CRUX OF THE BLACKBALL MURDER CASE

Grey River Argus, 3 August 1935, Page 8

CRUX OF THE BLACKBALL MURDER CASE

WHOSE WAS THE HANDWRITING ?

ANONYMOUS LETTERS, NOTE AND WRAPPER

Unanimous Conclusion of the Experts

ihe whole of yesterday’s sitting of the Blackball chocolate murder trial was occupied by two handwriting experts, who investigated the vital clues in the case, the authorship of the anonymous letters and the writing on | the wrapper, together with the note which accompanied the chocolates. Their evidence was highly technical, .and was at the same time a revelation of the scientific analysis of handwriting. It was their unanimous opinion that the handwriting of all of the exhibits in court was that of one person, or further, that the writing on the vital clues, and the admitted writing of the accused was identical, and could not have been written by any other person, but the accused, John Skikelthrop Page, 36, single, a miner, who is charged with murdering Margaret May Smith, at Blackball, on September 24, 19J4, and. with attempting to murder Jean Kennedy Clark and Ethel Annie Bragg, on September 22, 1934. Mr. H. Morgan, S.M., is on the bench and simultaneous to the chares, is hearing the coronial inquiry. Owing to the involved and technical nature of the evidence yesterday, the fifth dav of the hearing, the crowd in the court decreased somewhat, particul arly in the morning. The accused, although Behaving strangely at times, did not interrupt the Court as on the previous day. He occupied his time in the dock, writing, and apparentlv drawing and figur ing on his pad. He had a very peculiar habit of crooking his elbow on the dock, and conducting an almost inaud ible conversation into his coat sleeve, as if using a telephone. At times, he would put his ear to the sleeve, and I smile, as if receiving a reply to his I words. At other times he would gazze fixedly at the ceiling, for long periods without Only once during tht dav did he utter an audible phrase. Inspector D. Cameron is conducting the prosecution and Mr. A. H. Paterson is appearing for the accused. Raymond James George Collins, company manager, a member of the firm of Verne, Collins and Co., Ltd., philatelists, Christchurch, said that he had been interested in philatelic research work for at least 20 years and had carried on research in connection with the business for the past 12 years. During that time he had acquired a comprehensive knowledge of colouts, paper, printing and of writing. His work called for the utmost attention to the importance of minor details. He had had about 17 years experience in the examination of handwriting and had been called as an expert on handwriting in the New Zealand courts, at least six times in the last few years in the Magistrate and Supreme Courts at Christchurch. His evidence on these occasions had been accepted. The pol-ice,-in this case, had handed him numerous articles for his careful examination, which he identified as exhibits in Court. On October 19, witness examined documents, a preliminary examination only, after receiving them from Detective-Sergeant Holmes. As the result of his preliminary examination witness advised Detective-Sergeant Holmes that the documents warranted an exact and detailed examination, and asked that, if possible, further examples of admitted writing should be obtained. Detective-Sergeant Holmes and Constable Keartop, on March 4, handed to witness photographs of , nineteen exhibits. At witness’s request photographs were supplied of further exhibits, and he also asked that he should see the originals. On March 7 the Police Department at Wellington ’ had the Labour Department’s file Containing exhibits handed to witness personally, and follpwing a perusal of it, witness requested photographs of further exhibits, and a number of duplicate photographs, for the purpose of drawing up charts. Witness was supplied frrith them, and cut them up for .the charts which he would produce. Witness handed in the mutilated photographs. Then, at the request of De-tective-Sergeant Holmes, ,said witness, he proceeded to make an analytical examination, of the various photogranhs, for the purpose of submitting a detail ed and comprehensive report. In, this examination witness grouped the exhibits, dealing with each group separately, in order to ascertain the individual characteristics apparent in each group, and it was only then that witness ex-

annned and compared the various groups, one with another, did witness find that there were certain outstand-, ing, recurring personal characteristics, in addition to the formal similarities, and as„a result witness could deduce the opinion that the whole, of the exhibits were written by the same person and could not possibly have been writ- 1 ten by more than one pefson. Witness produced the originals of the charts prepared by him. Throughout the whole of the exhibits witness discovered the following characteristics: A back hand printing predilection and a carelessness in spoiling, the mixing of lower case letters and capitals, the use of a larger size capital letter thau appeared at the beginning of block capital words, the use occasionally of serifs, the projecting below the horizon <• tai line, of the small letters Y and G, with the consequent running into of the letters of words on the next horizontal line. The division of certain words into two or more parts, the most curious form of the capital letter G, which witness could best describe as possessing prognatism, and the regularity of the relative slopes of‘the doubled letters. Those were some' of the general characteristics. The othpr characteristics witness referred to saratvftn from the exhibits, detailing th<J similarities. His., lengthy evidence ij this regard was exceedingly detailed and highly technical. 1 The Inspector: Have you any doubf in your mind whatever that the .writ ing on the wrapper, the note signal Jim, the envelope addressed Chief of Police and the anonymous letter contained therein, and the envelope addressed tty Mrs. Clark fl-re identical and written by the same person who wrote the exhibit in the Labour Department file. Witness: I have no doubt whatever, so far as the Court exhibits are concerned, that they were written by t}ie same person who wrote the exhibits in the Labour Department file, and flats

no one else could have possibly written them. lam definite that all of the exhibits were written by one and the same person, with the exception of the envelope addressed to Mrs. Clark. Regarding the envelope that Mrs. Clark received, I am of the opinion that the person who wrote the other exhibits laid out the original inscription. The ink inscription which _ appears superimposed over the pencil inscription has been drawn and not written, and although, in my opinion, it possesses sufficient of the characteristics, general and personal, of the other exhibits, to make it reasonably certain that it was the work of the same person, the fact that it is drawn and not written, makes it difficult to give a certain pronouncement on the subject. Mr. Paterson objected to the Inspector interrupting the witness, whom he (Mr. Paterson) said should be allowed to give the evidence as he wished, being an expert and not a child. The Inspector said that he did not suggest that there were any children in Court. Mr. Paterson: Not in age! The Inspector said that surely he was entitled to ask a question of his own witness, and he was endeavouring to do it intelligently. “I hone so,” said Mr. Paterson. The Inspector: Unfortunately you do not accept it as being so. Mr. Paterson replied that he had not said that he did not accept it, and the questioning of the witness proceeded. Stepping back in the dock at 11*55 a.m. during the hearing of the evidence of the witness Collins, accused brojee out, “I declare the Court closed —adjourned for to-day.” He was prevailed upon to remain quiet by the attending constables. Instead of adjourning as usual at 11.55, the Court adjourned for a brief period at 12.5 yesterday when the witness had outlined characteristics in the handwriting exhibits.

Resuming his evidence after the adjournment Collins said that the three envelopes produced were of the ordinary commercial type and were machine made. They were kwwn as blue opaque. Witness said he had submitted the envelopes to careful measurement and examination and he was definitely of the opinion that the envelopes were exactly of the same make. One was addressed to Mrs. G. Clark, Moonlight. Witness compared another, an unused envelope, with that, sent from Atarau to Postmaster, Blackball, bearing the words, “Please post,” and after a careful examination declared they were not exactly the same. “What is the value of the individual characteristics in the handwriting?” asked t£e Inspector. The value of individual characteristics in handwriting, said witness, depended upon the nature of the characteristics. Where they were individual, then it had been found by Professor Simon Newcombe that the probability of cjonciirrence of all the events w’as equal to the continued product of the probabilities of all the separate events. He quoted this from “Questioned Docu meats,” Second Edition, by Albert S. Osbourn. This book, he said, was accepted as a standard work in certain phases of, handwriting and a copy of the book was kept for reference in the Christchurch Supreme Court. It was difficult to lay down any numerical formula, but from his own experience,, where he coiUd ascertain ten peculiar individual characteristics he was then satisfied that the probability could become only a certainty. For instance, in the particular characteristics quoted in this case, and all the examples of writing he, had examined he had never before found thp small letter '•g” with a peculiar nick in the head. He should state that the characteristic of the mixing of the small enlarged letters would certainly not occur more than once in ten times, and. that the use of the larger size , initial letter in the block inscriptions would also not occur.more than once in ten times. According to Professor Newcombe’s law this wbuld mean that the two characteristics together could not occur more than once in a hundred times. Similarly three characteristics, where each one would not occur: once in ten times in conjunction, would .not be found more than once in a thousand times, and sq on. He found thirteen definite individual characteristics in the exhibits examined by him. By that he meant 13 individual characteristics, excluding the similarities informal. “Would there be any possibility of finding those thirteen individual characteristics in any other person’s handwriting?” asked the Inspector. “No/’ replied witness, who had occupied 21 hours in lengthey technical evidence.

*The first witness after lunch,- was Oscar Moller, retired engraver nature cutter, Featherston Strejw/Wellington, who said that he had had experience in handwriting for over thirty years. Certain documents were submitted to witness by the -Police Department in this matter for his examination. Witness identified the Court exhibits examined by him. After having had the original exhibits for perusal, witness then got photographs of them from the Police Department, and made comparisons. In witness’s opinion some of the exhibits were written by the same hand as wrote others of the exhibits. Some of them were in a disguised hand, but nevertheless the peculiarities corresponded throughout to the admitted handwriting and printing. The writer, in witness’s opinion, was not fqjniliar with the excessive backhand writing, as shown by his difficulty in keeping to. the lines. Witness detailed the comparisons he had made between the exhibits in reference to particular words and letters with reference to their characteristics' and similarities. Witness had carefully examined the envelope addressed to Mrs. Clark, and in his opinion the writing had been written by the same pj&son who wrote the other exhibits. The writing was obviously disguised and had been first in pencil, and filled in or drawn in with ink after-wards. £here were also peculiarities in the writing which was shown in other exhibits. A habit of using lower case letters in combination with capital letters was shown in* the OxhP bits. As the result of witness’s observation and examination of alfythe

exhibits-he had cotne to the conclusion that they were all written by the same hand, and that the envelope addressed to Mrs. Clark was pencilled in by the same hand as wrote the other exhibits. As the inking-in was neither writing or drawing he could not say definitely who did it, but he was definite the pencil was done by the same hand as the other exhibits. Witness had no reason for doubt in his mind. Wit testimony, which was largely technical, and detailed, occupied almost one and a-half hours. In reply to the Magistrate, the Inspector said that he had five more witnesses to call. Detectivo-Sergeant Hohnes would be a very lengthy witness, he (the Inspector) having sixteen sheets of his evidence, while there were also seventeen sheets of accused’s statement to read. He thought that Detective-Sergeant Hplmes’s evidence woffld take four hours, and unless the Court sat torday, he did not think the hearing could be concluded on Monday. The Magistrate' said that the ordinary Court would probably take only an hour on-Monday. However, they could make an early start to-morrow morn-, ing, and continue until 11.30 or 12 any way. f Tn-reply to the Magisti?ate, the Inspector saicl that' Detective-Sergeant Knight’s evidence would probably take an hour, and that o£ Dr. Grigg, the Government Analyst, who would be heard on Monday, a similar time. Proceedings were adjourned until 9.30 o’clock this morning.