Foreign Scripts: An Alleged Chinese Suicide Note
Some of the best published research in the identification of handwriting concerns Chinese writing. Rules that apply to English writing apply to Chinese, which also has its own special rules. This is set forth in one of my earlier papers: 19 Journal of the National Association of Document Examiners, "A case of Chinese handwriting," 12-23 (Spring 1996).
A Chinese lady was found hanging from a tree in Golden Gate Park, her feet dragging the ground. Two handwritten notes in Chinese stated she killed herself because she had accidentally contracted AIDS at work. Suit was brought against a doctor who had seen her once, claiming that this doctor’s words had unwarrantedly frightened decedent. However, both the notes and other circumstances of the case were suspicious, so I was asked to determine whether decedent had written the two alleged suicide notes. I determined that she had not and so testified at binding arbitration. There were other issues involved, and the arbitrators found in favor of the defendant doctor on all issues, including the fact that decedent had not written the two notes.
Here are sample words from one suicide note, on the left, and decedent’s authentic writing on the right.
No one had the original suicide notes, so I had to work with copies of unknown generations. Exemplars were in original. Comparing the same characters from one suicide note and one exemplar and relying on features that must belong to the original and not due to copying, we see differences in style, proportions, fluidity, angles and slant, continuity, and tempo. In the same way, paleographers identify ancient scripts, even cuneiform, as to specific periods and scribes, for the human graphic motor sequence is the same among all literate peoples of all times and climes.