NCJ Number
139769
Journal
Journal of Forensic Sciences Volume: 37 Issue: 6 Dated: (November 1992) Pages: 1610-1620
Date Published
1992
Length
11 pages
Annotation
This article documents the use of a typewriter lift-off correction ribbon, in the absence of the typewriter carbon film ribbon, to identify indented typewritten entries.
Abstract
During the course of a bank fraud investigation that involved 13 questioned checks fraudulently drawn on the accounts of two legitimate insurance companies, a Smith- Corona printwheel typewriter and a Brother dot matrix thermal printer were seized. The suspect, however, had removed the carbon film ribbons from both machines, but he neglected to remove the lift-off correction ribbon from the printwheel typewriter. The class characteristics of the questioned and known typewriting were consistent, and spectral images were observed on the platen of the printwheel machine that corresponded to portions of the text on the questioned checks. This circumstantial evidence was overshadowed, however, by the discovery of indentations beneath the typewritten text on certain of the checks. Comparison of the paper fibers in the area of the indentations with the posterior surfaces of characters lifted off the paper and preserved on the correction ribbon formed the basis for an identification. 12 figures and 4 references