Those who knew Charles Carl Roberts IV saw no sign that the Lancaster County man was capable of the slaughter he committed Monday in an Amish schoolhouse.

		Graphic: Suicide note handwriting analysis

But when Mr. Roberts put pen to paper, his demons became clearly evident to the trained eye, according to Michelle Dresbold, a handwriting expert who has provided personality profiles, threat assessments and source identifications for numerous law enforcement agencies.

Ms. Dresbold yesterday analyzed Mr. Roberts' handwritten suicide note, saying it showed a sexually obsessed, sexually repressed man with obsessive-compulsive disorder and long-standing anger and resentment.

In short, he was a "ticking time bomb," said the expert trial witness, whose book, "Sex, Lies and Handwriting," will be published by Simon & Schuster in December.

Ms. Dresbold, who has been involved in cases ranging from homicides to bank robberies to forgery to abandoned babies, said she did not let what she knew about Monday's killings affect her analysis. The overall personality profile she drew of Mr. Roberts would be the same had she analyzed his writing at any time, the East End resident said.

Just as Mr. Roberts appeared "normal" on the surface, so does his handwriting, she said.

"At first glance, it doesn't look all that strange but if you go slightly in depth into the handwriting you can see he really was ready to explode," said Ms. Dresbold, who received advanced training by the U.S. Secret Service and whose clients have included Pittsburgh police, the Allegheny County district attorney's office, the county elections division and private attorneys, among others.

Like an archeologist examining a dig, Ms. Dresbold perused the suicide note and pointed to dark, dominant periods -- "grinding explosive dots," she called them.

That indicates "someone silent in their anger," she said, adding that "Son of Sam" serial killer David Berkowitz made the punctuation mark the same way.

His strong crossing of "t's" indicates a person who is going to carry through on something, for good or ill. "Mohammed Atta, [the lead 9/11 hijacker] had extremely strong t-bar crossing just like this."

And, she noted, the beginning of Mr. Roberts' strokes were at the bottom and sharply angle upward because of a tense hand -- a "resentment stroke," evident in serial killer Ted Bundy's handwriting.

Repeated strokes on several letters are signs of "an inner tension, someone who is ready to bust out, usually sexually obsessed." Albert DeSalvo, convicted as the Boston Strangler, did the same, she said.

"The thing that surprises me the most," Ms. Dresbold said, "is his handwriting is very, very close together, the words almost touching each other.

"When you have handwriting that close you have someone who is very, very afraid of being abandoned and needs a tremendous amount of extra love and they have a fear of being left alone."

"Had I seen this handwriting before," she said, "I would have said this person needs help and needs help very quickly."