May 6, 2009 11:36 pm US/Pacific
FBI Looking At Local Expert's Work On Zodiac Case
SACRAMENTO (CBS13) ―
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Nanette Barto's handwriting analysis has been posted online.
The findings of a local handwriting expert are behind a lot of the commotion lately in the case of the Zodiac Killer.
An FBI agent recently spent several hours with forensic document examiner Nanette Barto, who compared the writings of the Zodiac to Jack Tarrance, the man the FBI is investigating as the Zodiac Killer.
Writings from the two men combined provided Barto with around 100 samples to analyze.
"What do you think the FBI is going to find when they look at your work," I asked Barto.
"I think they already started finding exactly what I found," Barto said.
To view Barto's report,
click here, and to view the handwriting samples she compared,
click here.
According to Barto, the spelling mistakes made by both men captured the interest of the FBI. Barto found examples where both men doubled letters in words where they should not; for example, an example from Jack Tarrance has "fun" misspelled as "funn."
In the Zodiac writings, she found the word "control" spelled "controol."
Barto also found the way both Jack Tarrance and the Zodiac formed their lowercase "n" unusual. Capital "N's" appear in lowercase words and look more like "W's."
Barto says they are formed with an unusual four-stork style. The authors write their "N's" with a stroke that goes down, up, down, up.
Prior to Barto's meeting with the FBI agents, CBS13 featured the forensic document examiner in another story focusing other similarities she found in the writings. News of Barto's findings are causing quite a stir in the Zodiac case, which is now 40 years old.
Last week, Deborah Perez and a group making a documentary claimed that at age seven, she wrote Zodiac letters for her father.
CBS13 contacted the San Francisco Police Department, who told us that Perez has still not provided them with any evidence to back her claims.
Barto is convinced the FBI will back her belief that the killer's writing will ultimately reveal his identity.
"I don't see why they would come back with anything but Jack Tarrance is the Zodiac," Barto said.
Jack Tarrance's stepson, Dennis Kaufman, spent eight years building a circumstantial case against his father. He asked Barto to examine his stepfather's writing. He has also posted Nanette Barto's findings on
his website.
(© MMX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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