ANONYMOUS LETTERS

Evening Post, Volume CXXV, Issue 110, 12 May 1938, Page 26

ANONYMOUS LETTERS

USED BY DETECTIVES

TELL-TALE CLUES

The exhumation of the remains of Lewis. Arthur Sandford, 30-year-old farmhand, of West Dereham, Norfolk, is an added proof of the power wielded by the 'writers of anonymous letters, writes Louis C. S. Mansfield, forgeries investigator. When Sandford died in January the Coroner was satisfied that he died as the result tetanus. But since then the police have been so bombarded with unsigned notes that they have carried out the exhumation to remove all possible doubt. In the past 12 months no fewer than three funerals have been stopped and two other exhumations undertaken for similar reasons. When the King's Proctor intervenes in a suit it is generally on information supplied by some unknown who has failed to sign his name. The majority of income-tax prosecutions start from similar reasons. And a big percentage of police investigations also. Many'of the writers who cloak their identity in this way do so.because they have some really vital information to give the authorities—information so important that they hesitate to be connected with the telling of it. "POISON-PEN" LETTERS. But the vast majority are actuated by no such public-spirited motives. Their only thought is to escape the just punishment merited by the campaigns of terror and slander which they inaugurate. From the detective's point of view, there are no vilert-criminals than the Writers of "poison-pen" letters. Working under cover of secrecy, and usually couching their notes in the most horrible terms imaginable, these people • write, write, write, until they make their victims squirm with mental agony—until they blast reputations, break up happy,homes, and drive the tortured recipients to the point of distraction. Often—too often —they drive them o.ver the edge into a suicide's grave. If you happen to be one of the people bombarded with such letters, don't destroy them! Save them carefully and | call the police immediately. The-investigating detective will want as many specimens of the notes as he can get, because, properly examined, they will provide him with his most ''valuable clues. The first thing the detective will look for is the style or system of. handwriting. Every country in the world employs a basically different style of writing, the characteristics and "earmarks" of which remain in .the writer's script all his life. Even in one particular country we may find as many as 20 different school styles, or systems, which 'differ according to the. area and the educational body concerned. Anonymous letter writers usually know nothing of the existence of these systems. The expert, however, knowing the dates when the characteristics Were first intrqduced. oan get a good ■estimate of the approximate age of his quarry. He can often learn the sex of the writer, too, since a number of "finishing" schools insist on their students using a distinctive system which can never be satisfactorily disguised.

- The Sacre Coeur schools, on the Continent, are among the most outstanding in this direction.

TELL-TALE PHRASING

As a general rule, though, the detective has to deduce .the'sex of the writer from such things as phrasing, the type of letter paper, the general arrangement and spacing, punctuation marks, idioms, and peculiar expressions. * These things often indicate, also, the part of the country from which the writer comes. The Devonshire woman expresses herself very differently from the Londoner, and so on. The toughest job I ever had to unravel concerned an Australian town council some years ago. A flood of anonymous letters suddenly started attacking the integrity of members of the Finance Committee. At first one particular councillor was suspected because his handwriting resembled that of the letters. However, there was a very strange jerkiness about the phrasing that made me suspicious. • A microscopic examination of the writing revealed the presence of graphite marks under the ink, making it appear that the letters had been written in pencil before being inked over. It seemed that the letters had been forged by someone who possessed a large quantity of the councillor's writing. And with this in mind, I questioned the councillor, securing the name and address of every person with whom he had been corresponding for some years previously. Suspicion fastened on the wife of a second councillor, who was intensely annoyed by the fact that Councillor A had failed to support her husband at the Mayoral elections. 1 She attributed her husband's smashing defeat to this lack of support, and it galled her to think she could not call herself "Mayoress." , I sent her a batch of 30 marked stamps purporting to be "conscience money" from a tradesman who had overcharged her. 'She used the stamps on further anonymous letters and gave herself away!