DETECTING CRIME

Wairarapa Times-Age, 28 December 1939, Page 2

DETECTING CRIME

HANDWRITING EXPERT. AN EX-BANKER'S HOBBY. Since his retirement from his position of a bank manager in Australia four years ago, Mr E. A. Walker, who is at present visiting Auckland on holiday, has usefully employed a lifetime interest in signatures by giving expert advice to the Crown Law Department in Victoria and other Australian States, which has brought him association with many interesting criminal cases and varying types of litigation in Commonwealth Courts. His knowledge helped to bring a murderer to book, and to effect the arrest of burglars and forgers. The writing of a bogus name on a marriage card proved the undoing of Frank Lane, who subsequently murdered the Rev.Laceby Cecil in his study at Fitzroy, a Melbourne suburb, in December, 1935.

Although Mr Walker's evidence lacked something of the spectacular, it nevertheless proved an important factor when the case came before the jury. Lane confessed that on December 12 he went to rob the vicarage and used the subterfuge that he was about to be married. The vicar asked him to sign a card. A slow thinker, Lane merely changed his name to “Layne”; indeed, it was not until he had written “Lan” that he decided upon a change, a hesitation which showed itself in the photograph produced in Court

While serving a sentence at Pentridge Gaol, some time before, Lane had been made to sign the gaol property book. In the only style of handwriting he knew he signed “F. Lane.” After the murder of Mr Cecil, the police called in Mr Walker to check the signature on the marriage card with signatures in the gaol property

book. It took little time for him to determine that "Layne” and Lane were one man. The jury believed Lane was at the vicarage when the murder was committed. He was hanged. Mr Walker told a “New Zealand Herald” reporter that it is virtually impossible for anyone to write his signature exactly the same way twice. The odds are one to 100,009. In one case the judge told him he had practised throughout one evening, trying to get two identical signatures, but without success. There are always slight variations, differences which only powerful microscopes may determine and demonstrate. Such differences may be of importance in a trial, particularly in forgery cases. "It is true,” he said, “that the clever forger can imitate the general form of another person’s writing, but he cannot disguise the effects of his own muscular co-ordination. There is little chance nowadays for a forgery remaining undetected.” A few months ago a burglar made an unsuccessful attempt at opening a safe. The lock jammed. He left a note saying “Beware of unexploded charge.” When the burglary was discovered the following morning, a mechanic ignored the note and while trying to open the safe door the charge exploded and he was killed. The police heard of an ex-miner who had turned burglar and who had a penchant for leaving notes behind him. It was not long before he was arrested. Mr Walker checked his signature with notes left in various places, and told the jury that in his opinion they were written by the same man. The man was acquitted on the manslaughter charge, but he was afterward convicted of burglary.