By Mark Doyle
December 3, 1997

O.J. Simpson is definitely guilty. Ted (Unabomber) Kazinski is crazy. Timothy McVeigh, is guilty but not crazy. And it looks like the murderers of little JonBenet Ramsey were, indeed, her own parents.

So concludes forensic handwriting expert Kimon Iannetta, one of the country's top graphologists and the most sought-after trial consultant in the state.

"Once they printed that note, it was obvious he was guilty," Iannetta says of the rambling, suicidal note O.J. Simpson wrote just prior to his white Bronco chase scene. "He was very distant and detached...highly excitable, yet trying to remain calm. Every time he lied, though, he made an error, which is typical when people lie in writing.

"When he wrote 'I had nothing to do with it,' he had to strike it out. And whenever the word 'her' appeared, as in 'I love her,' there would be large spaces on either side of it, and the word 'her' would rear back, indicating extreme anxiety and discomfort.

"His writing ran off the page to the right. If the left is the past and right is future, this indicates he didn't know how to stop. He didn't know how to control his impulses. This works pretty well when you're running with a football, but not so well with knives."

Iannetta asserts that three of O.J.'s signatures, taken on the night his ex-wife Nicole Simpson and Ronald Goldman were murdered, were incriminating as well. The first signature, collected at the airport within an hour or two (depending on which trial testimony you believe) of the alleged time of the murder, "shows tremendous anger and aggression," she explains. "He was clearly in a highly agitated state. The second signature was taken on the plane. It was more calmed down, but still very aggressive. The third signature, taken when he arrived in Chicago, well, it looked like a high speed chase. It was agitated and all over the place." With over 27 years of experience in behavioral profiling and forensic document examination, Iannetta, a native and current resident of Kailua, is not only highly respected in her field, she is in demand because of her incredible accuracy. Certified by the American Board of Forensic Examiners with diplomate status, and a lifetime fellow of the American College of Forensic Examiners, she is only one of four graphologists in the country who specialize in jury selection. She also is the only graphologist in the country who has done research and specializes in predicting danger using handwriting as the instrument. In fact, her book, Danger Between the Lines, has been listed by the American Handwriting Analysis Foundation as one of the top eight books in the world on advanced handwriting analysis. The second edition of the book, due next summer, focuses on how handwriting characteristics can help identify potentially dangerous criminals, which makes it an excellent reference guide for law enforcement officers. And it provides fascinating glimpses into the handwriting samples of such celebrities as Marilyn Monroe, Michael Jackson and Elvis Presley, as well as macabre profiles based on the writing samples of serial murderers Charles Manson, Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer and assassins Lee Harvey Oswald and Sirhan Sirhan. "Michael Jackson's signature is a designer signature," she points out, giving us a taste. "It's beautiful and flashy, just like he is. But his poor, pathetic handwriting is lonely, sad and primitive. "Princess Diana, on the other hand, underscored her signature. It was also a designer signature, but so was her handwriting. Her letters were soft and round, particularly the middle zone [m's and n's], which showed a compassionate, gentle nature, well formed. "Prince Charles' handwriting was the opposite — small, angular and pulling toward the left. The middle zone was very tiny and angular, indicating a natural introvert." How about those maniacs?

"Charles Manson's writing is creepy. His lower zones are all angular and look like knives and weapons. "Jeffrey Dahmer's writing indicates that his conscious and unconscious run into each other without any boundaries." This second printing of the book will feature Iannetta's graphological analysis of O.J. Simpson [she saw knives in the Juice's letters too] and the two bombers, Kazinski and McVeigh, both of whom she is currently profiling for a new book on predicting danger by Harold Hall. She also will reveal her thoughts on the internationally publicized murder of JonBenet Ramsey. In September, Newsweek ran a story entitled "A Case Forever Unraveling," which focused on the ransom note sent to the victim's father, John Ramsey. Many criminal investigators still strongly believe one or both of the parents were involved in the crime. Iannetta concurs. "It looks like a woman's words, but it appears to be a man as the writer," she says. "I feel it's either them or someone who knows them. Actually, I think it's John Ramsey." Not all forensic handwriting analysis borders on the horrid, of course. Through her business, called Trial Run, Iannetta has worked as a consultant to state, federal and military agencies, including law enforcement, legal, security and human resource professionals, both in the public and private sectors. Across the board, she is considered to be the best at what she does, with many of her clients referring to her as invaluable. "Kim gives precise, detailed information that you can act on," writes James Bickerton of the Honolulu law firm Bickerton, Saunders, Dang, Bouslog. "As one example, she successfully predicted that one of the jurors was so unstable that he would have difficulty remaining on the panel... Sure enough, within a day or two the unstable juror had requested and received a discharge from the judge... Without Kim's advice, we might have wasted a valuable peremptory challenge on this juror... Suffice to say that you should not go to trial without Kim Iannetta on your team." "Kim was instrumental in revealing the character traits of a [terroristic] letter writer," says HPD Detective Wilbert Kaimikaua. "She was able to pinpoint the suspect from among 48 other possible suspects and was accurate in her selection. The letter writer was arrested within 48 hours after the identification, and confessed to the crime. Ms. Iannetta's high degree of accuracy in her skills and insightful observations in analyzing handwritings are invaluable to the Honolulu Police Department." Iannetta has notebooks filled with such testimonials, largely from the psychological and legal community. Her interest of late, however, has gravitated toward business, where she has already become a valuable resource in the field of personnel placement. "Kim Iannetta's skill and intuitive sense brings a new and credible dimension to our screening and hiring process," says Michael Han, owner of The Wedding Ring Shop. "Character, principle and values of the job applicant are critical elements usually quite difficult to ascertain. Ms. Iannetta's information to us is worth its weight in gold." Human resource departments in larger companies are catching on, too. First Hawaiian Bank, Bank of Hawaii, Bank of Honolulu, Crazy Shirts, the Royal Hawaiian Hotel and Sheraton Waikiki Hotel are among her long list of corporate clients. Plus, in early 1998, she will be publishing yet another book, Behavior Profiling... A Human Resource Solution. Iannetta is co-authoring the book with Carol Forsloff, a Honolulu colleague who also is a certified document examiner and forensics examiner. Though she's not a graphological expert like Iannetta, Forsloff brings a distinguished background in testing and personnel placement, as well as psychology and disabilities evaluation, to the collaboration. "[Carol] has a background I don't have, and vice versa," Iannetta says. "It's a great mesh." Aside from this busy agenda, Iannetta also teaches a workshop at UH entitled "People Reading: Through Your Handwriting." She even offers us a few tips. Take "t-bars," for example, the bars we cross our t's with. If you cross them high on the vertical stem, it means you have lofty goals. "If they're low, it means that person is stuck in the now," she says. "They're afraid of failure, and may even think of themselves as failures." What about those who place their t-bars above the stem, where they don't even touch? "Those are daydreamers," she says. Okay, how about those people who put hearts and happy faces in their letters? "Bull----," she retorts. "All those hearts, underlines, exclamation points and curly-q's are exaggerations. Don't believe any of them. If they're subtle, that's one thing. Just beware of anything over-emphasized or exaggerated." You may also want to beware of anyone whose handwriting trails off the right side of the page. And you might even want to pick up a copy of Iannetta's book, if nothing else just to see what those knives look like.