Some habits formed on the force have to change in the private sector. Others stick with you forever. Even when you do everything right, sometimes things can still go south rapidly. You can end up fighting for your life in the blink of an eye. I was a brand-new cop (two months on the job). My partner had been on the job for one month. Late one night, we got a domestic disturbance call. We parked two houses away and ..read more

In The Forsaken and the Dead, Sidney Thompson portrays the final years of famed lawman Bass Reeves by Michael Ray Taylor & Chapter16.org The Forsaken and the Dead By Sidney Thompson. Bison Books. 232 pages. $19.95. The Forsaken and the Dead, the final installment of Memphis native Sidney Thompson’s fictional trilogy based on the life of legendary U.S. marshal Bass Reeves, opens 12 years after events of the second book, Hell on the Border. That one ended with the famed lawman ..read more

We know what’s in a name and a Social Security number. But what discoverable secrets does an email contain? Many investigators overlook the true value of discovering someone’s email address. It’s not merely a point of contact; rather, it serves as a gateway to a wealth of publicly available and free information. In this article, I hope to shed light on the resources and methodologies for leveraging Open-Source Intelligence (OSINT) associated with email addresses, particularly on the “Deep Web,” a ..read more

A veteran Miami homicide detective shares a few creative investigative maneuvers he’s learned on the job. The Urban Dictionary defines a “hack” as a “clever or elegant” tech workaround used by coders to solve problems in a new or creative way. Non-programmers repurposed the word to describe all kinds of inventive fixes, from patching a broken pipe to learning a language. Another Urban Dictionary definition of “hack” is “a cheap, mediocre, or second-rate practitioner” in a given industry. So you’re ..read more

Recording the details of your investigation forces you to challenge the truth as you present it on the page. This article was excerpted from the second edition of Principles of Investigative Documentation, by Philip Becnel, Scott Krischke, and Alexandra Becnel. Principles of Investigative Documentation By Philip Becnel, Scott J. Krischke, & Alexandra K. Becnel. Once, a client-attorney screamed at one of my investigators and called her report a “piece of shit!” What offended this attorney so much was that the ..read more

A Murder on Campus: The psychology of deception takes center stage in R.J. Jacobs’ new thriller. by Billy Kilgore & Chapter16.org This Is How We End Things By R.J. Jacobs. Sourcebooks Landmark. 336 pages. $16.99. It’s hard to resist a mystery novel involving a murder in a prestigious psychology department, not to mention one written by a practicing psychologist. This Is How We End Things by Nashville psychologist R.J. Jacobs explores the inner workings of a team of Ph.D. candidates and ..read more

When this private investigator fields the inevitable question, she answers it gracefully — by thinking of the exchange as a dance. Every time somebody asks me what I do for work, a kind of dance ensues: The person’s eyes widen, and then they ask a question — usually something like, “Is that a real job?” In their waiting faces, I read a mix of trepidation and disbelief, and a sort of longing. Maybe they’re hoping my answer won’t disappoint them ..read more

In the Sound of Pursuit podcast: What private investigators need to know when they serve as an attorney’s agent in civil and criminal cases. What’s attorney-client privilege and work product? When should you deliver written vs. oral reports? Should you document all witness interviews? What information is discoverable? Join Hal Humphreys and John Nardizzi with their guest, defense attorney Jennifer Sunderland, as they talk about what private investigators need to know about rules of professional conduct when they work with ..read more

How to protect yourself from surrogacy scammers who prey on infertile couples’ dreams of parenthood For couples who desperately want a child but are unable to conceive, surrogacy can be a beacon of hope. But in my work as a private investigator, I’ve seen the dark side of this hopeful venture: surrogacy scams. The emotional cocktail of hope and heartache can make infertile couples targets for a host of cruel scams in the surrogacy realm. My experiences working for anguished ..read more

A small town is shaken by racial turmoil in David Joy’s Those We Thought We Knew. by Abby N. Lewis & Chapter16.org Those We Thought We Knew By David Joy. G.P. Putnam’s Sons. 400 pages. $28. David Joy, author of crime mystery novels such as Where All Light Tends to Go, When These Mountains Burn, and The Line That Held Us, focuses his latest, Those We Thought We Knew, on a small mountain town in North Carolina and the ways a notebook full of names of local townspeople tears the community apart.  Joy sets up ..read more