Citation

Cain S. Forensic Sci. Int. 1982; 19(1): 39-50.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1982, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

7054060

Abstract

Many document examiners recognize the importance of an individuals 'state of mind' and its effect on handwriting but historically have steered clear of working closely with psychiatrists, linguists, or psychologists in understanding the interaction of nervous impulses and motor responses on the final handwritten product. In an attempt to better understand and evaluate those fears and motivational influences which should exist within the writings of the mentally disturbed in his threatening correspondence, research was conducted to ascertain whether there are consistently reappearing delusional value systems/hostilities which characterize the writings of the paranoid schizophrenic assassin subject. The results of this preliminary investigation revealed substantial evidence to suggest that most U.S. assassins have been psychotic at the time they attempted to kill their victims and that the most frequently rendered diagnosis was 'paranoid schizophrenia'. It was also reported that many of the assassin subjects had either sent threatening correspondence to their victims prior to the assassination attempt or had recanted the justifiable nature of their 'heroic deed' in letters or personal diaries which were recovered shortly after the assault. It is also apparent that over the years, the Secret Service has investigated a number of threatening letter writers who were later diagnosed as suffering from some sort of schizophrenic reaction and characterized as 'potentially dangerous' to the President. Most of the insight to be gained from an examination of what researchers have discovered regarding those unique graphic traits found in 'schizophrenic writing' can be gleaned from those published papers contributed by graphologists/document examiners and that offered by the behavioral science/medical community in the form of psychiatrists, neurologists, psychologists and psycholinguists. The results of bonafide scientific and forensic literature research strongly suggest that the threatening writings of the paranoid schizophrenic and/or potential assassin will probably reveal distinctive graphic 'abnormalities' which are found to act in combination with certain combinations of reoccurring delusional value systems, frustrations, and hostilities.

Language: en