Acetone. Alcohol. Scaled and gridded glass plates. A high-powered microscope. A keen eye. The tools of the trade for one of the best bloodhounds in the nation.
After 39 years tracking down the telltale traces of check forgers, murderers, arsonists and the like, Sherwood Morrill retired from law enforcement in December of 1973. Morrill was a handwriting expert who worked in the Questioned Documents department of the Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation, located in Sacramento, California. In his thirty nine year career with the department, Morrill worked on virtually every type of criminal case imaginable.
"Take any type of crime in the penal code and any litigation in the Civil Court and you'll find I've been involved in it - divorce, murder, arson, almost anything."
Born in Berkeley in 1914, Sherwood moved north with his family to Sacramento in 1917. The Morrill family had a history in law enforcement. His father, also named Sherwood, had risen in 1918 to the esteemed rank of superintendent of the state bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation. Sherwood was already working in the very same bureau his father had helped create when the senior Morrill died at the age of 56.
As a questioned documents examiner, Morrill was involved in the direct examination of numerous types of disputed documents, from forged checks and suicide notes, to questionable real estate deeds and partially destroyed documents. At one point, he estimated that he testified in court more than 3,300 times regarding documents which he personally examined.
Some of the more notorious cases he worked on involved well-known individuals such as Black Panther affiliate Angela Davis, who purchased guns which were later used in the murder of a Marin County Judge, author Clifford Irving who was convicted of forging an autobiography of billionaire Howard Hughes and serial killer Juan Corona, who murdered twenty five migrant farm workers and kept a handwritten ledger, nicknamed the "death list", of those he killed.
However, it was his work on the case of the serial killer known only as the Zodiac which brought Sherwood Morrill to the attention of the general public.
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The Zodiac
The Zodiac was a serial murderer who was actively engaged in homicide in Northern California from 1968 until 1969. Unlike many serial killers, who wish to remain anonymous so as to avoid capture, the Zodiac appeared to take great pleasure in communicating with the outside world, composing numerous taunting and threatening letters, greeting cards and postcards which he mailed to local newspapers with great regularity. Zodiac chose to write these communications by hand, providing law enforcement with a large sample of his handwriting. It was because of this fact that Sherwood Morrill came into the picture. He was given the task of examining many of the letters supposedly mailed by the killer, in order to determine if they were in fact the work of the Zodiac. He was also directly involved in clearing countless potential suspects, based upon examination of their handwriting.
Morrill became extremely familiar with the distinct writing style of the Zodiac. In interviews regarding his work on the case, Morrill made several interesting observations about the unknown killer. In a 1978 interview with the San Francisco Examiner, Morrill made the following quotes:
- "I'm sure this is his natural handprinting, and he was used to using it alot. It is so consistent. I don't think he uses script (cursive)".
- "His printing is distinctive. He's an intelligent guy and we know he deliberately misspells some words because he sometimes spells them correctly."
- "His punctuation and paragraphing are perfect. His tenses and syntax are perfect. His vocabulary is good."
Morrill himself seemed to get caught up in the mystery of Zodiac's true identity, expressing the hope that he too would one day learn the name of the man whose handwriting he had come to know so well.
"I've often said, before I die, I'd like to see the right guy's handwriting. It doesn't look like I'm going to make it."
Although the identity of the Zodiac remains a mystery to this day, Sherwood Morrill had a suspect. Of the nearly nine thousand people he helped clear through careful examination of their handwriting, there was one person he did not clear, whom he strongly believed could very well have been the Zodiac. According to family members, the name of that suspect was never revealed by Morrill, either publicly or privately.
Sherwood Morrill passed away on March 19th, 1988. It remains to be seen whether or not he was right about his suspect.
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