PI’s Declassified!

Do you need to find someone - - a long lost relative, a life insurance beneficiary or missing heir, collect a debt or find a witness for a legal action? Where do you begin? Why not hire a private investigator that specializes in skip tracing? According to Wikipedia, skiptracing is (also skip tracing) a colloquial term used to describe the process of locating a person's whereabouts for any number of purposes. Wouldn’t you like to know exactly what a skiptracer can do for you? Listen to Mike Dores, president and founder of Merlin Information Services and a leading authority on skiptracing and public records research, who can answer those questions.

Jeremy Sheets became America’s 95th exonerated death row inmate. Jeremy spent nearly four years on Nebraska’s death row. He was convicted on the word of his co-defendant, Adam Barnett, who exchanged a taped statement for a drastically reduced sentence. Barnett later recanted, then prior to Jeremy’s retrial, committed suicide in prison. Jeremy will chronicle the treachery that led to his wrongful conviction, the details of his release, and finally, his frustration at being a citizen with a history tainted with lies and betrayal.

Conducting investigations through interviewing witnesses often produces unpredictable situations for attorneys and private investigators involved in litigation. Witnesses often want to please the person conducting the interview, therefore, witnesses may omit critical information, lack personal knowledge, or may disclose pertinent particulars the interviewer wants to hear but is without merit. It is up to the investigator, and ultimately the attorney, to ferret out exactly what the witness knows or doesn’t know about the specific incident in question. Attorney Jim Burke will discuss examples where an attorney, investigator or a case can be as negatively impacted by a tainted witness statement and will provide tips to avoid placing cases in jeopardy

Up to 3 million youth run away every single year according to the National Runaway Switchboard. The US Department of Justice estimates that at some point, one in seven between the ages of 10 and 18 run away from home. These children are frequently disconnected, without resources and fall prey to slave traders and drug dealers. The best estimate of several sources is that up to 300,000 American children are drawn into the underground world of commercial sex by human traffickers. Tune in to hear Private Investigator Allen Cardoza talk about this dark world, his experiences with victim families and children, and his recommendations to keep kids safe.

What do PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls), radon, lead, and asbestos have in common? They are all toxic substances regulated by the US Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) of 1976 that manages their importation, use and disposal. Since exposure to these chemicals is a hazard to human health when there is negligence in compliance resulting in harm to human health, the next step is often a legal action. If you are concerned about the environment you occupy and how toxic chemicals impact your health and the health of others, tune to hear Private Investigator and Toxic Tort Specialist Nancy Barber explore this developing legal arena.

Would you like a bird’s eye view of the Middle East? Security Consultant Brigadier (Ret) Rashid Ali Malik has navigated through the death of communism, the crumbling of the USSR, and the independence of five Muslim republics. He was there when Al Quaeda took root in Afghanistan, watched the rise of Islamic extremism and the worldwide call for Jihad, experienced the destabilization of Pakistan and shared the sorrow of 9/11. Brigadier Malik will join PI’s Declassified! to discuss this volatile Middle Eastern region and how it relates to private investigation and private security.

Have you ever heard of the Pinkerton National Detective Agency? The Pinkerton Agency predated the both the CIA and the Secret Service and actually provided the model for the FBI when it was formed in 1908. The founder, Allan Pinkerton, was known as “A Friend to Honesty and a Foe to Crime.” From the attempted capture of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid to uncovering a plot against Abraham Lincoln, Pinkerton made history. Tune in to hear Pinkerton expert and private investigator Ray Pezolt describe the man and the agency that originated the private investigation profession as we know it.

Achieving a balance between privacy of our own personal identifying information versus a legitimate need to access that same information is a difficult task. Don’t we each want to have all of our personal identifying details kept private? Of course we do! Conversely, if we were involved in a legal action, either civil or criminal, wouldn’t we want to be able to locate an individual who could provide information on our behalf? Consider if that person also has a common name name like John Jones or Robert Smith? How can that person be found? What about collecting a debt, finding a birth family or tracking down someone who has abducted a child? These are all important questions to contemplate.

Privacy Advocate Beth Givens, founder and director of Privacy Rights Clearing House, Co-Owner & publisher of PI Magazine Jimmie Mesis and Rebecca Roberts, National Marketing Director on IRB Search, a subscriber based on-line date provider will be joining together for this provocative discussion.

How does a killer on parole just disappear? And how do investigators go about tracking him down years later? PI’s Declassified presents an unusual case of locating a man 38 years after he vanished, fleeing his parole officer and leaving no traces.

The entire case had nearly been forgotten. But one day when Dr. Clem Pellett of Bellevue, Washington was cleaning out his mother’s home, he found newspaper clippings and learned about the murder of his grandfather, Clarence Pellett. Clarence was shot to death by a hitchhiker named Frank Dryman in 1951. Dryman was convicted and served time, but when he was released to parole, he vanished. More than thirty years had passed, but Dr. Pellett decided to try to find his grandfather’s killer.

Tune in to hear the three resourceful private investigators who worked in concert to locate Frank Dryman and return him to the authorities. It’s an incredible story of hiding in plain sight.

Do you know that the only unique identifier in the US is a social security number? Have you stopped to think that if you were to have a legal issue and needed to locate an individual to support your defense or to substantiate your claim, how you would proceed? Have you thought what you would do if a unique identified such as a social security number was no longer available to locate or verify an individual’s identity? Each year, Congress introduces bills to restrict access to personal identifying information. Tune in to hear former Congressional Aide, Larry Sabbath and Jimmie Mesis, the Legislative Chair of the National Council of Investigative & Security Services discuss this weighty topic. Joining in will be the Council’s President, Maria Landry.