He never knew

Morrow Detective Agency takes three pro bono cases a year. This is our way of giving back to the community. The cases have to meet certain criteria, the person may not have the means to finance an investigation, the investigation has to be something that will help better the clients life, and of course it has to be something that we can do. Our investigator Steve Morrow was contacted by a potential client, this client who is in her thirties had never met her father. She only knew bits and pieces of what was told to her while she was growing up. In one story she heard that her Father may have worked at a restaurant here in Simi Valley. Another story was that he may have been living among friends while being out here. All our client knew for sure was a name. She did not know how old he was, whether he had any siblings, what type of work that he did. Oh and she also knew that her father had no idea about her. She heard that her father had partied pretty hard back in the day and her Mother decided that he may not have been in the right frame of mind to take on fatherly duties. All my client really had of him was a picture but one that did not show his face. 

We accepted this case and started working on it from the beginning. We contacted the restaurant but hit a dead end, none of the people knew the man, and the previous owners from the late 70's early 80's had passed on. We ran a database search and called all of the men that fit the criteria but were unsuccessful. We even looked at yearbooks from around that time frame and contacted the people with matching last names, but were unlucky in locating him. Obviously we were going to need more information, and our client was reluctant to speak with her Mother given the circumstances, we could understand her trepidation in doing so. So we interviewed other family members, ones that may have remembered the guy, or heard things about him. One family member in particular recalled that her Mother hung out with him and said that he was around the same age of her Mother. This information by itself was not enough, but it did help in narrowing our search field. Finally our client, after being coached by our investigator spoke with the direct source of information, her Mother. Her Mother did not disclose much but did mention that her Father only lived in Simi for a short while and was originally from the Burbank area. With this new information we were able to go through old information, that old information led us to more current information. Eventually we were able to narrow our pool down to someone that we were 90% sure was our clients father, a look at his Facebook picture cemented our theory. 

Now comes the most delicate part of the investigation, the reaching out to the subject and telling them that they are being searched for by a relative that they have never met and maybe never even knew that they had. We contacted the gentleman in the morning. We told him who we were and explained why we were calling. The subject confirmed that he was in Simi at the time our clients Mother was dating him, he even recalled dating the clients Mother but recalls that it was not for long. The subject stated that he heard that she was pregnant but when he saw her she did not say anything to him about our client possibly being his child. He never knew that he had a daughter out there. The subject was elated, he had always felt that he was selfish for not having any children and it had grown to be one of his deepest regrets. With our clients permission we provided a photo of the client to the subject who said "she is mine, look at that nose." It took a little while but our client reached out to her Father. It almost seemed like fate as my client would be visiting her in-laws that lived in the same area as her Father.  Our client met up with  her Father and they had a great meeting. Our agency is pleased to watch this family connect and grow through Facebook, seeing the photos and hearing the stories of the client and her Father's similarities has reminded us of the great work that investigators can do. 

Morrow Detective Agency is a licensed private investigation firm located on the border of Ventura and Los Angeles, Ca in Simi Valley, CA. Morrow Detective Agency is capable of performing surveillance, process service, locates, background investigations, asset investigations, and more. Please feel free to visit our website at www.MorrowDetectiveAgency.com or give us a call at (805) 823-3540 and allow us to make your problem our solution!

Are you really a pizza man?

Stop me if you have heard this before. A client needs someone served and they need them served now, the last time they tried to serve the guy he was evasive and they were not able to get it done. They have tried the sheriff, they have tried another server, but now they are going to try you. 

These calls are common, we receive them all the time. Now when the subject knows that the client is out to get him, you have to resort to subterfuge and out of the box thinking. Every good investigator/server has a few tricks up their sleeves. We at Morrow Detective Agency have invested in costumes just for these occasions. Costumes allow for you to get through the guards, it allows for you to get within reach enough to get the job done. We get a service out in the Glendale area, we have been warned that this guy probably wont answer the door and that he never answers for anyone and they have not been able to get him and he needs to be served within the next 15 days. So we dig into our bag of tricks and pull out our pizza man costume. Pizza men/women are out every night driving down streets and knocking on doors, and most people answer for them. So we go to the subjects residence and the neighborhood is dark, after walking and even knocking on the wrong door (the neighbor opened the door for us and even pointed us in the right direction) we happen to come up to the walkway right as the subjects wife closes the door. We knock and the wife answers, we ask for the subject and the wife yells for the subject and even adds why did you order a pizza when you knew I had food cooking? The subject looks confused as he approaches our pizza man. The subject is then told that this is not a pizza delivery but a legal document delivery, we give the subject his paperwork and he is not happy, not all. He then ask's are you really a pizza man? We smile and tell him not under normal circumstances, but these were not the normal circumstances. The subject still dazed about the situation shakes his head, asks for the name of our company which we give him, he bids us goodnight and our job has been accomplished. 

Our client was extremely happy about this service. It just goes to show that sometimes you have to think outside the box, or maybe even bring one in order to get the job done. 

Morrow Detective Agency is a licensed private investigation firm located on the border of Ventura and Los Angeles, Ca in Simi Valley, CA. Morrow Detective Agency is capable of performing surveillance, process service, locates, background investigations, asset investigations, and more. Please feel free to visit our website at www.MorrowDetectiveAgency.com or give us a call at (805) 823-3540 and allow us to make your problem our solution!