When Evidence is on the Line
by Ruth Brayer
Hiring an examiner. There are generally two instances when a security manager should consider hiring a handwriting examiner. The first would involve a handwritten document — for example, an anonymous threatening letter-where identification of the writer is critical. The second instance involves internal or external fraud in which a signature is part of the evidence. The handwriting examiner can be asked to determine whether the signature has been forged and, if it is, who might be responsible for writing it.
To help with the examination, the security manager should provide the handwriting expert with samples of each suspect's handwriting. The samples should date from before the incident under investigation. They can include notes and memos that the suspects have written as part of their jobs, checks they signed for the company, or the handwriting on their job applications.
When the suspect is a customer or client, the security manager should check the company's existing records for any documents that the customer has signed or written as a part of doing business with the company. For example, a financial institution will likely have each customer's signature and handwriting on file from when the client opened an account.
In addition, the security manager should attempt to find writing samples that can be easily compared to the suspect document. For example, if the document to be examined is a threatening letter written in script, the security manager should try to provide writing samples that depict the suspects' handwriting in script. A handwriting examiner will have a much more difficult time trying to identify the writer of a letter if the document is written in script but the only samples available are in print. For that reason, an employer may want to ask new employees to write in script and in print a sample paragraph as a part of the hiring process.
The more writing samples a security manager can provide, the easier it will be for the handwriting expert to complete the examination. The examination can take from several hours to several weeks depending on the number of suspects whose handwriting is being analyzed, the number of samples, and the quality of those samples.
Handwriting experts can be helpful at various stages of an investigation, depending on the nature of the investigation. For threatening letters, for example, the security manager should conduct a preliminary investigation first and develop a narrow list of suspects before hiring a handwriting expert.
Some investigators make the mistake of providing the examiner with samples of twenty suspects, even though the security manager's investigation may have already narrowed the list to one or two. This approach increases the time and cost of the handwriting examination for the company, which can expect to pay a retainer of between $550 to $2,500 as well as an hourly fee of $150 to $350.
Cases involving forged signatures are different and can usually benefit from hiring a handwriting expert at the start of the investigation. For example, a bank customer might claim that his or her traveler's checks were stolen and forged. A handwriting examiner can sometimes determine at the beginning of the investigation whether the signatures on the returned checks are in fact forgeries or authentic-allowing the security manager to decide on the direction of the investigation.
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