You need to know before you say I do.

A client calls and asks for us to conduct a background investigation, their daughter has gotten herself involved with a particular individual and she is now engaged to him. They want to know if he is a person of good character, has he been married before, if so what happened, can he support their daughter? The client provides us with the information that they know about the guy and we start our inquiries. We find out that the person is involved in his profession and appears to be growing in it. We find that he owns a house and has an audi that is paid off. So far this is the report that the client wants to hear. More information is discovered, the type of stuff that the client may have some concerns with. The man was married up until January of this year, he is rushing to get back on the saddle it seems, he has no children but his ex wife claims that he was not physically abusive but was mentally abusive and controlling, she alleges that he controlled all of the money and the finances and did not allow for her to make any decisions. We learn that the ex wife who was a nurse and making more then decent money had to run to her parents residence because she had no access to the accounts. Of course the male subject responds and he states that all of her allegations are in fact fabricated. The disposition of the case indicates that the Judge has awarded the man the property but he has to pay his ex wife 90k, the male subject also has to provide her an additional 100k from his retirement. He does not have to pay her alimony and she is not responsible for any of the accrued debt that they shared. A further inquiry with the ex wife is made and she stated that the male subject was unfaithful during their marriage and that she had caught him cheating and that was the final straw. Now I personally am not against people falling in love or moving forward with their lives, however in this situation one does wonder why would this person be so eager to get back in the drivers seat when he just finished a trip? Now the parents ( my clients) are going to approach their daughter with this information, they are flying out of state to see her and meet her new fiance, they know all of this about him, maybe she knows this information as well, or maybe she doesn't, but at least now it is out there and an informed decision can be made. 

Another client called because they are going through a heated child custody issue, his ex is alleging all of these nasty things about him while she is painting herself to be the perfect person. The client after living with her for so long knows that she is not clean but he lacks the proof to show it. We are tasked with shaking the bushes to see what comes out. Well we start shaking and at first all we find are the normal traffic incidents, but as we keep going we find some drug possession charges, charges that she has neglected to inform everyone, charges that she plead guilty to and served some time for. Could she be clean now? Yes. Could she be an excellent mother now?  Yes absolutely. Does the client and the decision makers deserve to have all of the information before making a determination that is going to affect the lives of others? Absolutely! 

These are some exceptions to the rule. Most backgrounds come up uneventful and with no issues. But anytime that you are making a life changing decision that is going to involve yourself and your family, you should always exercise due diligence, and we at Morrow Detective Agency can help you do just that. 

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!

GivenTime

It's Friday late afternoon, the phone rings and a client is on the line stating that they need someone found and they need them found immediately. They have tried different companies, have spent a lot of money and have had no success. They are in a spot of desperation. Now given time anyone can be found, but time is not on this person's side. They have two weeks to locate and serve this person. So after hearing their plea and explaining that given the time constraint we cannot guarantee that the person will be located in time, they`understood and we accepted the task. A database inquiry was ran, but the information was outdated, still if possible sometimes going to the old neighborhood can be of some help. We do that and meet an individual that knew the person we were looking for, he advised that the person moved to the high desert area, he was certain of the town but could not provide any further information than that. The area where this individual moved to is one where people go to get away, its rural, loosely populated, and small. Well we like small, small can be of big help. The following day a trip is made to the local post office in town. The postal service was willing to help once the right forms were filled out. A good address was obtained, we attempted service but no one was home. The alarm was set for o dark thirty the following morning. The following morning we arrived at the residence, we noted that rottweiler on property sign and approached with extreme caution. A door knock was conducted and our subject answers, we explain to him why we are at his residence and also that our client has been searching for him. The subject expressed his surprise that he was located, but was extremely cordial and accepted the documents with no problems. Given the time, anyone can be found. And just because the information is outdated does not mean that it has no use, you just have to get out there and make it work for you. 

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!

The Money Shot

Three days of surveillance, three days of dealing with the hot California summer, of hiding in the backseat of a car dealing with cramps, thirst, and the need to urinate...all of it is about to be worth it. We got contacted to conduct a surveillance on an individual who claimed that they were injured at work after their wages started getting garnished. This individual claimed that an injury to their hand and arm was keeping them from doing their work duties on a regular basis. The employer smelled a fraud and hired our client to find out. 

Day one of surveillance, we get there early in the morning. We sit for approximately four hours, we check in with the client and they request that we wait a little longer, about twenty more minutes into our wait the subject departs. We give the subject a little distance and begin our tail. Everything is going smoothly for the first ten minutes, but behind us we hear emergency sirens and see flashing lights, of course we are supposed to pull over to the right hand side like everyone else, but our subject is moving, I would be lying if I stated that I did not consider continuing with the tail. But civic duty and knowing that someone's life may be on the line took over that natural hunters instinct and it prevailed. My subject made a left turn at the light, by the time the emergency vehicles had passed by my subject was gone. We call the client and advised what happened, it is one of those tough breaks that they don't show on t.v. The client requests that we come back out and we do. 

Day two we arrive in the morning, the subject has called out sick from work. We wait for approximately three hours before he departs. We follow him again things are going smoothly, I check the rear view mirror and there are no emergency vehicles...so this looks like it is going to be a great day! The subject is followed to a job career training facility, the subjects vehicle is a smaller one and where it is parked our view is slightly obstructed, the subject exits the vehicle and enters into the building, the subject remains in the building for quite some time. The subject exits the building, departs, and heads back to their residence. A few hours of waiting and the subject departs, they are followed to a neighboring city. The subject appears to be lost ( this is a surveillance investigators nightmare) the subject drives around in circles and we are forced to give the subject a lot of rope or get caught. The subject makes it to a building, the exit the vehicle dressed business casually and enter into the building out of view. We wait again and the subject comes out approximately thirty minutes later. We follow the subject back to their residence and quit for the day. This is a productive day, we even see that the subject is seeking other employment opportunities...this is something that the client needs to know. But this will not help with the injury claim. 

Day three we arrive in the morning the subject has called out sick again. The subject departs in the mid morning. The subject is followed to a residence, the subject enters the residence and is out of view for a couple of hours. The subject emerges from the residence accompanied by an unidentified woman that we believe to be the subjects mother. They depart and are followed around the city, they go to a check cashing facility where the subject is observed utilizing the proposed injured hand/arm to open the door for their Mom. The subject is followed to the grocery store but they wait in the car while their mother does the shopping. The mother comes out of the store with a few bags, she places them in the back seat of the vehicle and they depart. When they arrive at the mother's residence, the subject exits out of the vehicle and is observed using their injured hand/arm to carry the bulk of the groceries. The subject even uses this arm to push the passenger door closed. Three days of surveillance, three days of dealing with the hot California summer, of hiding in the backseat of a car dealing with cramps, thirst, and the need to urinate...all of it is worth it because we just got the money shot, the shot that shows and contradicts everything that the subject stated that they are unable to do. The client can now defend the employer in the future should this subject come back and try to lie even more, also the client can now show the subject what they have and the subject may throw out the bogus claim. 

Not all claims are bogus, we have sat on some pretty legitimate surveillance's in the past. What makes the surveillance worth it is when you finally get that breakthrough, that time when the subject lets their guard down and does what they should not be doing in a setting where they feel safe to do it in. The money shots are what makes all of that worth it. 

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!

Sometimes they outsmart themselves

This case involves fraud. A client was referred to Morrow Detective Agency by an attorney client of ours.  This client placed a down payment to purchase a mobile home from a private party. The private party advised that she would give our client the deed to the property the following week when my client would be able to come up with the rest of the money. The following week my client comes back to the residence to find a for sale sign out in front of the property. My client also finds out that the person had moved out and left no further contact information. We are employed a couple months later by the client to locate the woman so that a service of process can be done on her. We run a search through our databases and come up with nothing new. We contact old neighbors and come up with minimal information. The woman's social networking indicates that she works for the county. A further inquiry finds that she is no longer employed at a certain county facility. We go to the post office and learn that there is no forwarding address information on file. In the meantime my client is attempting to call the woman but is either taunted or ignored. We decide to attempt a pretext but the woman is unresponsive. After many attempts we decide to attempt a phone trap. The woman responds but from a different phone..after hearing the message she hangs up. Fortunately the phone trap documented the phone information. A reverse look up was done on the phone number and it lead to a different county facility. We also learn from one the neighbors who we had spoken with earlier that the woman may have recently purchased a home in a different city. The city that she may have purchased a home in happens to share the same area code as the new place of employment. So now what we have this information it is time to put it to use.  We try to serve her at her residence but have no success, our next hope is her place of employment and we are successful on that attempt. Later on we get a phone call from the same number that called our phone trap. The female subject is furious and states that we have no right to serve papers on her at her job, and she feels that we had harassed her by doing so. After hearing the subject out we advised the woman that we had to serve her the best way we could, we also sneak in the opinion that had she called back our client in the first place, she would have never been tracked down in order to be served. 

This is a case where the subject played it to smart. If the woman had called us from her cell phone instead of her work line we probably would not have been able to get to her in time. But since she had to be sneaky and call us from her work line, we she in turn gave us the lead we needed to close the case. 

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!

The Team

Having a great team can mean the difference. My wife has helped on several cases here at Morrow Detective Agency. After getting some exposure to investigative work I asked her about what she experienced, how she felt about it, and what she was able to accomplish personally.

Q: How did you feel about your first surveillance experience? 
Surveillance was ehhh. I liked the fact that I got some time to sit and relax, and get paid for it at the same time. What I got surprised about was after a couple of hours I started to get hungry and needed to use the restroom. Unfortunately there was nothing that I could do until the surveillance was over. 

Q: Was it a successful surveillance?
Yes, but not necessarily what the client wanted. 

Q. How did you feel about your first time conducting a process service?
Very nervous, I wasn't sure what to expect on the other side of the door. When I pulled up, I saw 3 cars which made me a little nervous. I always heard stories from you about people getting crazy and sometimes wanting to fight. It was a relief to have it end so smoothly. 

Q: Do you feel that the real life private investigating experience is the same as what is portrayed on t.v.?
No, what you see on t.v. is the exciting cases, you see a lot of cheating spouses, you see the following, but you don't see the waiting around and everything that it takes to get to that point. The waiting part is not challenging, its the following the people around, if they are very fast driver's or slow ones. 

Q: Do you find this type of work fun?
I personally would not say that the work is fun, I will however say that it is rewarding. Helping people, helping them find someone, returning a child to a parent that they have not seen in years, helping to keep bad people off the street and busting people that take advantage of the system, these are the things that make it rewarding. 

Q: Do you think just anyone can be a private investigator?
No, it takes a special person. It takes a person that has patience, the ability to deal with demanding people who want what they want when they want it. I personally think that the best investigators have the gift of gab and can converse with anyone, they have to be strategic thinkers and also self-disciplined. The work as an owner of a company can be demanding. 

Q: What kind of cases do you like working so far?
Criminal defense cases and locating people.

Q: What kind of investigative work do you like the least?
Surveillance. 

This line of work draws from all walks of life. Investigators can easily find themselves in a upscale neighborhood one minute and in a low income area the next. Being able to adjust and also having great members on your team can determine whether you will be successful or whether you will fail. 

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!

We can only guarantee efforts, not results!

An investigator is called when something has gone wrong, a client needs someone found quickly, papers need to be served asap, a cheating spouse needs to be watched because they are about to leave the house in ten minutes. As an investigator you learn to adapt to these changes, you try your best to do what you can, but sometimes no matter what you do, things don't work out. 

A client calls, they are about to go to court, they need a person to testify that the defendant is lying. They have court in 18 days, the witness needs to be served at least 15 days before the date. They aren't sure where the witness is living at.  This is the assignment. We explain to the client that we are great at locating individuals, that we are also great at serving papers on them, but we cannot guarantee that it will be done in the time that they need it done. The client states that they understand and they need us to try our best. First thing we do is locate the person, we verify that the person is residing at the address. The area is out of our range of investigation, we advise the client that we have found the defendant, but due to where the defendant resides there will be an extra charge as service of processes can take time and multiple efforts. The client states that they are low on income and they cannot afford for us to do it. We explain to the client that we understand and that we will get a server in the area to help them out. We make the arrangements, but we also find out that the defendant lives in a guarded gated community, we explain to the client that this in itself will present another challenge and that time is not on our side. The client again says that they understand. A few days go by, the server advises that they have attempted to serve the defendants but have been unable to serve them. They state that the client is going to have to file a continuance and that they will redo the service at no additional charge. We relay this information to the client. Of course the client is not happy. The client states that for the amount of money that they paid, they thought that we would do the service ourselves. Again we remind the client what our companies fee would have been had we taken the service, and we also remind the client how much they paid for the service. Our company's goal is to do everything within the law and reason to assist a client in getting the information and results they need, but we can never guarantee that we are going to get those results. We cannot know whether the person a client believes is cheating is in fact going to cheat. We cannot guarantee that a claimant is faking their injury, or that a person is going to be home at 7:00 p.m., all we can do is be there when we say that we will and do what we say we are going to do. No matter how good you are, no one in this business can guarantee results, if they do they are lying to you. Things happen that are out of our control. With this particular client, we had to apologize, we reminded them that they were informed of the time issue as well as the challenges. We wanted to accommodate the client, though we knew that there was a margin for not being successful the first time around. It reminded us that we are dealing with peoples lives, and that they depend on us to do. Sometimes though, we can only do what we can. 

 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!

So you think your spouse is cheating

Cheating spouses cases are not the primary cases that our agency works. We do get them and we do work them. The cases themselves need to be handled delicately from the beginning when the client that is calling through the conclusion of the investigation. Often times you will receive a call from a client who is hesitant to explain that they need help to access whether their significant other is stepping out of the relationship. They talk about the emotional pain and mental anguish that is involved, the feeling of guilt for having these suspicions, the feeling like they may be going crazy also. They have noticed that the work hours have become later, that the phones are turned off or the person is not as easily accessible as they had been in the past. They notice that the cellphone is underneath the pillow,or always face down. Be it male or female the emotion in these phone calls is the same. Some people have been married for decades only to have this happen to them now, while some people have only been dating for weeks. In my experience womens suspicions have been more validated, their intuition a little more in tune with the difference. 

We had a client that believed that her husband was having an affair with a neighbor of theirs. Our client was not able to prove it and her husband would tell her that she was crazy and even seem insulted that she would insinuate such a thing. However our client noticed that when she got home from work certain things would be in disarray, also her husband now started going to the gym (after years of not going) and after leaving she would notice the neighbor leaving about ten minutes later. His phone which used to sit on the nightstand would now be underneath his pillow on silent. Our client had enough and wanted to know if her suspicions were valid or was she just being overly sensitive. After hearing her story we determined what would be the best approach on her case. We found that obviously the gym time would be the best time. So we established our surveillance and waited for the subject. As luck would have it, the first night of surveillance the subject did not go to the gym, neither did he the second night or third. However on the fourth night the subject entered into his vehicle and off to the supposed gym he went, we followed him at length where he eventually arrived at a park on the other side of town. He waited in his vehicle and we observed him talking on his phone for a brief moment. Shortly after another vehicle shows up and sure enough it was the neighbor that our client suspected was being to friendly with her husband. They both exit the vehicle, embrace and kiss, and start walking through the park hand in hand. We observed them walking and sitting in the grass, at times embracing and kissing. About an hour later they walk back to their vehicles, give one last long kiss and the husband departs. We of course followed him back to his residence. Approximately ten minutes later the neighbor arrived at her residence. Now comes the hardest part, at least for us, the part were you tell the client that she is not crazy, that her husband is cheating on her, and that it is with the person that she suspected. The clients response goes from being happy that they are not losing it, to the rage that this is actually happening, and to the sadness and realization that things are going to be forever changed, and of course the big question of what to do with the information that you have? Do you get a divorce, do you seek counseling, do you confront the neighbor?  What happens next?

Another case that comes to mind again has to do with a wife suspecting that her husband was cheating. She suspected that he may have been cheating with a co-worker but she was not absolutely sure. The first night we conducted surveillance at his work place. After he exited work he went into his vehicle and we observed him speaking with an unknown women in her vehicle. We of course took the license plate down for future reference. The subject then departed the area and was followed to a gas station where he sat and waited for a long period of time. After sitting at the gas station for thirty minutes he departed and went to a restaurant. He went in and we noted that there were several of his co-workers there including the girl that he was speaking with in the parking lot. After about an hour or so he takes off from the restaurant and departs the area, we try to follow him but he manages to get through a light and we were not able to do so. We break off for the night, in the morning time we find out from our client that the subject did not come back home. We go back out the following day, this time we canvass the parking lot and find the vehicle that the woman our subject was speaking to. We note that there are two parking permits, one for a local junior college, and another for what appeared to be a condo or apartment complex with the name of the complex branded on the sticker. The woman gets off work first, we note the direction that she is departing in. An hour passes and our subject gets out of work. He enters into his vehicle and does not head in the direction of his residence, he instead heads in the same direction as the woman. We follow him and eventually he comes to an apartment complex we will call Centerstone, the same name that we observed on the parking permit sticker in the woman's window. He parks in the parking lot right next to the woman that we observed him speaking to's vehicle. He gets out and runs into the apartment building.  He enters into an apartment out of view. He stays overnight. We of course have to relay the news to our client, that her suspicions have been affirmed and her husband is in fact staying over at this woman's apartment. Our client calls us the next day and states that her husband stated he was only staying over there in the guest room and that nothing was going on. Our client of course did not believe him. We later confirmed with the apartment manager that the unit that the woman lived in was only one bedroom, no guest room to sleep in at all. 

A lot of times people work through the infidelity. As a rule I personally do not advise whether a couple should stay together or not. I believe that only God and the people involved should make that determination. I have found that a lot of different reasons are utilized to justify the behavior, again I do not judge, sometimes things just fall apart, sometimes people want to feel like they are still appealing, sometimes they just want to feel loved. Or they could just want their cake and to eat it too. Whatever the reason may be, I do know that cheating can have repercussions, and before you decide to cross the line you need to evaluate the possibilities and what will happen if you get caught, and believe me, no matter how tricky you are, you eventually will get caught. If you have a family is it going to be worth potentially splitting them up, or God forbid catching something from a person and having to deal with that for life? Are you mentally prepared for having to essentially live two different lives and deal with when the affair turns into another relationship? If the person you are out philandering with has a family, are you willing to jeopardize that family in order to get what you want? Again I do not judge, we each have to make our own decisions and deal with the fall out or rewards from them. Just make sure that whatever decision you make, you are prepared for it. 

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 www.MorrowDetectiveAgency.com or give us a call at (805) 823-3540 and allow us to make your problem our solution!