CHAPTER 18

HANDWRITING ANALYSES

Patsy’s opposite or left-hand writing test supervised by Boulder Police.

John’s opposite or left-hand writing test supervised by Boulder Police.

CHRONOLOGY

Boulder Police Department Handwriting Analysis Process

December 26, 1997—Boulder forgery detective initially examines the Ramsey ransom note at Boulder Police Department headquarters.

January 1997—The Ramsey ransom note goes to the Colorado Bureau of Investigation for examination. CBI Examiner Chet Ubowski will ask for five handwriting tests from Patsy Ramsey over a five-month period.

October 1997—Boulder police detectives consult three other handwriting analysts for their opinions on the Ramsey ransom note.

 

Ramsey Attorneys Handwriting Analysis Process

January 1997—Ramsey attorneys receive a copy of the Ramsey ransom note from Boulder Police Detective Linda Arndt.

January 1997—Ramsey attorneys hire two handwriting experts, Howard Rile, Jr., and Lloyd Cunningham.

May 1997—Handwriting analysts Rile and Cunningham give a presentation to the Boulder Police Department and to Boulder District Attorney Office investigators that indicates Patsy did not write the note and explains why.

BOULDER POLICE DEPARTMENT DETECTIVE LINDA ARNDT, on her own initiative, gave the Ramseys’ attorneys a copy of the ransom note found in the Ramsey home within the first two weeks of the investigation of JonBenét’s murder. The Ramsey attorneys immediately hired two nationally known handwriting experts. Meanwhile, BPD officials sent a copy of the ransom note to the Colorado Bureau of Investigation. CBI handwriting analyst Chet Ubowski spent ten months studying the note and gave Patsy Ramsey five separate handwriting tests before the BPD sought other outside opinions. The note is approximately 372-words long.

For contrast, the first ransom note in the 1932 kidnapping of Aviator Charles Lindbergh’s baby boy was 58 words in length. The child was taken from his second-floor bedroom in the family home in Hopewell, New Jersey. The ransom note, left in a small white envelope, was written in cursive and riddled with spelling and punctuation errors.

Dear Sir!

Have 50,000$ redy 2500 in 20$ bills 1500$ in 10$ bills and 1000$ in 5$ bills. After 2-4 days we will inform you were to the deliver the Mony. We warn you for making anyding public or for notify the polise the child is in gute care. Indication for all letters are singnature and 3 holes.

Two months and thirteen ransom notes later, the Lindbergh baby was found dead in a shallow grave. His skull had been broken. Richard Bruno Hauptmann, a carpenter from the Bronx, was arrested and convicted after being tracked by the type of money he’d used to pay for ransom note delivery. A handwriting analyst testified in Hauptmann’s trial that the suspect had written all of the ransom notes. Hauptmann was electrocuted in 1936.

Handwriting analysis was first admitted into court in England in 1792. It was deemed to be unscientific by some and since then has had a checkered history of admittance into court as evidence. While expert handwriting testimony is currently allowed in Colorado state courts, it is not admitted in all states or in all courts in the United States.

The accuracy of handwriting analysis is impacted by the fact that, until the 1990s, most students in the US were taught how to write in the Palmer Method, so they share similar handwriting characteristics. While the Palmer Method has continued to be taught, the D’Nealian style was also introduced in US public schools in 1978.

The trend toward admitting handwriting in court in the United States is increasing, but there are still limits. One high-profile trial in which handwriting analysis was presented as evidence was the 1997 Oklahoma City bombing trial in Denver. (BPD #30-656.) The bombing had destroyed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City in June of 1995, killing 168 people, including 19 children. In February 1997, defense attorneys representing accused bomber Timothy McVeigh filed a motion asking that handwriting analysis be excluded because it was “junk science.” Federal Judge Richard Matsch rejected that request, ruling the results of handwriting similarity and dissimilarity tests would be allowed.

Judge Matsch’s decision underscored the fact that, while handwriting analysis is not as widely used, or accepted, as DNA, it may provide possible investigative information, or be used as an indicator of likelihood. Boulder District Attorney Alex Hunter told a few members of his staff and some reporters that he was “very interested” in Judge Matsch’s ruling and followed the progress of the motions in federal court, adding that he wanted to know more about the validity of handwriting analysis and the likelihood of a judge allowing it in court for a possible trial in Boulder.

The length of the Ramsey ransom note was theorized to be an advantage for law enforcement because of the number of words it contained. The theory stated that a writer of such a long ransom note would normally be unable to consistently disguise their own handwriting throughout the entire length of the note. Handwriting experts have stated that the Boulder Police Department should have been able to get a relatively clear picture of who might or might not have written the Ramsey ransom note just by looking at the laborious way it moved along.

There were several initial theories that emerged about the Ramsey ransom note and when it was likely written. The first and most prevalent theory was that Patsy wrote the note as part of a staged cover-up after she’d killed her daughter because JonBenét wet her bed. A second theory suggested that somehow nine-year-old Burke was involved in his sister’s death accidentally, and the ransom note was part of a staged cover-up by his parents. A third theory was that John had been molesting his daughter, she was mortally injured, and he wrote the note as part of the cover-up. A fourth theory was that the killer had been in the home before Christmas Day, taken Patsy’s tablet, written the ransom note elsewhere and then brought it back into the home with him when he was prepared to commit the crime. Or that the killer carried a copy of the words to be used in the note into the home, and then re-copied them onto a tablet in the Ramsey home while the Ramsey family was at a friend’s dinner party.

The first samples of the Ramseys’ handwriting were given to the Boulder Police Department that Thursday morning, December 26, before JonBenét’s body was found. The samples came from notepads the family kept in their home and had been written in the days and weeks leading up to the murder.

When John gave the notepads to the police, he also wrote at the top of one of the notepads at their request.

On Saturday, December 28, two days after JonBenét’s body was found, John, Patsy and Burke Ramsey met with a BPD detective to give handwriting samples. These samples were given at the friends’ home where the family was staying and were supervised by BPD Detective Linda Arndt. Melinda and John Andrew Ramsey, JonBenét’s half-sister and half-brother, also gave handwriting samples that day. It was the only time the two half-siblings would do so.

John Ramsey gave Boulder Police Department officials handwriting samples on three separate occasions: on December 26, 1996, when he wrote at the top of the white notepad that contained his and Patsy’s handwriting; on December 28, 1996 and on January 5, 1997. Burke provided one sample to police. Patsy gave five handwriting samples to the police: on December 28, 1996 and on January 4, February 28, April 12 and May 20, 1997. All of the Ramsey handwriting samples were provided voluntarily.

During these handwriting tests, experts asked the family members to write out the words from the ransom note several times with both their right and left hands, using a typed copy of the ransom note as a guide. The original note was not present during the handwriting tests.

The handwriting sessions included writing the ransom note over and over again. John and Patsy have since said this process was “traumatizing and immobilizing.” Over and over again, they had to read and write the taunting words of the person who had killed their daughter.

Experts also analyzed samples of John and Patsy’s handwriting from prior to December 26, 1996. This is called “normal or historical” handwriting. Handwriting analysts from both the prosecution and the Ramsey side quickly eliminated the possibility that either John or Burke Ramsey had written the ransom note.

Supposedly “confidential” information about the December 28, 1996 DNA and handwriting tests in which multiple members of the Ramsey family participated, including Patsy, was published in the Rocky Mountain News three days later on Tuesday, December 31. The handwriting tests and the leaks about them became another study in media manipulation. It also built the case that members of the media were not using sources from each side for handwriting expertise in their published stories. The headline for that story read, in part:

OFFICIALS GET SAMPLES OF HAIR, BLOOD, WRITING FROM RAMSEY, WHO HAS QUIT TALKING TO POLICE

That same article stated that samples were taken from some Ramsey family members, “but not from her [JonBenét’s] mother.” Again, that’s despite the fact that there was a BPD report from Saturday, December 28, 1996 that gave the times of the DNA testing for the Ramsey family, including Patsy.

As previously noted, the information published in that Rocky Mountain News article was wrong. Patsy gave both DNA and handwriting samples on Saturday, December 28. The incorrect information was provided to the Rocky Mountain News by a police spokeswoman.

On March 4, 1997, in an attempt to quell growing anti-Ramsey publicity, the Ramsey legal team decided to be pro-active and announce that Patsy had taken her third handwriting test. This tactic didn’t work, however. Instead, it was countered by anti-Patsy backlash via a “sources say” leak in a March 8 Daily Camera article with the headline:

RANSOM NOTE AUTHOR LIKELY WAS FEMALE, SOURCES SAY.

According to a US Secret Service handwriting expert, stating that a ransom note written in block-style printing must have been authored by a female constitutes speculation.

Through March 1997, there were more anti-Patsy articles published in The Gazette in Colorado Springs (“RAMSEY PROBE FOCUSES ON MOTHER’S WRITING”) and in the Rocky Mountain News (“HANDWRITING POINTS TO PATSY RAMSEY”).

This information was also leaked by law enforcement officials. At the time, however, the Boulder Police Department had only consulted with the CBI handwriting analyst and had not yet received any definitive results from him.

There was more publicity in March 1997 from “sources” who said police were examining the Ramseys’ vacation home in Michigan for more of Patsy’s handwriting samples.

The Ramsey attorneys hired two handwriting experts. The Boulder Police Department eventually consulted with four.

The first person to seriously study the handwriting in the Ramsey ransom note for the Boulder Police Department was Chet Ubowski with the Colorado Bureau of Investigation. While a Boulder detective trained in the examination of questioned documents had looked at the note on the morning of December 26, 1996, it was later determined that the original note needed to go to someone with more experience.

Ubowski began examining the Ramsey ransom note in January 1997. His last handwriting sample from Patsy Ramsey was taken on May 20, 1997.

Ubowski’s conclusion: There is evidence which indicates that the ransom note may have been written by Patsy Ramsey, “but the evidence falls short of that necessary to support a definite conclusion.”

“Detectives were hoping … to get an unequivocal opinion from the Colorado Bureau of Investigation examiner, which they, of course, never got,” said Pat Burke, Patsy’s attorney. “They should have simultaneously been consulting other experts. Then, the CBI investigator wouldn’t give the conclusion they wanted about Patsy Ramsey’s handwriting. Law enforcement couldn’t get the definitive conclusion that Patsy wrote the note, because, obviously she didn’t write the note.”

In October 1997, when it became clear that Ubowski’s opinion about whether Patsy had written the Ramsey ransom note would be inconclusive, police reports show that BPD officials began consulting other handwriting experts.

According to one police report, two Boulder detectives reviewed the credentials of various work document examiners and selected the US Secret Service and specialists Edwin Alford and Leonard Speckin to conduct additional comparisons between Patsy Ramsey’s handwriting and the handwriting found in the Ramsey ransom note. (BPD Report #1-212.)

The US Secret Service is recognized as having one of the foremost questioned-document laboratories in the world. Secret Service examiner Richard Dusak was chosen to analyze the Ramsey ransom note for the Boulder Police Department. Yet Dusak’s analysis was never released until now. It was also never leaked to the media. His conclusion was a stunner. Secret Service Examiner Richard Dusak concluded that Patsy Ramsey never wrote the Ramsey ransom note: “No evidence to indicate that Patsy Ramsey executed any of the questioned material appearing on the ransom note.”

The two other handwriting analysis experts consulted by the Boulder Police Department came to similar conclusions regarding the Ramsey ransom note:

Examination of the questioned handwriting and comparison with the handwriting specimens submitted “has failed to provide a basis for identifying Patricia Ramsey as the writer of the letter.” (Private Document Examiner Edwin Alford, Jr.)

“I can find no evidence that Patsy Ramsey disguised her handprinting exemplars. 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.” (Private Document Examiner Leonard Speckin.)

The Ramsey defense attorneys hired two document examiners shortly after they were given a copy of the Ramsey ransom note by Detective Linda Arndt in January 1997. They chose two nationally recognized handwriting experts based on their biographies. Those experts immediately began examining the copy of the note and would continue to analyze it prior to their grand jury testimonies in 1999. Over the two-year span, these experts’ opinions only got stronger in discounting the Ramseys as the writers of the note. Both experts eliminated John and believed it highly unlikely that Patsy had written the ransom note:

In my judgment, the evidence argues very strongly for a writer other than Mrs. Ramsey. (Forensic Document Examiner Howard C. Rile, Jr.)

[T]here were no significant individual characteristics, but much significant difference in Patsy’s writing and the ransom note. (Forensic Document Examiner Lloyd Cunningham.)

So certain were the Ramsey defense attorneys of their handwriting experts that in May 1997, they invited investigators from the Boulder District Attorney’s Office and the Boulder Police Department to a presentation conducted by their two analysts. This was an unusual move by the attorneys. The two handwriting experts were allowed to look at the original note the morning of their presentation. Attorney Pat Burke said he and the other Ramsey attorneys were “trying to get the police to become more open-minded.”

But the case detectives in the meeting (including Detective Steve Thomas), who were focused on Patsy as the killer, didn’t budge. They stayed with their Colorado Bureau of Investigation analyst and his eventual conclusion that Patsy Ramsey “may” have written the note, even though the CBI analyst said “the evidence falls short of that necessary to support a definite conclusion.”

The two Ramsey experts and two of the experts consulted by the Boulder Police Department in 1997 concluded that Patsy Ramsey did not, or probably did not, write the Ramsey ransom note. The other two police experts consulted by the Boulder Police Department concluded that she could not be included or excluded as the writer of the ransom note.

According to the Ramsey attorneys, “Patsy should have been eliminated as a suspect because the almost-uniform consensus from the most qualified handwriting experts was, and is, that Patsy Ramsey hadn’t written the note.”

Then there was a study of the actual language, phrasing and words in the Ramsey ransom note that led, in one instance, to a peculiar sequence of events.

Donald Foster, PhD, of Vassar University was a professor of English literature and self-professed forensic linguistic analyst. During his foray into the Ramsey case, Dr. Foster had the distinction of giving opposing “expert” opinions about the author of the ransom note to each side, both to the Ramseys and to the Boulder Police Department, within nine months.

In June 1997, Foster wrote an unsolicited and rather surprising letter to Patsy Ramsey saying he knew that she had not written the ransom note.1

“I know that you are innocent—know it, absolutely and unequivocally. I would stake my professional reputation on it—indeed, my faith in humanity.” (Dr. Donald Foster letter to Patsy Ramsey 6-18-1997.)

Patsy and her attorneys never responded to Foster’s letter but kept it as they kept all correspondence related to the case.

Months later, when the handwriting battle appeared lost for the prosecution, District Attorney Alex Hunter began looking for help analyzing the words in the ransom note. He heard that Dr. Donald Foster was an expert in language linguistics. On January 16, 1998, Foster was told that he was being retained by the Boulder Police Department. (BPD Report #1-505.)

Two months later on March 26, 1998, after a “careful study” of handwriting documents of Patsy and John Ramsey that had been submitted to him by the Boulder Police Department (BPD Report #1-1509) and nine months after he’d sent his letter to Patsy proclaiming that she could not have possibly written the ransom note, Dr. Foster told Hunter that he was sure Patsy Ramsey had written the ransom note based on his examination of the language in it.

Portion of unsolicited letter to Patsy from Vassar professor she didn’t know saying he knows she didn’t write the ransom note. He was later hired by BPD and said she did write the ransom note.

At this time, however, Dr. Foster failed to disclose to the Boulder District Attorney that he had not only previously and “unequivocally” concluded that Patsy was innocent, but had written to her that he was so certain she had not written the ransom note that he “would stake his personal reputation” on that conclusion.

In Dr. Foster’s elaboration of his opinion for Boulder law enforcement officials, he went so far as to say that it was not possible that any individual other than Patsy Ramsey had written the ransom note. He announced his conclusion to a group of investigators from both the Boulder District Attorney’s Office and the Boulder Police Department. Law enforcement officers in attendance said some detectives stood up and cheered and clapped when Foster ended his presentation.

After Foster had given his presentation, a prosecutor in the Boulder District Attorney’s Office told John’s attorney, Bryan Morgan, about the BPD’s “new and expert” language analyst, and the expert’s conclusion that Patsy had written the note. He concluded by stating that, due to this new development, the BPD’s case against Patsy was gaining momentum.

At that point, it would have been easy for the Ramsey defense attorneys not to tell the Boulder District Attorney’s Office about Foster’s letter to Patsy in which he stated that he knew she was innocent. The Ramsey attorneys knew that if they withheld that information, it would eventually be publicly disclosed that Foster had duped Boulder law enforcement officials, and that disclosure would cause substantial embarrassment for the police and for the prosecution. Yet the Ramsey attorneys told the attorneys at the District Attorney’s Office about Foster’s 180-degree decision because Morgan stated, “We still wanted them to consider someone other than the Ramseys as their suspects and we thought this show of good faith would help.” Foster was subsequently dropped from the BPD list of expert witnesses and hustled out of Boulder.

When I wrote to Dr. Foster in 2010 asking for an explanation of his opinions, he replied only after I had sent five e-mails to him. He said he couldn’t comment on his complete reversal because of a confidentiality agreement he had signed with the Boulder Police Department. However, that confidentiality agreement hadn’t covered the letter he’d written to Patsy Ramsey stating that he was certain she had not written the ransom note. Still, Dr. Foster refused to comment and thanked me for “understanding.”