Handwriting analysis

I got the above a bit wrong. Re: "Don't try to grow a brain John." Patsy puts a comma after "brain" on pass 2 of the first session and pass 1 of the second session (which is after her lawyers have been given a xerox of the ransom note). The other two sentences don't have commas on any passes. That tells me she knows a comma is grammatically correct. It could be argued that she's careless about it, I suppose.

 

The "SWGDOC Standard Terminology for Expressing Conclusions of Forensic Document Examiners" provides these nine categories:

1. Identification
2. Highly probable did write
3. Probably did write
4. Indications did write
5. No conclusion/inconclusive
6. Indications did not write
7. Probably did not write
8. Highly probable did not write
9. Elimination

I haven't found where Lack of indications falls on this scale, but since four of the examiners purportedly used that expression, it seems like it's also standard terminology. It must fit between indications did and indications did not, i.e., in no conclusion/inconclusive. According to the SWGDOC document, "no conclusion/inconclusive is "used when there are significantly limiting factors, such as disguise in the questioned and/or known writing or a lack of comparable writing, and the examiner does not have even a leaning one way or another." I think there might have been a lack of comparable writing in Patsy Ramsey's case, hence the lack of indications. And, of course, the ransom note handwriting is disguised. Nonetheless, the examiners do have leanings one way or the other.

Extracting just the standard terminology of the examiners and omitting the qualifying language:

Ubowski: Indications did write
Speckin: Lack of indications
Alford: Lack of indications
Cunningham: Lack of indications
Dusick: Lack of indications
Ryle: Highly probable did not write

The above explains why Smit says that the "general consensus is inconclusive." I'm not sure what he means by "below."