Let’s imagine you’re a newly licensed private investigator, let’s say you live in Eugene, Oregon, since that’s where I live. You’ve just gotten your first case. Your client wants you to find someone. You’re given a first and last name, we’ll call her, “Margaret B.” You’re given her last known address, a rough age estimate, her last known phone number, her license plate and her home state. Based on what the client has told you Margaret moves frequently and definitely doesn’t want to be found. Based on the client’s reasons you don’t want Margaret to know you’re looking for her either.
Think you’re close to finding her? Let’s find out:
Skip Tracing: A Private Investigator Case Study
You prefer sitting to standing so you begin by searching Margaret’s name on the internet. Since you’re supposed to be newly licensed we’ll pretend you don’t have access to those exclusive professional sites like TLO. Instead you use Google and a free trial on a site like whitepages.com. Margaret has a fairly common name, but you narrow it down to seven candidates that fit roughly into her age group. You see a Margaret with an address near the city of her last known address, and another Margaret listed in a nearby state. You go with the Margaret closer to the last known address. Let’s call her Margaret H. B. You see a phone number associated with her address but it’s not the number you were given. You write it all down in the notebook you carry everywhere with you, with the pen you always carry with you.
Now you check Facebook, you type in Margaret B. and look for Margarets that could be about the same age that live around the same area. No luck, there’s dozens of Margaret Bs. But they all live in the wrong state. Except there’s one Margaret that lists Ohio, the state you know she’s from. You go through her Facebook page, you read some comments about the election last month, she has strong opinions about politics. You check the about section, it’s empty, no luck. You go through her pictures, you see one dated from a year ago outside of a bar. You take down the name of the bar and look it up, it’s a bar in the city of her last known address. You feel good about this. While you’re still at the computer you check the business registry for your state just for good measure, you type in her name with no luck.
Since you know what Margaret looks like, and her last known address, (the one the client gave you) and her car, you drive by her house, but her car isn’t there. You knock on the door with a made up question, tell em you’re looking for John. But there’s no answer, in fact, you look at the windows and the curtains are closed and you’re pretty sure nobody lives here. Just a feeling you get.
The next day you go down to the courthouse and perform a public records search for all counties in the state. You find a speeding ticket from six months ago, so you click the document and it gives you Margaret’s full name, age and address from six months ago. The address is a different one from the white pages listing. You check property records but she doesn’t own anything, you check marriage licenses and deeds and taxes while you’re there. Nothing. You remember Margaret was very political on her Facebook page, and the elections office is near the courthouse. You go into the elections office because you heard that voter info is public record, you type in her name, “Margaret H. B.” turns out she registered two months ago from an address about an hour away.
You plan everything in advance, so you look up the address on Google Earth and get a street view of where she’s supposed to live, it’s an apartment building with security and you need to be buzzed in to get inside. You show up and you look at the buzzer because each one has a name and a number. One of the numbers has Margaret B. listed. You feel confident she really lives there, but just to be sure you check the parking lot for her car, but it isn’t there. While you’re doing that someone walks up to the door and you ask them if they know if Margaret B. is home, you tell them you buzzed her but didn’t get a response. The person says why in fact Margaret is usually at work but she comes home around five. You thank them and go on your way.
Remember: Sometimes the simplest details about a person lead you straight to them. Always take note of the seemingly trivial details regarding the subject.
Skip Tracing Extra: Another Private Investigator Case Study:
“Dear Mr. Investigator,
“I need you to find and serve this woman M. I’ve been searching for her for weeks, my last investigator checked her last known residence but no one was there and there was an eviction notice posted on the door. There was an eviction hearing and my investigator attended but M. never showed up. And one more thing, I need her to be served in seven days.”
There are several reasons this particular case might prove a challenge. For one, the subject just moved, making it unlikely that the new address will show up on any databases or even public records searches. For two, with only a week to find the subject, it’s a tight schedule, and it negates the “Return Service Requested” tactic, since you probably aren’t going to receive a response in time, even if the subject bothered to inform the post office. (Pro tip: If the client has a short-time span to serve someone you might suggest that they request an extension.) But let’s say in this case the client has run out of extensions. The last reason this case might be a tough nut to crack is the simple fact that others have searched and failed. There might as well be skeletons of warriors strewn around the case, warning any who should dare make an attempt. What it really indicates is that the answer, wherever it lies, is not an obvious one.
To start with, I take the facts that the last person was able to verify and I mentally lay them over my own investigation as it develops. If I know the last investigator knocked on a door and was told the subject doesn’t live there, I put that address on the back-burner until it I run out of likelier spots. I do my own database and internet searches every time. I could just assume that the other guy performed a public records search. Instead I go to the courthouse and do a thorough search and read all the documents related to the subject, and the people close to the subject, every time. It takes an hour or two, but it systematically brings me closer to the answer, and it’s almost always faster than haphazard guess-work. The reason I do this is to not miss details, and sometimes new details are added to the record, and the thing about this job is, details matter.
So, let’s run our little simulation: We talk to the client. (Again, let’s say this all takes place in Eugene Oregon, or somewhere along the Willamette Valley.) The client suggests an address that the investigator didn’t get a chance to try. We check our private investigator database, it shows the subject moved out of the address three years ago. We’re not going to dismiss the possibility that the subject still lives there, or that the address might prove useful, but we’re going to stick to the likelier possibilities first in order to be as economical as possible. Our private investigator database also shows the address the subject was evicted from was her last residence, and the residence before that the investigator already tried. So we comb through her social media profiles and glean as many details about the subject as we can, in case there’s something important. We find out the name of her ex-boyfriend, who is also the father of her children. His number is listed on her social media so we write it down. So far, this is our best lead. As I often say, people, not databases normally wind up being the best source for up-to-date information.
We go to the courthouse the next day with the names of the boyfriend and the subject. After some searching, we find a page long stack of court cases related to the subject, everything from DUIs, to evictions to custody battles. We begin with the most recent record from about a month ago, we click on a document that shows she was served by someone else, two weeks ago, at an address that didn’t show up on any of our other searches. We write it down. We still look through the other documents, we still go to deeds and records and check for other leads, since we’re there anyway. Afterwards we drive down to the address from the courthouse and see the subject vehicle (which we saw in a photo on her social media page) parked in the driveway.
We were lucky, but we did not rely solely on luck. Remember, there was the boyfriend who we saw not only on the social media site but in the custody documents. This indicates he probably had reason to be unhappy with the subject, and might be willing to help. And even if we didn’t have him, we know from the court documents that the subject has a tendency to leave a trail of trouble wherever she goes. It’s often worth it to go to the last known addresses and knock on neighbor’s doors.
So let’s review: Details are important. It’s also crucially important to be systematic in an investigation, not only because it winds up being more economical time-wise, but because it saves both you and your client from headaches. You’d think working slower means more billable hours. The reality is you’re not going to charge for every hour you work on a case. You’re going to give an estimate in order to secure a retainer and you’re often times going to exceed that estimate, but because you are hard-working, (and because no one wants to disappoint a client) you’ll work more hours than you bill. It’s just a fact of life for a career based on details, invoices, emails, reports, and filling out forms, it all just ends up taking longer than you think it will, (and most clients would balk if you tried billing them for every minute you spend on a case.) But if you can get things done in a timely manner, you save the client money, you save yourself time and stress, you look better, and you’re more likely to get a referral. That’s why I prefer systematically going from the quickest, likeliest leads to the less likelier ones, while checking off the fundamentals as I go.