Handwriting analysis

images of Patsys' handwriting samples / ransom note / John's handwriting samples

“	I, I mean I don’t, I’m not a handwriting person. I’ve given handwriting after handwriting, after handwriting. You know, maybe it’s a female that wrote the note. I mean, I don’t know. I mean, I don’t know how to analyze handwriting, but I’m sure they’re doing the best they know how to do. But, I don’t know what else to do, you know. I write like I write.	”
–Patsy, 1997 police interview

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Handwriting Analysts Consulted by Police

Four handwriting analysts were consulted by the Boulder Police Department. None of them was able to eliminate Patsy Ramsey as the writer of the ransom note, though none of them was willing to conclusively identify her as the writer in court. At least two of them personally believed Patsy Ramsey was the writer of the ransom note.

• Chet Ubowski: (Colorado Bureau of Investigation (CBI)). Ubowski stated on numerous occasions his belief that Patsy Ramsey wrote the ransom note. At one meeting with police, Ubowski stated “I believe she wrote it”. Police officers Steve Thomas, Tom Trujillo, Tom Wickman and John Eller were all present. According to Steve Thomas, “disguised letters and the bleeding of the ink prevented [Ubowski from making] a conclusive determination that could be stated in court”.

• Leonard Speckin: (Speckin Forensic Laboratories.) Speckin also identified Patsy’s writing habits and letter forms in the note.

"When I compare the handprinting habits of Patsy Ramsey with those presented in the questioned ransom note, there exists agreement to the extent that some of her individual letter formations and letter combinations do appear in the ransom note. When this agreement is weighed against the number, type and consistency of the differences present, I am unable to identify Patsy Ramsey as the author of the questioned ransom note with any degree of certainty. I am, however, unable to eliminate her as the author."

However, Speckin has appeared on video recommending Steve Thomas's book and expressing his belief that Patsy Ramsey wrote the note.

• Edwin Alford: (Retired Secret Service, now private document examiner)

• Richard Dusak: (Secret Service.)

Note: Some people erroneously claim that Donald Foster was a handwriting analyst. This is false. Foster was a linguistic and literary analyst from the English department at Vassar College. See below for linguistic analyses of the note.

Police Chief Mark Beckner: "Handwriting experts noted some similarities, but not enough to say she wrote the note."

Handwriting Analysts Hired by the Ramsey Defense Team

Two handwriting analysts were consulted by the Ramseys' defense team. Neither of them was able to eliminate Patsy Ramsey as the writer of the ransom note. Both emphasized apparent differences between Patsy Ramsey's handwriting exemplars and the ransom note.

• Howard Rile: "In my judgment the evidence argues very strongly for a writer other than Mrs Ramsey."

• Lloyd Cunningham: "There were no significant individual characteristics, but much significant difference in Patsy's writing and the ransom note."

The Ramseys' lawyers called a meeting to introduce their hired handwriting analysts to the Boulder District Attorney's office and the police. District Attorney Alex Hunter later referred to them as ""the handwriting people that we have retained in this case and that have been retained by the Ramseys"

"It is a very low probability, according to these experts [Cunningham and Rile]," Hunter said. "They don't exclude her, but it's very low."

The "1-5 Scale"

The two experts retained by the Ramsey defense team, Cunningham and Rile, used

This scale was not used by any experts other than those two analysts who worked for the Ramseys.

The 2003 "Carnes ruling", based on false information provided by the Ramseys' attorneys, erroneously stated that "six experts" consulted by police had reached a "consensus" that Patsy Ramsey "probably did not write ransom note". The Ruling also misleadingly creates the impression that the "1-5 scale" was a "consensus" among all "six experts".

In fact, with the exception of the two analysts paid by the Ramseys, the analysts were consulted separately and authored their reports separately. Only the Ramseys' hired analysts assigned a probability to their analysis. Rile was the only analyst who used the phrase "probably not".

Patsy Ramsey's Handwriting Analysis

In a videotaped deposition from 2000, when asked about captions taken from the Ramseys' own photo album, Patsy Ramsey claimed she did not recognize the handwriting. link

Other Handwriting Analysts

• Gideon Epstein: "after I concluded that examination, which was more than 50 hours of work, I felt that I had identified sufficient significant handwriting characteristics with no significant differences [...] There are no significant differences. There are variations to the same basic handwriting patterns, but there are no significant differences."

In addition to his own analysis, Gideon Epstein expressed a theory as to why none of the other experts were willing to identify Patsy Ramsey as the author of the note:

"In this particular case I think the fact that Howard Rile and Lloyd Cunningham, who became involved in this case very early on, and who were retained by the Ramsey family, coupled with the fact that […] Rile came out of the Colorado bureau and knew the people in the Colorado bureau, I believe that that connection was very instrumental in the Colorado bureau coming to the conclusion that they did, because Howard Rile had come to the conclusion that he did. Lloyd Cunningham works very closely with Howard Rile and they were both on this case, and then it was a matter of a chain of events, one document examiner after another refusing to go up against someone who they knew, someone who was large in the profession, for fear that they would be criticized for saying something that another examiner […] All of these things influence a case, and when it came down to Dusick and it came down to Speckin and it came down to Alford, by that time a number of well-known document examiners had already rendered conclusions, and I feel personally that the other examiners were simply afraid to state what they believed to be the truth."

• Richard Williams

• Larry Ziegler

• Tom Miller http://www.acandyrose.com/11031997tommilleranalysis.htm

Linguistic Analysts / Profilers

Unlike handwriting analysts, linguistic analysts examine a writer's choices of vocabulary, phrases, grammar, syntax, and other stylistic features. In addition to similarities between Patsy Ramsey's handwriting, Chief Mark Beckner stated that experts found "there are also similarities to the style of writing to Patsy's style, such as use of exclamation marks, acronyms, and indentation. One expert noted signs of deception in the writing as well".

• James Fitzgerald:

• Donald Foster:

• Robert K. Ressler

Criticisms of Handwriting Analysis

Alex Hunter said that, "if we get this to trial [...] I would prefer to give that [ransom] note to the jury and give that jury historical writings that--that might pertain to a particular individual and have them using their common sense".