‘I’ve been involved in more doggone different types of cases, all the way from bad checks to embezzlement to wills to a murder.’

It was a long, involved route Elmer Wadman followed before, in 1956, he became a documents examiner--a person who analyzes handwriting for court cases. Wadman, 76, has driven a produce truck and been a wholesale wine and beer salesman, and he is still called “Twinkle Toes,” a nickname he earned during a six-year dancing career with his first wife. He joined the San Diego Police Department in 1940, and, after forming the first sex-crimes detail, was assigned to work in the crime lab, where he analyzed everything from fingerprints to forged checks. Integrity and keen eyesight are the tools Wadman values most in his career. After his retirement from the force in 1960, he worked for the district attorney’s office and the Sheriff’s Department, and now has a business of his own. Times staff writer Caroline Lemke interviewed him and Barbara Martin photographed him.

Ionly worked one year out in the field as a uniformed sergeant, wearing the old dark-blue uniform, not like the tan they now wear. Then I became a fingerprint man and went to work in the fingerprint bureau. We would do everything. We’d classify fingerprints, and we’d research fingerprints. We fingerprinted dead bodies.

In 1956, I was made lieutenant in charge of the SDPD crime lab. My predecessor, a Lt. Walter Scott, was qualified as a handwriting expert, a documents examiner, and I was expected to fill his shoes. I was able to understudy him for about a month, and then he retired. I was much like the little boy who was told how to swim and thrown into the creek. I had to know.

A documents examiner is different from a graphologist. A graphologist tells you the character of a person. A documents examiner identifies or eliminates handwriting in a question case. You had the question document and you have what’s submitted-as-known handwriting, and you compare the two.

I’ve been involved in more doggone different types of cases, all the way from bad checks to embezzlement to anonymous threatening letters to wills to even a murder case.

We all have writing habits, and we all have manners of signing our name. We all have normal variations--otherwise we would suspect tracing. You go to the meat of the matter. Look at the question document, study it, look at the submitted-as-known handwriting and study that. And then come up with your opinion.

There are different types of instruments that can identify documents under the written document. By the impression of the writing they can read the second or third page underneath. There are documents that can identify the inks, the different amount of carbon or iron oxide that’s within the inks.

I’ve run into some of the darndest things. If a person is under medication or if a person is very intoxicated or if a person is in declining health, all that has effects.

I worked on a case for a man who lives in Grantville. His dear old mother was back in eastern Texas. She was up in years, and she wrote letters regularly to her son, so we had several samples of her handwriting. Dear old mother married a guy and subsequently she passed away and here develops a will.

The mother had severe shakiness in her writing. The will came out, and while the signature pictorially looked like her signature, it failed in other areas, and it was not her signature. Probably the guy she married in later life wanted everything. Greed is a horrible thing. It makes people do all kinds of crazy things.

A documents examiner, in my opinion, should have a good pair of eyes and be just completely honest. Just be full of integrity and don’t take a side on the issue when it’s submitted to you.

I like the challenge, and I’m a horrible ham. I enjoy testifying in court. The nastier the opposing counsel wants to be, the nicer I am to them as I testify.