#BookGiveaway for Guns Gams and Gumshoes 9-Year Blogiversary

Thank you, readers, for visiting us over the last 9 years! (Actually, the anniversary was June 9, but we have a new pup who keeps us on our toes, so we’re lucky if we remember which day is trash pickup day LOL!)

Traveller, Future Canine Investigator

Since we kicked off Guns, Gams, and Gumshoes in 2009, a lot has happened, from Guns, Gams, and Gumshoes being tapped twice by the American Library Association’s Booklist site as its “Web Crush of the Week” during Mystery Month, to Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine naming the site as one of the top three true crime blogs, to our writing a handful of nonfiction books about private investigations and the law.

We’ve also accrued some interest for being a husband-wife PI team: we were the cover story for Westword magazine (The Plot Thickens: In the Case of These Husband-and-Wife Private Eyes, Truth is More Fun than Fiction), and NPR broadcast an interview with us.

Blogiversary Book Giveaway

*** Contest is now closed.*** Congrats to the winners! Thank you, everyone, who entered the giveaway.

To celebrate our 9-year blogiversary, we’re giving away 9 copies of How Do Private Eyes Do That?, a nonfiction book written by Colleen Collins.

Contest Is Closed – Congrats to the Winners!

“A must-have for any writer serious about crafting authentic private eyes. Collins knows her stuff.” ~Lori Wilde, New York Times and USA Today bestselling author

• Amazon Requirements for participation:
  • 18+ years of age (or legal age)
  • Resident of the 50 United States or the District of Columbia

It’s an Amazon ebook, but you don’t need a Kindle to read it. Amazon provides a free, easy-to-download app that makes the book readable on a variety of platforms, from your browser to your computer (PC or MAC), even your smartphone.

Giveaway ends the earlier of Aug 10, 2018 11:59 PM PDT, or when all prizes are claimed. No purchase necessary.

Have a great weekend, Writing PIs

#WritingTips Two NonFiction Books for Writers Crafting Sleuths

We at Guns, Gams, and Gumshoes had a lovely surprise this morning—author Tina Russo Radcliffe recommended our two books, How to Write a Dick: A Guide to Writing Fictional Sleuths from a Couple of Real-Life Sleuths and How Do Private Eyes Do That? to her writing community on Facebook (see her message on the right side of this post).

Book Excerpt: How Do Private Eyes Do That?

Below is an excerpt from How Do Private Eyes Do That? by Guns, Gams, and Gumshoes’s Colleen Collins.

A Pet Is Lost Every Two Seconds

I recently read that in the US, a family pet is lost every two seconds. That’s astounding, and yet within our own neighborhood we see lost pet signs posted nearly every week. According to the National Humane Society and the National Council of Pet Population Study and Policy, one out of every three pets is lost at some point in its lifetime, and only one out of ten is found.

Our neighbors’ lost cat was found after four months—it had been living in a fox hole several miles away! A man saw one of their “Missing Cat” posters and recognized it as possibly being the cat that was living in a fox hole on his elderly neighbor’s property. The older woman had been leaving cans of cat food and water outside the fox hole for the cat, who refused to leave its sanctuary. Who knows what that poor cat went through during those months, but it managed to stay alive and find protection.

We Once Found Four Missing Dogs

A few years ago we accepted a missing pet case to try and find four dogs, all the same breed. Our client was elderly, didn’t own a car, and although we weren’t pet detectives, we felt sorry for him and wanted to help.

PIs often use people-finding techniques when looking for lost pets (Image licensed by Colleen Collins)

We started out by contacting local rescue shelters, putting up flyers, calling vet hospitals and clinics; unfortunately, no one had seen the dogs, but they were willing to put the word out. By the way, the flyers had a large picture of one of the dogs, the date the dogs went missing, their names, and our phone number (a special one we set up for this case).

We then drove around the area where the dogs had lived and handed out more flyers. Then we went on foot into a large park near the elderly man’s home, and again handed out flyers and asked people if they’d seen any of these dogs. This is one of the tasks we would have conducted to find a person, too (canvas neighborhoods, show photos of the person, ask if anyone had seen him/her, and so forth).

We Found a Lead

While canvassing the park, we met a man who recognized the dog in the poster. He pointed out a remote, corner area of the park where he had seen several of them a few evenings prior.

From our research on this type of dog, we knew its history went back to the Vikings, who used these dogs to hunt moose. These dogs were known to be hardy, with thick fur to protect them from the cold, had above-average intelligence, and were pack animals. We returned to the park that evening and found all four dogs, happily hanging with their pack, foraging for food.

Writing Tips

(Image licensed by Colleen Collins)

If you’re writing a character who’s a pet detective, ask yourself the following questions:

• Does he/she own a search dog?  Many real-life pet detectives do.
• What tools does your pet PI use? For example, night-vision binoculars, motion-activated surveillance cameras, a bionic ear to amplify sounds?
• What investigative traits does your fictional pet PI use? As with other PIs, they might rely on their reasoning; analysis of physical evidence; and interview, interrogation, and surveillance techniques to recover lost pets.
• Where did your fictional pet PI learn about animal behavior—for example, in college, in a veterinarian’s office, or while growing up on a farm?

Pet detectives are generally caring, tenacious, and often earn certification in the field. A well-qualified pet detective can make between $300-$1,000 a day.

There’s one last point about writing a pet detective: He or she probably has a big heart. After all, animals possess all that is best in humans.

—End of Excerpt—

All rights reserved by Colleen Collins and Shaun Kaufman. Please do not copy/distribute any articles without written permission from Colleen Collins and/or Shaun Kaufman. Do not copy/distribute or otherwise use any mages noted as copyrighted or licensed. Images noted as in the public domain are copyright-free and yours to steal.

Answering Writer’s Question: Finding Someone’s New, Bogus Online ID

A writer asked, “I’m trying to figure out how a PI would discover the identity of someone who has intentionally (but not through legal channels) ditched a previous identity and assumed a new one. This person claims to be an immigrant from IT but is American.”

It appears this writer would like a PI character to detect the new identity based on the old one. We have a few ideas. But first, a few caveats:

We’re limiting this search to a possible new online ID.  After all, assuming a new ID in a broader context — new home address, new driver’s license, and so on — is a large topic, one entire books have been written about. We’re not recommending any of the following books, just noting they exist: How to Disappear: Erase Your Digital Footprint, Leave False Trials, and Vanish Without a Trace by Frank Ahern; How to Be Invisible: Protect Your Home, Your Children, Your Assets, and Your Life by J.J. Luna.

As to the individual claiming he’s an immigrant from IT: We’ll assume for this post that IT = Italy. While a PI is conducting his/her search on the new ID, they would keep an eye out for any Italian references, names and so forth in the results. Of course, based on the writer’s scenario, the guy isn’t really from Italy, but if he’s pretending he is, such a reference might pop up.

We’re providing these ideas for the sake of a story. However, in real life we’d recommend a person retain the services of a professional PI who specializes in locating people (AKA skip tracers). To find a skip tracer, contact your local state professional private investigator association: Private Investigator Associations by State (PINow). For example, a PI can run a person’s SSN in a proprietary database and learn a lot about the individual no matter what online IDs this person is juggling.

Now let’s look at three free online ways a fictional PI (or even a non-PI) might try to discover the identity of someone’s new online ID based on their old (ditched) one. For our example, we’ll call the old ID “Joe Smithy.”

1. What phone number did Joe Smithy use?

We once had a case where a man had been operating as multiple IDs on different dating sites, often ditching one ID and creating another to fit his needs. Except he kept the same phone numbers! Which we discovered when we ran a single reverse on a number he had provided our client (before he “disappeared” online) — and we discovered he was still using that old number.

Yes, from a single reverse phone number search on Google, we got a listing of his interactions & IDs on different dating sites. Our poor client was devastated — she had never heard of a reverse phone number search before…but after learning how easy it is to run one, she saw for herself how busy this guy had been elsewhere. For more info on reverse number searches: How to Reverse Search Phone Numbers.

2. Did Joe Smithy have a photo?

Google has a comprehensive reverse photo search option where anyone can plug in the photo and run a search on it…it’s possible Joe Smithy’s photo is appearing under his new ID. To learn more about running a reverse image search on Google: Fast and Easy Google Search Tips (scroll to Trick #2: Use images to search for photographs, illustrations and other graphics). Another free reverse photo search engine is TinEye.

3. Know Smithy’s hobbies, nicknames, etc.?

Run them in a social media search engine and see what pops up. For example if Joe Smithy was an avid online poker player, run “Joe Smithy poker” and see if a new ID is popping up on sites where Joe’s used to. We wrote about these search engines here: Free Social Media Search Engines.

Related Articles

“When Your Lover Is a Liar” by Philip A. Becnel (Pursuit Magazine). Excellent article by a private investigator on relationship fraud and bogus IDs.

Made in China: Fake IDs (New York Times). According to this 2015 article, the number of U.S. counterfeit IDs from China is on the rise.

Have a great week, Writing PIs

(As the Writing PIs are currently working other cases, as well as completing writing projects, we are unable to accept any new questions at this time. Thank you for your understanding.)

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All rights reserved by Colleen Collins and Shaun Kaufman. Any use of the content (including images owned by Colleen Collins and/or Shaun Kaufman) requires specific, written authority. 

Celebrate Our 6-Year Blogiversary With a FREE Book on Private Investigations

Guns, Gams and Gumshoes turns 6 years old on June 9! To celebrate, we’re giving away our nonfiction book How to Write a Dick: A Guide for Writing Fictional Sleuths from a Couple of Real-Life Sleuths. It is FREE on June 8, 9 and 10.

To get your free Kindle book, click on the below book cover or click here.

Free june 8 – 10

“If you want authenticity in creating a fictional private investigator for your stories, then this is a must-have reference book. Its authors, Colleen and Shaun, are living breathing PIs with years of actual experience in the PI game.” ~ R.T. Lawton, 25 years on the street as a federal special agent and author of multiple series in Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine

Note from authors: As our investigations business only operates within the United States, this book is more helpful to those writing U.S. private eye characters. However, there are other topics that are universally applied and useful worldwide, such as the history of the PIs, equipping a PI business, finding people, conducting trash hits, handling surveillances, how a fictional PI might work with a crime scene, homicide or DNA gathering and analysis, culling tips from our answers to writers’ questions, and the Gumshoe Glossary.

All rights reserved by Colleen Collins and Shaun Kaufman. Any use of the content (including images owned by Colleen Collins and/or Shaun Kaufman) requires specific, written authority.

#BookExcerpt The Work of a Legal Investigator

Today we’re offering an excerpt from A Lawyer’s Primer for Lawyers: From Crimes to Courtrooms on the work of a legal investigator (from the chapter “Private Investigators”).

A Legal Investigator’s Tasks

Some of you may be familiar with the PI character Kalinda Sharma on the TV series The Good Wife. This is an example of a legal investigator who works in-house at a private law firm. The investigator will have an office, or share an office with another investigator or legal professional. As attorneys need the services of an investigator, they’ll contact their in-house PI to schedule the task.

Other legal investigators might work exclusively for public defenders’ offices or district attorneys’ offices. As there is a lot of investigative work needed for these types of agencies, these investigators would likely have offices within these organizations.

Then there are legal investigators who work as independent contractors, typically under the umbrella of their own investigations agency. Some of these PIs might have their own offices, and some might work out of a home office. We never knew any PIs who had virtual offices, such as with a law firm, but that’s entirely possible, too.

Wherever a legal investigator works, below is a basic list of their common work tasks:

• Locating and interviewing witnesses
• Drafting witness interview reports for attorneys
• Reconstructing scenes of crimes
• Helping prepare civil and criminal arguments and defenses
• Serving legal documents (process service)
• Testifying in court
• Conducting legal research (for example, drafting pleadings incorporating investigative data, devising defense strategies and supporting subsequent legal proceedings)
• Preparing legal documents that provide factual support for pleadings, briefs and appeals
• Preparing affidavits
• Electronically filing pleadings.

An Example of a Legal Investigations Agency

Below is a list of services we listed on our legal investigations website. Next to each service are examples of the kind of law practices for which we did that type of investigative work.

Asset Search

Often divorce attorneys would ask us to check the assets of a client’s husband/wife, sometimes to see what money the soon-to-be ex-spouse might be hiding. At times we also conducted asset searches for probate lawyers to determine if a family member was suddenly buying high-ticket items they couldn’t afford, indicating they might have surreptitiously taken money from a family trust.

Background Research

Many different kinds of lawyers would request background research on an individual or a business, including criminal defense, personal injury, divorce and business litigation lawyers.

Court Records Search

Pitkin County District Courthouse (photo by Carol Highsmith)

Similar to background searches, many different types of lawyers requested court records searches, including divorce, personal injury, DUI, business litigation and personal injury law firms.

Expert Witness Location

Although different types of law practices use PIs to locate expert witnesses, we primarily received such requests from personal injury and defense lawyers.

Criminal Records

We would primarily look up criminal court records for divorce and defense attorneys.

Domestic Relations

Divorce attorneys would request us to conduct different investigative tasks for their clients who were in the process of a divorce. Such tasks included surveillances, trash hits (literally this means to check a person’s or business’s garbage for evidence), as well as retrieving criminal records and conducting background checks.

Drunk Driving Defense

We worked with several attorneys who specialized in drunk driving defense. For them we would retrieve Division of Motor Vehicles (DMV) court and criminal records, as well as conduct surveillances and trash hits.

Financial Fraud

Primarily probate, business, divorce and defense attorneys hired us to investigate possible financial fraud.

Personal Injury

Obviously, this refers to personal injury lawyers who hired us for such tasks as witness interviews, scene documentation, surveillance and background checks.

Process Service

Primarily, divorce attorneys hired us to deliver, or serve, divorce papers on behalf of their clients. We also served legal papers for probate, personal injury, defense and business law firms.

Mitigation Packages

Criminal defense attorneys sometimes, but not often, hired us to research and prepare these reports. Chapter 16 has more information about mitigation packages.

Skip tracing

This term is industry jargon for finding people, also informally called locates — as in “I want to hire you to do some locates” — which we did for all kinds of law firms, but primarily for criminal defense attorneys.

Surveillance

We mainly conducted surveillances for divorce attorneys, but occasionally received surveillance requests from defense, business, personal injury and probate attorneys.

Click on image to go to Amazon page

~ End of Excerpt ~

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Have a great week, Writing PIs

All rights reserved by Colleen Collins and Shaun Kaufman. Any use of the content (including images owned by Colleen Collins and/or Shaun Kaufman) requires specific, written authority. Other images are licensed by Colleen Collins, and are not to be copied, pasted, distributed or otherwise used.

HOW DO PRIVATE EYES DO THAT? Only 99 cents February 8-10

How Do Private Eyes Do That? is a compilation of articles about private investigations written by Guns, Gams & Gumshoes’s Colleen Collins. Audience: Readers interested in the world of PIs, including fiction writers, researchers, investigators and those simply curious about the profession.

Click on cover to go to book’s Amazon page

Book Excerpts

“Never Sleep with Anyone Whose Troubles Are Worse than Your Own”

“How PIs Are Used in Cases Where DNA Evidence Is Employed”

How Do Private Eyes Do That? discusses tips, techniques and tools of the P.I. profession

Praise for How Do Private Eyes Do That?

“A must have for any writer serious about crafting authentic private eyes. Collins knows her stuff.”
– Lori Wilde, New York Times and USA Today bestselling author

“If you’re looking for the lowdown on private investigations, this is it. Packed with details and insights. A must-have for anybody writing private-eye fiction and for anybody who’s curious about what being a private-eye is really like.” 
– Bill Crider, author of the Sheriff Dan Rhodes series and many other novels in multiple genres

“I picked up my copy as a whim to flesh out the background of my own fictional PI, and after reading the book, trashed just about everything I had written. I see now that you have to pay for the book. No matter. It is a spectacular bargain. It will help sweep out misconceptions, empty the waste bin of trite, worn out cliches and give you plenty of room for fresh ideas. Man, it’ll save your life.” 
– C. M. Briggs

New Year’s Resolutions: A Few Tips for Protecting Your Privacy in 2014

It’s almost 2014 — let’s go over a few tips you might want to add to your New Year’s Resolutions for protecting your confidential information.

Tip #1: Stop giving out your home address

It’s your home, your private residence, the center of your family life — you don’t need to share this

Don’t advertise your home address to the wrong people

address with anybody other than trusted friends, family and pertinent business contacts. One way to avoid giving out your home address is to purchase a private mailbox from a U.S. Post Office or private mailbox service, then use this address on forms, registrations, mailings, and so on.

We’ve used a pob address for years, but unfortunately some services and registrations will only accept street addresses. In such instances, we use the street address of the law firm where we maintain an office.

For people who don’t have such an alternate business or other address to use, but would like one as they’re constantly needing to provide a street address in forms, they can purchase a street address. Let’s look at a few of those services.

Purchasing a Street Address

There are street-address services that let you use a pob or virtual mail center

The U.S. Postal Service (USPS) as well as various private mailbox companies, also provide “street” addresses (often where your mailbox is the suite number).

Below are a few services that offer street addresses.

Post Offices

At a U.S. Post Office, a post office box can also be used as a street address, but you’ll first need to fill out street addressing forms (available at your Post Office).

Advantages of using this street-addressing option is that USPS post office boxes are usually much less expensive than private mailbox services, Post Offices tend to be more permanent than private mail box services that can quickly move locations or go out of business, and the Post Office will also receive packages delivered by private carriers such as UPS and FedEx that are street addressed. Also, some Post Offices offer a “text to cell phone” message at no extra charge when a private-carrier shipment is received.  Fyi, not all Post Offices participate in the street-addressing program.

Disadvantages of using your U.S. post office box street-addressing service is that items must qualify for mail delivery (no shipments of alcohol, items over 70 pounds and other restrictions).

Private Mailbox Services

Most private mailbox services offer a street address and secure, 24-hour access to delivered mail and packages. They have additional services (some for a fee) that include mail forwarding and texting/emails when packages arrives.

Examples of private mailbox services:

The UPS Store – Personal Mailboxes

PAKMAIL

PostNet

Virtual Mailbox Services

Virtual mail services electronically forward scanned images of your mail to you anywhere in the world

There are also a variety of virtual mailbox services that offer street addresses for your use.  The virtual mailbox service then receives all of your mail — they scan the envelopes and send those scans to you via email or other venue for your review. You decide which envelopes are opened (and its contents scanned and sent electronically to you), and which envelopes are to be thrown away. Such virtual mailbox services let you live anywhere in the world. Pricing can get costly (some of these services charge premium rates of $60 a month).

Examples of virtual mailbox services:

virtualpostmail

Earth Class Mail

Box 4 me

Tip #2: Don’t announce your location

It’s all the rage for people to automatically announce their location through social media sites

Geo-location services let you tell the world where you are — you sure you want to do that?

(such as Twitter, Facebook and other online communities).  If someone has decided to break into your residence, or confront you, or confront somebody who’s still at your residence (while you’re at your “location”), or conduct some other not-in-your-best-interest activity, don’t help them by letting them know your location.

So when you see those prompts (“Click here so people can know your location!”) don’t click.  It’s as easy as that.

Tip #3: Don’t give out your phone number

Protecting your phone number is about more than just getting unwanted calls

It’s somewhat easy to find personal information from a phone number, such as a home address. It’s just as easy for you to protect that number, and your personal information associated with it, by using a virtual phone number.

Virtual Phone Numbers

A virtual number is a regular number (area code + number, such as 123-456-7789) that you can set up to ring through to your real number.  When someone calls that virtual number, the call is routed to your regular phone, you answer, and nobody knows the real number you’re answering from.

If someone attempts a trace on that number (to find the name/address it’s registered to), they won’t find it.  Well, unless you start broadcasting the virtual number on the Internet with your name attached.

Virtual numbers typically cost anywhere from $4.95 to $10.95 a month (if you get extra features, such as fax services, it’ll cost more). We use a virtual phone number in our business because it lets us easily keep records of incoming and outgoing phone numbers, the ability to re-route calls to different cell phone numbers as needed, block incoming phone numbers and other features.

Examples of virtual number services:

RingCentral

Grasshopper

Phone.com

That’s it! Three tips to protect your confidential information in the new year.

Here’s to 2014, WritingPIs

To go to book’s Amazon page, click on cover

No, Stephanie Plum Isn’t a Private Eye, She’s a Bounty Hunter

Female investigator – could also be a bounty hunter (image licensed by Colleen Collins)

It’s interesting how many people think Stephanie Plum, the popular character developed by writer Janet Evanovich, is a private investigator. No, she’s a fugitive recovery agent (AKA bounty hunter), but jumbling these two professions is easy to do. Guns, Gams & Gumshoes’s Colleen Collins discusses why in an article she wrote for Savvy Authors — below is an excerpt, with a link to the full article at the end.

Private Detectives and Bounty Hunters: Similarities and Differences

By Colleen Collins for Savvy Authors

In a recent online voting poll for the best private detective character in fiction, one of the choices was the character Stephanie Plum in author Janet Evanovich’s popular series that began with the novel One for the Money. Actually Stephanie Plum is a bounty hunter, not a private detective, but this isn’t the first time I’ve noticed people confusing the two professions. It’s easy to mix them up as both private investigators and bounty hunters perform a number of similar work tasks, which I’ll discuss later in this article.

But first, let’s briefly review job descriptions and titles for these two professions.

What Do Private Investigators and Bounty Hunters Do?

Private investigators accept employment from clients — such as law firms, corporations and private individuals — to obtain information on crimes or civil wrongs; locate people and property; analyze the cause of accidents, fires, or injuries to persons or to property; and locate evidence to be used before a court.

Bounty hunters work on behalf of a bail bondsman to re-arrest and put into jail the bondsman’s client who has defaulted on his/her bail contract. Typically, the client has failed to appear in criminal court as promised, and a judge has signed a warrant for the client’s arrest.

What Are They Called?

Both occupations have a variety of titles, from the professional to the slang, with some of the latter being viewed as derogatory within that vocation.

Private Investigators

Having co-owned a private investigations agency for ten years, and currently working full-time as a legal investigator for several law firms, I know numerous private investigators across the U.S. Some prefer the job title professional private investigator as it adds esteem to a vocation that often gets a bad rap, thanks in part to the cynical, law-breaking private eye protagonist in early noir films.

Humphrey Bogart wearing the signature fedora & trench coat often seen in classic private eye films (image is in the public domain)

Personally, I always referred to myself as a private investigator, and sometimes a private detective (although there are some private investigators who think the word detective should be used only by those who work in law enforcement). The abbreviation P.I., for private investigator, is also commonly used by my peers. I’ve also had law firms call and request to retain the services of an operative, another term for P.I., a term that always struck me as a bit old-fashioned.

Slang terms that are commonly viewed within the profession as having negative connotations, but which are often found in movies and stories, include the following:

• Gumshoe
• Private dick
• Shamus
• Snoop

On the other hand, some P.I.s like to play with these terms, using them in their businesses or related projects, including the author of this article who co-wrote the book How to Write a Dick: A Guide for Writing Fictional Sleuths.

Bounty Hunters

Some who work in this profession prefer the title fugitive recovery agent because the term bounty hunter to them conjures derogatory images of the Old West dead or alive posters, which advertised rewards in exchange for the fugitive.

More professionally accepted titles for bounty hunters include:

• Bail bond recovery agent
• Bail agent
• Bail enforcement agent
• Bail officer
• Fugitive recovery agent
• Fugitive recovery officer

P.I.s and Bounty Hunters: What Do They Have in Common?

Private investigators and bounty hunters perform some similar tasks in their work, which is why it can be easy to confuse the two occupations. For example, both professions perform the following:

• Tracking people to a current residence or location (also called “skip tracing”)
• Conducting interviews
• Performing surveillances
• Contacting the subject
• After the subject is located, the P.I. or bail recovery agent might perform “legal process” (a P.I. might serve legal papers on the non-fugitive, and a bounty hunter might serve a warrant on the fugitive).

To read the rest of this article, click here.

Other Articles on P.I.s and Bounty Hunters

Requirements for Becoming a Fugitive Recovery Agent by David Fletcher

Difference: Bounty Hunter and a Bail Bondsman by Bail Hotline Bail Bonds

Bounty Hunters Cleaning Up Their Image by Oliver Libaw

Female Atlanta Private Investigator Uses Bounty Hunting Skills to Help Attorneys and the Public in Knoxville Daily Sun

All rights reserved by Colleen Collins. Any use of the content requires specific, written authority. Please do not copy/distribute images that are marked copyrighted or licensed—images in the public domain are yours to use.

Answering Writers’ Questions: Finding Evidence Long After a Crime and A Cheating Spouse Case

Below we’ve posted several writer’s questions and our answers about evidence and cheating spouses.  We provide background to some of the questions in brackets.

Finding Evidence Months After a Crime

[This first question was in response to our describing how PIs might find evidence months after a crime has occurred.  In this instance, Shaun, one of the Guns, Gams, and Gumshoes’s PIs, had found a .44 casing outside our client’s residence]

WRITER’S  QUESTION: In the case where Shaun found the .44 casing … did he leave it alone and call the police so they could photograph it in place? Or did he take pictures of it and put it in a bag and take it to the police? What happened?

The casings proved that the neighborhood was crime-ridden

GUNS, GAMS, AND GUMSHOES’S RESPONSE: The .44 casing was found months after the charged crime and it was not material evidence in our case. However, the casing was proof that the neighborhood where this occurred was extremely crime-ridden, and that our client had a reasonable belief that he had to resort to deadly force to protect himself and his son.

Had the casing been found the morning after the confrontation where our client shot his .357, Shaun would have done the following:

• Not touched it
• Left the casing exactly where he found it
• Contacted the police
• Taken a photo of it for our client’s attorney

To bring this story up to date, the photograph Shaun took was listed as evidence at the trial, at which he also testified about the nature of the neighborhood (it being crime-ridden, which was backed by data from various interactive crime maps), and how he found the casing.  Our client was found not guilty.

WRITER’S QUESTION: Couldn’t the defense (or prosecution depending which side your client was on) claim that the casing had been placed there later? Or was from a different incident at another time?

GUNS, GAMS, AND GUMSHOES’S RESPONSE: In this case, our client was the defense attorney, and it didn’t matter how the casing got there months later–what mattered in this particular case is that it showed how reasonable our client was in pulling his gun in self-defense.

Answering Writers’ Questions: Cheating Spouses

[This next question pertains to our sharing a story how we interviewed the “other woman” in a cheating spouse case]

WRITER’S QUESTION: And about interviewing the woman in the cheating husband case – I take it there’s no concern about tipping off the cheating husband that he’s being investigated?

GUNS, GAMS, AND GUMSHOES’S RESPONSE: For this case, no, as he’d already seen the photographs (because his wife had filed for divorce and her attorney had the photographs) by the time we’d interviewed the “other woman.” Generally speaking, however, we wouldn’t want to tip off the cheating spouse that they’re being investigated.

WRITER’S QUESTION: Have either of you ever been threatened by a spouse who has been caught? Or by the person they’ve caught them with? Without wanting to give away too much from my WIP, I’m thinking that might be a possible threat to my guys. I’m just wondering if it’s a credible storyline that the cheater might go after the private investigators for destroying their marriage.

GUNS, GAMS, AND GUMSHOES’S RESPONSE: In the “other woman” case we’ve been discussing, she was also married.  A week or so after we interviewed the other woman, she contacted us saying she’d hired an attorney and we were to not contact her again for any reason. We didn’t believe she’d hired an attorney, and figured she was bluffing because she was scared, but we had no reason to contact her again (after interviewing her).  In fact, we felt sorry for her (she had two young children, and her husband was devastated that his wife had fooled around).

To answer your question whether we think it’s  credible in a storyline that the other woman or other man might get so freaked out, have so much to protect, that they’d go after the PI?  Yes, that’s credible.  We’ve been threatened in other situations that weren’t cheating spouse cases (we’ve had dogs sic’d on us during process services, and Shaun once had a woman follow him, pounding her fists on his back, after he served her legal papers). The worst threat by far was a case where the woman to whom we served a restraining order mounted a full-on cyber-stalking attack on our business/reputations.  This woman had a lot to protect–five million dollars she’d stolen, and which by the way has never been found.  Colleen wrote about this case in her nonfiction book Secrets of a Real-Life Female Private Eye.

Have a great week, Writing PIs

 

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