When most people find out I’m a private investigator in Phoenix, they can’t help but ask questions about the craziest things I’ve seen or most memorable jobs I’ve worked. Hey, friends and family…sound relatable?
In an effort to give the people what they want, I’ve compiled some of my most compelling cases to date to give you a better idea of what my craziest assignments and most shocking discoveries look like as they unfold.
One of my first jobs…
I started out working for a food distribution warehouse. I was hired to infiltrate the night shift manager and his team, who seemed to be really great at talking the talk, but not so great at walking the walk. His team was suffering and employee morale was down. In order to do my job successfully, I had to learn to drive a palate jack and stack towers of product to be loaded into semi-trucks. Let’s just say I was never great at Tetris, so this wasn’t exactly my forte.
At one point, I hopped out of my palate jack to pick up some vegetable oil, but landed on a cardboard slip sheet covering a barbeque sauce spill. The result? I pulled a Charlie Brown and landed right on my ass, fracturing my tailbone. Luckily, I was put on light duty and medication, allowing me to collect even more intel which ultimately helped me crack the case ahead of schedule.
Hospital Threats
Once, I was part of a team that leveraged 24/7 coverage in 2-person shifts for 6 months in order to monitor someone making threats to a hospital. “I’m going to do to you what you did to my son.” He was convinced that doctors had injured his son but wouldn’t cover his medical bills. This was in the early days of Twitter, so we monitored his hundreds of daily posts attacking the hospital, doctors, and sharing whatever came to his mind.
We began following him by vehicle and quickly found that he regularly purchased SPICE, a synthetic drug that was becoming popular at the time, before coming home to smoke it and going on his regularly scheduled Twitter rampage. In the end, he was arrested, though it could’ve played out much worse. He was a felon in possession of a gun, which was hidden in his vehicle. The cops never found the gun, but justice was served in the end.
Bring Your Wife to Work Day
One of my most memorable jobs allowed me to bring my metaphorical partner in crime (my wife) with me to help catch someone who was falsely collecting workers compensation. The suspect was a spin instructor, so my wife and I signed up and attended a spin class in order to set up a hidden camera. I shot an hour's worth of video all while my nervous wife giggled in the background and I fumbled to make sure the footage was clear.
Another Day, Another Story
I’ve followed claimants into strip clubs, forced to run to an ATM for cash because obviously I had to fit in and expense the client. I’ve filmed people purchasing drugs. I’ve filmed cheating subjects before informing my client, only to observe the moment when the client calls their cheating spouse to confront them (what a treat). I’ve followed subjects to a state fair and watched them perform on stage with a band. I’ve served F1 race car drivers as a process server, forced to chase him down and drop his papers in a bread basket.
The list is practically endless, but I’ll keep in mind that many people are intrigued to hear the dirty details of my work. Stay tuned for future recaps of highlights from on the job!