When I was an investigative reporter for The News & Observer inmates wrote to me every once in a while saying they were innocent — and asking me to prove it.
I was near the end of another help-me-I’m-innocent letter when, almost as an afterthought, the inmate switched subjects and told me about a failed escape attempt that he thought was funny.
He said a man serving time for forgery had tricked the N.C. Department of Correction into releasing another inmate who was serving a life sentence for burglary. But when the forger tried to trick DOC into releasing him, he got caught.
Funny, huh.
I didn’t think so, I thought it was interesting. I called the DOC records office and asked where the lifer was being held. He wasn’t. I was told that he had been released.
I made more inquiries and here’s what I learned:
The forged paper ordering DOC to release the lifer arrived in the mail, but it wasn’t embossed with the seal of the Clerk of Court of the county where he had been convicted. The forger didn’t have the embossing stamp, or the tools to fake it. But, it turned out, that didn’t matter. DOC sent the paperwork back to the Clerk of Court along with a note saying someone had forgotten to emboss it. The seal was quickly affixed, the paper was returned, and the lifer was released.
But that’s only part of the story, and not the best part, either.
The forger had been convicted in a different county and he didn’t have that Clerk of Court’s seal either. When the forged release paper arrived at DOC a paper shuffler noticed that the seal was missing, returned it to the county where the forger had been convicted, and reminded the clerk responsible for that apparent oversight that she must affix the seal of her office.
But she didn’t — she knew immediately that the release paper was a forgery.
How?
She was left handed. She made her check marks backwards. The check marks on the release paper had been made by a right handed person.
Coming Friday: Never Again!