording and analyzing the suspect by their foot impression.  

Check forgery activity

In class we did a little test to see if anyone could forge someone else’s signature. At our table we each had a piece of paper that had a place to write your signature, a place for someone to free-hand your signature, and a place for someone to trace your signature. We wrote the sentence “the quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog,” in cursive and in print in the first box. We then traded our sheets with someone at our table to see if they could forge our signature.

Forgery Methods

When forging a signature, there are two ways to go about it. You can trace or you can free-hand. When tracing, a person uses the signature and focuses on making the exact same lines and dots. This method is not as accurate because the pressure and line quality are different. When free-handing the person has to practice and learn how the person signs, so there are less noticeable differences.

Handwriting History

In suicide, forgery, and kidnapping cases, handwriting analysis is very important. An Italian professor at the University of Bologna published a book in 1622 about characteristics in handwriting. The term “graphology” means the study of the way people form letters when they write. This term was created by Abbe Michon in 1870. Michon published a book analyzing penmanship and inspired Milton Bunker to create and organization named International Graphoanalysis Society. This organization is still used today to study graphology.

12 Handwriting Characteristics

1. Line quality- How dark is the line

2. Spacing of words and letters- How far away are words

3. Ratio of the relative height, width and size of letters- Is there a size difference in letters

4. Pen lifts and separations- Does the person stop writing in order to form new letters

5. Connecting strokes- Are letters or words connected

6. Beginning and ending strokes Does the person write loopy

7. Unusual letter formation- Does the person use a lot of capital letters when they write

8. Shading or pen pressure- Does the person press down hard or light when they write

9. Slant- Is there a slant when the person writes

10. Baseline habits- Does their writing begin at the top or below the line

11. Flourishes and embellishments- Does the person write fancy

12. Diacritic placement- How are the 't's crossed and 'i's dotted 

Landmark cases

Landmark cases

There was a case in 1936, in which the wife of an NBC executive was beaten to death.  She was strangled with her pajama top, bound with twine, and left on the bathroom floor. A chemist was brought in to examine the crime scene. He found one hair, half an inch long, that he later identified as horse hair. The twine was able to be matched to a specific manufacturer and distributor, and proved to be delivered to a moving company that had delivered a horse-haired couch earlier that day. This allowed police to put pressure on the delivery person under suspicion, who later confessed.

In 1982, there was a victim of rape and strangulation found dead, who was abducted six days earlier. There were orange fibers found in her hair that were suspiciously like fibers found in a 12-year-old murder victim from eight months earlier in the same county. The fibers were determined to be carpet fibers of a unique color. Later a 28-year-old woman was abducted and held captive in a man’s house. She was tortured and the man seemed to have his mind set on killing her. She escaped one day and reported him to the police. It was found that he had a similar van to the one that the abduction victim was picked up in. In the van there was a unique colored orange carpet. There were only 74 yards of that carpet sent to that part of Ohio. So the murderer was convicted.