Beverly Hills Cop

99.9 Percent

Print & Writing Evidence

When Paul returned home to his lab, he broke out the evidence he had collected in El Segundo, sat down, and began to take a closer look. From his first impression, it was obvious the suspect's handwriting from 1959 and the new sample from the DMV were almost an identical match. " Handwriting,"Paul said, "unlike fingerprints, may change after a person's initial eighteen to twenty years of life (after they reach graphic maturity by eliminating the juvenile characteristics from their handwriting, learning various ways to write in cursive and print)." This was important. When one enters adulthood, however, his or her handwriting is virtually locked into his or her psyche, becoming part of "who they are with these individual characteristics."

While in his lab, Paul took the document the El Segundo PD had obtained from the DMV in South Carolina, where the suspect now lived, and he began to "drop out" the background of the document so he could see the lettering more clearly.

Mason's Handwriting Samples

Next, Paul prepared a graph background that he could superimpose the handwriting sample on to. The graph consisted of numbers—along the top—and letters—along the west side. He did this so he could compare the two letters, an "E" and a "G" from the suspect's handwriting (the 1999 DMV sample) to the handwriting sample from the document the known suspect had written in 1959.

Mason's Handwriting Samples Overlaid

When he overlaid the two samples, they were a near identical match.

The graph allowed Paul to measure the height, width, slant, and number of strokes it took to form each letter of the handwriting, not to mention how the person made them. Overlaying the two samples, it was obvious the same hand had written both.

Staring at them, Paul stood back for a moment. "The samples were almost identical," Paul later told me, "as far as the initial first stroke where [the letter writer] first begins to write, the amount of strokes it takes to form the letter—both with the G and the E."

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1. The Early Days
2. "All I Want Is Your Money"
3. A Frozen Case
4. "I Think I'm Going to Kill All of You"
5. Forging His Way
6. 99.9 Percent
7. A Rape Turns into a Double Murder
8. Billionaire Boys Club
9. Sherlock Holmes
10. Of Course He's Guilty
11. The Murder Weapon Surfaces
12. Lucky Break
13. Murder By Numbers
14. A Murderer Speaks
15. Questions
16. A Note About Sources