Do People Always Disguise Their Writing the Same?The Trilogy

Determining whether handwriting is naturally or unnaturally prepared is a common challenge for forensic document examiners (FDEs) and many variables must be taken into consideration during such an examination. Some issues include the writing instrument, writing medium, nature of the signature, age of the subject(s), health of the writer, and the date of the writing. The final answer being sought, however, comes down to one of three possibilities: the writing is genuine, the writing was forged by another via freehand simulation or tracing, or the writing was deliberately disguised by the subject (often called auto-forgery, or auto-simulation.) This paper discusses the results of a research project conducted to determine the most frequently used strategies writers use when attempting to disguise handwriting, whether writers tend to use the same form of disguise each time, and if the availability of deliberately disguised known specimen writing aided FDEs in their examinations.
This research study focused on disguised writings and signatures prepared by subjects who intended to deny them at a later date. A deliberately disguised document was obtained from more than 50 subjects along with natural and disguised known specimen writings. These writings were collected by 3 forensic document examiners from 3 different geographic regions of the U.S. The specimens were then used in side-by-side examinations and comparisons with their disguised writings. Strategies used by the writers to disguise their writing will be discussed. Potential sources for error in certain problematic samples will also be discussed.
The hypothesis of the forensic document examiners conducting this study was that, like one’s natural writing, a person’s disguised writing will contain individual characteristics that will be repeated again and again whenever an attempt at disguise is made. Two prior research studies have supported this premise, and these will also be discussed. It is also hypothesized that the comparison of said characteristics, in a side-by-side examination of questioned to known writings, also like one’s natural writing, can lead to the identification of a writer of disguised writing. If this theory is correct, it may be necessary to require that the collection of requested known exemplars include a set of “disguised”known samples as well as normal, natural writing specimens.