Jan Seaman Kelly is the first Oklahoma Forensic Document Examiner to obtain certification through testing by the American Board of Forensic Document Examiners. While serving as a white collar fraud investigator with Oklahoma County District Attorney’s Office, Ms. Seaman-Kelly recognized the need for having a forensic document examiner on staff. District Attorney Robert H. Macy agreed and approved a two-year training program with the United States Postal Service Crime Laboratory in San Bruno, California. Upon completion of training, she examined a variety of forensic document cases for both prosecutors and defense attorneys throughout Oklahoma .
Forensic document examination is not limited to disputed handwriting and signatures. Detecting alterations to a document, identifying printing processes, ascertaining the date of a document through non-destructive testing, recovering indented writing and obliterated text are all within the purview of a trained and experienced forensic document examiner. Ms. Seaman Kelly has a fully equipped forensic laboratory that includes a VSC-6000 (Video Spectral Comparator), an ESDA (Electro-static Detection Apparatus), stereo-microscope, full set of typewriter grids, measuring devices, and appropriate photography equipment.
Ms. Seaman Kelly has 30 years of experience in examining a variety of documents in both criminal and civil cases. She is Past President of American Board of Forensic Document Examiners (ABFDE), and is currently Section Chair of the Questioned Documents Section in the American Academy of Forensic Sciences (AAFS). She is a current member of the Forensic Document Examination sub-committee of the Organization of Scientific Areas Committees (OSAC), which drafts professional standards for the various tasks in forensic document examination, and the Academy Standards Board which is a multi-forensic science board that reviews standards submitted by the forensic science disciplines.
Ms. Seaman-Kelly has been qualified as an expert and has testified in the United States District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma, the District of Nevada, Oklahoma, Cleveland and Adair Counties in Oklahoma and Clark County, Nevada. She is a noted author, and a frequent speaker on topics related to forensic document examination. She has also served as a consultant and provided training to other document examiners