On May 9,1992, Elizabeth M. Biestek, of our committee and three other examiners concluded during a handwriting workshop that the "handwriting on the Suzanne Degnan ransom note and on the Frances Brown wall do not compare favorably with the handwriting sample attributed to William Heirens and were most probably written by someone other than William Heirens."

Another handwriting analyst, Mary Frances Means, told the 'Chicago Daily News that there was no possibility that the same person who wrote the ransom note did the wall writing."

When 'PrimeTime Live', the ABC television program, Hired David Grimes, a handwriting analyst with twelve years of experience with the FBI, he became the tenth analyst the program interviewed who found no similarity in the two writings.

George W. Schwartz Was hired by the prosecution to attempt to link the ransom note to Bill Hierens. Reviewing the note and various papers written by Heirens, Schwartz concluded that "individual characteristics in the two writings do not compare in any respect." Dissatisfied with that assessment, State's Attorney Tuohy then hired Herbert J. Walter. In July 25, 1946, Walter contradicted himself and contended that the two writings were done by the same person, when on January 8, 1946, he told the 'Herald American' that there were a "few similarities" and a "great many dissimilarities." 

VI. Excelled as a School Teacher

The Personal Narrative I received said I "excelled" as a school teacher. That characterization without any context doesn't mean very much. I will allude first to the extra-curricular work I did when teaching at Lathrop High School in Fairbanks, Alaska. Fairbanks had a juvenile jury program, and since I taught  American Government, some of my junior and senior students were on the juvenile jury. I became a member of the management team in my first year there. In my second year, I became the director of the program.

We would meet in an used courtroom after school hours, with a judge present to monitor sentences  being handed out. The jury would debate and propose sentences to teenagers who had been convicted of misdemeanors. As an example of the kinds of sentences handed out, a high schooler who had illegally passed a stopped school bus, was sentenced to ride an early-morning bus for a month, and get out at every stop to ensure that safety conditions were being met.

Since Lathrop was to host the competition for high school wrestlers in Alaska, the sports director and varsity basketball coach, named "Joe," called me in and asked me: "Lauri, how would you like to run the high school wrestling competition?" I said I had some limited knowledge of high school wrestling. Joe said: "Lauri, you'll learn." I had interviewed with Joe to coach the junior varsity basketball team, and either he was impressed with me, or he didn't want to get stuck with the job.

Subsequently, I secured a TV time slot, and I took two Lathrop wrestlers with me to illustrate   wrestling holds and explain how points were scored. I also helped a local radio station with their coverage of the early bouts.

Just to illustrate that my experience at Lathrop wasn't an outlier, while teaching eight grade at Wallace, Michigan, 15 miles from the Wisconsin border, I ordered all of the school's sports equipment, coached the junior high basketball team, added some instruction in the arts and geography, which were not  subject areas required by the Wallace school board. On year I even wrote the Christmas play.

VII. Peace and Justice Additions

I followed the sequence of being secretary, co-chair and chair at a south suburban (Chicago) chapter of SANE/Freeze, which had chapters all over the nation proposing to stop building any more nuclear weapons. I followed the same sequence of offices after the name change to Peace Action in about 1997, after which I was elected to Illinois Peace Action. I served seven+ years as co-chair and chair. 

I was elected to the national Peace Action Board in March 1994, and continue to still be on it today. One of my functions as the chair of the Operations Committee was to enforce our attendance policy. Our committee also made recommendations on maintaining board diversity, and we did a major rewrite of our Bylaws while I was chair. However, how I lost my fear of public speaking was mostly because as chair of Operations I had to run the business portion of our annual conventions. In the business sessions, we debated resolutions which stated our positions on peace and justice issues. We also set policy for the coming year. I became quite comfortable in speaking in public settings.

VIII. A Thumbnail Sketch of Social Security Work