By Deneen L. Hernandez
Whenever you watch CSI, Bones or NCIS, aren’t you looking for gross, bloody, or oozing evidence left behind from the criminal? Of course you are and that’s why people watch those shows. Some physical evidence a criminal leaves behind makes it easy for the crime scene investigator or detective to conclude who committed the crime. But, what if that evidence wasn’t so easy to detect?
As we know, evidence of a crime takes many forms. It can be fingerprints, trace evidence, or DNA. Some of the most condemning evidence can be the documents that describe the crime, provide information of the illegal operation, or diagram that shows the components to an explosive.
Document examinations are used to determine the authenticity of a document using class and individual characteristics. The examinations can include, but are not limited to handwriting analysis, paper typing, examinations of burned or charred documents, evidence of invisible ink, or even shredded document reconstruction.
Documents can provide a solid case in court regarding the person’s knowledge of the crime or the amount of his involvement in the crime. Documents such as these have provided crucial evidence in criminal trials. Examples include Theodore Kaczynski (confessed Unabomber) through his own written manifesto; Bruno Richard Hauptmann who was convicted of the Charles A. Lindbergh Jr. kidnapping through handwriting analysis; and former FBI Agent Robert Hannsen who passed highly sensitive information to his Soviet and Russian handlers in exchange for large sums of cash and other compensation. The information he provided compromised FBI and U.S. intelligence operations, techniques, sources, and methods, and earned him life in prison. Obtained documents were examined for handwriting comparison, indented writing, and other unusual features.
Unfortunately the documents do not come in a nice, sorted, bound condition. Condemning documents could be at the bottom of a trash can, under the spaghetti sauce and egg shells, or stored in the wheel well of a car, so the police don’t find it executing a search warrant. Some criminals even try and put the paper through a paper shredder to destroy it. (An 8 ½ by 11 cross-cut page contains approximately 400-600 fragments).
Evidence submissions like this can come in 33 gallon garbage bags taken from a bookmaker running an illegal sports betting ring or a drug dealer or even major corporations such as Enron to destroy evidence of their corruption.
Luckily, there are people in laboratories across the country that manage to examine these documents in whatever form they come in. Professional training by crime laboratories provides the examiner the ability to put these torn or shredded pieces of paper together that make sense to the reader. Think of it like putting a puzzle together that makes a picture.
For all practical purposes, shredding documents provides security in an imperfect world. Major world companies, the Departments of Defense, and John Q. Citizen use document shredders to protect information that should not be thrown out with the trash. We hear everyday about the thousands of people who have had their identities stolen because they throw out their electric bill or Visa statement with Monday night’s trash.
Documents shredders provide an individual or a corporation with the feeling of security because documents can be torn, shredded in a columnar fashion and cross-cut with newly developed shredders that provide the ultimate in document disposal security.
In 1979 when Iranian revolutionaries took over the country from the Shah the new government hired local carpet weavers to help reconstruct shredded documents. These artisans were used to tying 400 knots per inch and the work went quickly. In response, the US government updated their document destroying repertoire to include pulping, pulverizing, and chemical decomposition.
Questioned document examiners sometimes conduct edge examinations on shredded, torn, or cut paper, tape (paper and scotch tapes), postage stamps, or other document evidence materials to determine if two or more specimens were attached at one time.
Torn or otherwise obliterated documents also provide a window into the world of individuals or operations that do not operate legally. This provides a valuable learning tool for students.
In May, 2009, I traveled from the FBI, where I work, to the Chautauqua Erie II BOCES Explorer Program to conduct a training exercise with Dan Depitrio’s criminal justice students. The exercises had several components: first, a shredded document reconstruction of a threat letter to a major power company. The second part was a code breaking exercise using a simple substitution system on the reconstructed letter to decode the cipher, and last was an examination on a piece of physical evidence exercise involving the identification of the fingerprint to the suspect.
This article will concentrate on the manual reconstruction of the document.
To begin the reconstruction of a torn or shredded document, each student or pair will need:
Machine shredded paper (columnar)
Hand magnifier
Two sided tack paper (3M®) and clear polyethylene film (Mylar®), or an equivalent.
Scissors
Forceps
Rulers
Tape
Ultraviolet (UV) source or equivalent
Protective gloves
Although different laboratories have different protocols to follow in their specific examination, generally the specimens will be compared using lighting and magnification to distinguish fine detail. Some of these properties are the type of paper, dimensions, color, spacing of components (e.g. space between lines, punch holes in paper, perforations, etc.).
First, the students will separate the numerous pieces of material to be reassembled based on the physical/class characteristics such color or paper, fluorescence properties, color of any writing or printing on the document, orientation of any writing or extrusion marks on the material. Each student or pair should be given a bag containing a single, one-page, shredded document. After the class becomes familiar with the protocol they can try their hand with a bag containing two different documents. A key to getting started is to remember that shreds from the same document tend to stay near each other.
The students should separate and group similar materials. They should visually examine the specimen(s) for identifying characteristics along the torn, cut, or shredded edges. Align the pieces of material having visually similar edge characteristics. In most cases these are likely to be identical if from the same, unmodified shredder.
Then the teams should do a side by side comparison of the specimen(s) to evaluate the edges for fracture pattern consistencies, paper fiber crossings, text crossings, or any other characteristics to determine if the specimens were one time attached. They can use magnification or lighting as necessary.
They can then place shredded pieces on the two sided tack paper to assemble. Depending on the fragility of the paper, forceps may have to be used to place the paper on the tack paper. Using the above characteristics as a guide, they should assemble the shredded pieces to form legible words or phrases, addresses, or company logos. Looking and reading the text on a specific line of a strand of paper can help students predict what will be on the next, correct strand. In addition, students should keep in mind that a document doesn’t have to be completely reconstructed if all the text on it has been identified. Many offices use forms for information to be later shredded. Having a blank form to compare the shreds to is like having a roadmap for reconstruction.
In the real world other types of garbage are mixed with shredded paper. If your students want realism mix in some coffee grounds or shredded papers that clearly don’t belong such as envelopes, cancelled checks, or labels.
Following the reconstruction, the specimen in its final form should be photographed, photocopied, or scanned. This is facilitated by placing a clear overhead projector sheet over the reconstructed document.
If you have students who give up before they’ve started because they’ve convinced themselves the job of reconstruction is impossible, you can give them a training version: a shredded document with a picture on it (a photocopied, enlarged dollar bill for example), or one with only a couple sentences. After such an exercise raises their confidence you can give them more realistic examples.
Students who enjoy puzzles will enjoy this exercise. If you use a columnar shredder, try using paper of different colors or weights when you do more than one document at the same time. The reconstruction of shredded documents is a lab some students will balk at because they see it as an exercise in futility. As they work, however, they will see things come together in a way that will boost their confidence and experience.
