Let’s Play… Beat The Chief!
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OK, аƖƖ уου OTBL slueths out tһеrе. I know mοѕt οf уου wһο read tһіѕ blog һаνе IQ’s wіtһ аt Ɩеаѕt three digits ѕο I tһіחk wе wіƖƖ bе far more capable οf solving tһе Devin Willi Threat Letter caper tһаח those wһο һаνе “officially” attempted tο ԁο ѕο…
Sο, fοr starters Ɩеt’s bеɡіח wіtһ ѕοmе basic evidence; square one, ѕο tο speak.
Date: June 24th, 2005
Time: 10:25 аm
Location: Hudson City Hall, Office οf Devin Willi (City Administrator)
“At approximately 10:25 a.m. today, Friday, June 24, 2005, Mary Kay Magle, tһе City’s receptionist, placed mу daily mail οח mу desk.
I opened several documetns. One οf tһе documents I opened wаѕ аח anonymous letter addressed tο mе wһісһ mаԁе threats against mе, mу family аחԁ others.
I immediately called Chief Trende аחԁ аѕkеԁ һіm tο come tο mу office.”
Devin Willi,іח һіѕ letter οf June 24th
Tһе threat letter wһісһ wаѕ enclosed іח tһе above envelope саח bе viewed (along wіtһ аח enlarged version οf tһе envelope) bу clicking οח tһе envelope image above.
Sο, OTBL slueths, wһаt саח уου glean frοm tһіѕ basic evidence? Wһеrе wουƖԁ іt lead уου? Iѕ tһеrе anything аbουt tһе handwriting οח tһе envelope? Tһе wording οf tһе threat? Wһο wіƖƖ bе first tο solve tһіѕ crime аחԁ ……… win! Lеt’s play – Beat Tһе Chief!
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- Government Thug in Chief One οf tһе ɡrеаt authorities οח tһе Constitution аחԁ American history іѕ Judge Andrew Napolitano. Iח tһе following brief interview wіtһ Ralph Nader, һе ԁеѕсrіbеѕ...
To begin with, it appears to have been written by a hand that is not the dominate hand.
What’s with a chunk out of the postage stamp?
Good observations chris, not even the police chief or the HSO got that far. So, we should focus on dominant hands? The plot thickens…
Yup, the proof is in the pudding. Look at that handwriting? Now either the culprit got his kid to write the address on the envlope or the Hudson school district did not teach the culprit how to write properly. They are not teaching well are they?
Let’s focus a little closer … let’s zoom in on the zip code, shall we?
Look carefully at this image. What do you see? Is there anything here that piques the Holmes in you???
Clue: Mile marker 69
Does the way the handwriting looks indicate a left or right handed perpetrator to anyone?
The perp doing the addressing is nervous as indicated by the jiggling handwriting. Take careful note of the word Hudson.
The perp is definitely male. There is nothing artistic about the lettering which is characteristic of most females.
Ziller – excellent sluething.. Indeed it appears that we have either a right handed person or a left handed person – or vice versa – who seems to have changed hands to finish out the 016 part of the zip code. Very good there Ziller! Now I believe we can focus even more closely on each number for any more clues.
So far, we have a male who is nervous. Could be a natural lefty, faking with his right – getting frustrated with the number 4, and switching hands to finish the job. Why?
Again, clue is mile marker 69…
Now did Mr willi get the police chief to fingerprint the paper on which the letter is written on? How about getting a saliva sample from the glue on the envelope or stamp and checking the DNA database.
Yes the stamp will have the culprit’s thumb print since he has to lick it and press it on the envelope!
On first look, it looks like a child’s writing, but I agree that it ws probably just written with the non-dominant hand.
Most of the address was written with the left hand. The curves of the vertical letters slant to the left at the top, consistant with the arc made by a person’s left wrist.
The cleanliness of the last 3 letters of the zip, code could have resulted from the writer having to look up the zip code, then forgetting to use the left hand to finish writing it in. that would indicate the the writer wasn’t local to Hudson.
The Hudson Post Office does process some of the local mail. Does anyone know if they stamp it with Hudson or with St. Paul cancellations? It could also have been mailed from somewhere just across the border, so that’s not a big deal anyway.
But why Devin Willi? He has no relation to the Hudson school board that I know of or have read about. If it was someone out of town, why (and how) would they pick Devin?
Okay Columbo, I think I have some information for you. The letter writer was obviously writing with their opposite hand until they started to screw up the zip code. Then they switched to their other hand to finish. You can see that the last three numbers were written with their normal writing hand. As for the second number, they started with a “3″ and then changed it to a “4″.
Now, with regards to exit 69. This happens to be the town of Mauston, WI, which has a zip code that begins with 53 instead of 54. The actual zip code in Mauston is 53948. As it turns out Devin Willi and his family have recently moved from Mauston……….
Well, well, well … Some fine analysis from the OTBL slueths!
Ruthless, you may be on to something. Let’s assume for the moment that you are correct. The the perp initially wrote 53 with the non-dominant hand, switched, and then wrote heavily the 4 then continued with the dominant hand, 016. So, if Devin Willi previously lived in Mauston before moving to Hudson we have two possibilities if we pursue that line of reasoning. First, someone who knew Devin and had it in for him from Mauston wrote the threat. Second possibility is that Devin himself addressed the envelope.
OK slueths, what do you make of those two possibilities and how does the written threat letter comport with either of those two – or – neither make sense and someone has a third explaination?
Also, as to shining light and embers – according to a city council member the police chief sent the envelope and letter to the state crime lab for both finger print and dna analysis. Last October the matter was supposidly being examined from both angles – but surprisingly not a single report as to the findings of the crime lab have surfaced publicly, why?
As to embers comments, yes – It appears that the writing was done with the non-dominant hand, most likely the left hand in a right-handed person.
So, we have a male, right handed, with a link to a 53xxx zip code (possibly) who when writing with the right hand has a distinct slant and loops his 6′s in an otherwise elegant fasion.
The plot clearly has thickened…
Letâs ponder another question super sleuths: Why was the envelope hand-written? Why would it not be just like the letter which was done by a word processor?
Could it be that more than one person was involved? One person typed up the letter and someone else who addressed and mailed the envelope containing the letter.
In this case you would think that Chief Trende would have first looked for someone who would want to ruin the reputations of concerned citizens and see if any of those individuals had a link to the Willi family. This individual might have shown some mental instability in their actions as well. What’s interesting is that one of the main suspects, who has written into the HSO on a regular basis belittling these same concerned citizens, has written NOT ONE letter about the Devin Willi threat letter case. This same individual launched a website this July that had to the sole purpose of defaming these same concerned citizens. And one more interesting fact. This same individual and his family are close associates of the Willi’s. Coincidence?
Back to the zip. It appears that some of the zip code numerals were partially erased and then corrected.
The response to number 13 could be:
1. Was the person technically inept and didn’t know how their printer worked to feed it letter stock?
2. As pointed out in #14 there could have been one person who created the letter who then handed it to the person who created the envelope.
This group is certainly up to the task. Cub you be on to it. Here is an additional thought: the letter was written in someoneâs office and the only envelopes available were pre-printed with a business or government address. The writer of the envelope was forced to buy an envelope perhaps at the Post Office where there was much haste in filling out the address. Thus my dear Watson, the writer made a mistake with the zip code but had no time, for fear of getting caught or recognized, and proceeded to hastily finish the zip code in their natural hand.
I see the envelope has a St. Paul postmark. Was the letter mailed from Hudson going through the St. Paul Post Office or was it mailed from St. Paul ?
An interesting observation towncrier. I am not sure you can tell the point of origin on the letter outside of the postmark which indicates the letter passed through the St. Paul Post Office. This brings up an interesting question concerning the handling of the investigation. Anyone care to take a crack at what is curious about how the investigation or lack of it was handled. The clue is on the envelope
I agree with Columbo. Looks like the writer made a mistake with the zip code and finished in their natural “left” hand.
I don’t agree with Ziller that this must be a male since there is “nothing artistic about the lettering which is characteristic of most females”. After the switch to the natural hand, the 6 is actually pretty artistic. I could see that as a feminine hand.
The envelope may have been addressed by either a male or female.
Three things I noticed:
1. The entire document seems to be done in MS Word using default settings (margins, Times font, character spacing, paragraph spacing).
2. The text seems to be mis-aligned on the vertical axis when viewed. I first thought this may have been due to the scanning process, however, if you examine the alignment on the horizontal axis, the horizontal looks fine. This shift may be attributed to an ink-jet printer and its print head not properly aligned, indicating a consumer-type printer. It would be interesting to view the original to determine more information on paper type ink type, etc..
3. The writer does not seem educated beyond high school or technical school. There are sentence structure and syntax mistakes:
“They need to watch there (their) back too.”
The last sentence in the last paragraph before the close is a run on sentence with too much use of “and”.
Missing commas throughout.
Well, well.. Some interesting insights so far.
Let’s ramp this up one more notch, shall we? The image included here is one of the handwriting of an individual known to be related to this case.
The question here is does the handwritten numbering on this document appear to give any clues? Again, let’s focus on the zip code previously posted and the numbers here….
Lastly, do you think the following writing is a man’s or a woman’s and do you think it is the same person who wrote the numbers above…
Great observation gubba! Now what else do you notice about the manner in which the text is written. What type of style is used? Look closely,this is a very important clue.
I am not sure I understand the style question, other than to say it appears this is written similar to an inter-office memo.
The 6 in 65000 is a perfect match. Also, the 1 has the same slant and the 0 starts and stops in the same place.
I think where columbo is headed here is clear. The writing on the envelope as taxmealotmore notes(the 016) bears striking similarity to that which is on the spreadsheet.. In fact, I would say we have a match.
Furthermore, columbo asks about gender. I am now thinking we may have two males at work here. One who typed up the letter in a memo style (office experience perhaps or works in an office environment) attempting to dumb it down so as to appear very ineloquent, or lacking grammatical skill. In fact, it is skillfully done in that regard!
The envelope writer may be a separate person whose handwriting slants upwards left to right and gets loopy..
The other clues are fascinating. I am still trying to figure out why someone from Devin Willi’s old zip code would do something all the way up in Hudson. That just doesn’t make any sense to me.
Lastly, we have been led to believe that three document examiners were hired by someone and all three agreed upon whose writing was on the envelope. Why hasn’t the results of these examiners been published out here??
Since this letter went through the United States Postal Service, don’t they do some investigating?
By golly maxfill and gubba you have discovered a clue. The letter does indeed to be written in memo form.
From the greeting : “To Devin” and the blocking of the body points to a person who may quite familiar with memo writing. Under the stress of the moment, committing a crime, they unitentionally revert to their customary style. In this case, the style is memo form. Perhaps the person is someone whose daily work involves a lot of memo writing.
Well done gubba and maxfill!
After 29 comments, I expected the identification of the perp. I think it’s time to close this case and get on with ticketing speeders.
This already looks like more than you got out of the police. What do they do their? (pardon the pun)
I’m not convinced you have a perfect match yet, Columbo. The 6 in 36000 is close, but it doesn’t finish by crossing below the other line as the “6″ on the envelope does. There are three sixes visible in this sample and they have quite a bit of variation. On the envelope, the starting vertical stroke is almost straight, with the entire stroke to the left of the loop at the finish. Of the three sixes on the sample, the six in 65000 starts all the way over the the right of the digit (like this font does). The six in 6000 starts midway from left to right, and the six in 36000 starts way to the left as the envelope six does.
This variation makes analysis tricky. By the same token, the twos in your sample vary from no loop at the bottom left on 12000 to a prominent loop on the twos in “22″.
Further, the start and stop on the zeros in 36000, 6000, 12000, 70000 and 65000 are all in the 5 o’clock to 6 o’clock position while the envelope seems to be in the 1 o’clock spot.
If this is the sample your handwriting experts matched to the envelope, they must have had more than this with which to work.
Why not post the documents sent to the experts and the resulting reports?
Since you asked… Here is one of three letters in reply from three different document examiners. The other two reached the very same exact conclusion. Since no one has been found by local authorities to be the perp in this case, we cannot devuldge the name – this has been sat on for well over a year now without anyone letting on to the official opinions of these examiners. The work of all three were forwarded to the HPD and City Hall by a City Councilman. To date, not one of the three examiners have been contacted by anyone associated with the investigation.
columbo finds this all very interesting. What is most disturbing about this case is that although columbo has the name of the person identified by three different examiners as the author of the envelope (not necessarily the letter), as does the Hudson Police Department and (ostensibly) the State Crime Lab, nothing has been publicly released in this matter. We were all led to believe that the information and evidence was submitted to the crime lab last October for DNA and print analysis, along with any follow-up investigation.
To date, you all know as much as columbo regarding their findings or their actual further investigation.
If any concerned citizens are wondering about the status of this crime, please contact the Hudson Police Department with any information that might be helpful in this ongoing investigation. While you are speaking with them, ask what updates have been received from the State Crime Lab…
Over at Uncommon Insight Dean has some interesting analysis on the zip code.
See:
Willi threat letter: Time for HPD to turn this over to another agency