I was recently chatting with a close friend, a mother of three children, of which the oldest is a teenage girl rapidly approaching her dreaded “sweet sixteen”. I say “dreaded” because as we all know, upon turning 16, this young lady will have the right (assuming she keeps her grades up!) to go down to the DMV and get herself a small plastic card that is amongst a parent’s worst nightmares: a driver’s license. My friend joked with me about how my private investigation skills would be helpful in the parenting arena. I told her there are a number of tools available to parents which are very similar to those used by private investigators.
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With the recent rash of male celebrities caught cheating on their wives, you might think that men cheat more frequently than women. Not so, according to statistics. While it’s difficult to gather accurate information on infidelity, most surveys indicate that women cheat as often as men. But if that’s the case, why do the infidelity scandals that hit the news every week always seem to involve a male celebrity cheating?
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Anyone who has seen the fascinating, new NBC TV show, Who Do You Think You Are, can understand why genealogy has become so popular. On the show, genealogists help celebrity guests trace their ancestry, often leaving them shocked as the story of their family history unfolds. The show leaves the audience wondering if their ancestors were involved in the Salem witch trials or fought in the Civil War, as Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick’s ancestors did.
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Phil Klein, the private investigator hired by Dateline NBC to find Olivia Newtown-John’s ex-boyfriend Patrick McDermott, apparently solved the case using a clever, techie ruse.
It’s a classic Dateline story: McDermott’s family reported the long-time boyfriend of Newtown-John missing in 2005, when he didn’t come back from a fishing trip in California. Authorities initially thought that he had fallen overboard and died, but eyewitnesses claimed they saw him get off the boat in port. This sparked the theory that McDermott had faked his own death and disappeared to escape his mounting debt.
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Spouses of adulterers, beware! Two iPhone and BlackBerry apps just made having an affair even easier.
AshleyMadison.com, a personals website with the telling slogan “Life is short, have an affair”, has iPhone and Blackberry applications designed to help married people find partners without leaving a trace of the affair on work or home computers.
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If you suspect your husband is having an affair, the day before Valentine’s Day is the perfect day to find out for sure. February 13th is commonly referred to as Mistress Day, the day when cheating husbands see “the other woman”. Since a cheating husband would be spending Valentine’s Day with his wife, he’ll be spending the day before with his lover.
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From early 2006 to August 2008, former presidential candidate John Edwards was able to keep secret an intense affair with campaign videographer Rielle Hunter. Although the scandal eventually became public, Edwards used some key tricks and techniques to hide his affair, detailed in former aide Paul Young’s new book, The Politician.
Have an accomplice. Paul Young helped facilitate and hide the affair in a number of ways. From booking hotel rooms under his name to falsely claiming paternity of Edwards’ and Hunter’s love child, he was the perfect accomplice (until he wrote his tell-all book, that is).
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With the rise in popularity of text messaging, it’s no surprise that increasingly more adulterers are being outed by their cell phones.
The most prominent recent example is Tiger Woods: After allegedly carrying on secret affairs with numerous women over several years, he was finally undone by text messages sent to Rachel Uchitel, the first mistress to be unveiled. A friend of hers told the National Enquirer about the affair, claiming she had seen incriminating text messages. The published rumors likely led to Tiger’s fight with his wife, Elin Nordegren, and subsequent car accident. For further embarrassment, another one of Tiger’s mistresses, Jaimee Grubbs, then gave illicit text messages incriminating Tiger to US Weekly, which then published them.
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Ever since I became a private investigator, I’ve been debunking myths about private investigators propagated by popular TV shows and books. These are the top incorrect assumptions about private investigators that I hear:
Myth #1: I wear a trench coat and fedora.
While on a surveillance case, a private investigator should dress to blend in with the location. So if I’m tailing a Wall Street type during the work week, I may wear a suit. Or if I’m tailing someone on a weekend, I may wear jeans and a baseball cap. Although I do own a trench coat, it is has yet to be part of my “disguise”. Since I’ve never had a case to follow someone to a costume party, I can’t imagine a scenario where dressing like Dick Tracy would help me blend in with a crowd.
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In an adultery investigation case, finding evidence like the email exchange between Cornell Business School employees “Lisa” and “John” would be like winning the jackpot. In case you haven’t already heard about the scandal, John accidentally copied the entire school on a very long and explicitly tawdry email exchange with his mistress Lisa. Both are married and, as is made abundantly clear from the email, engaging in a steamy affair. Read the full email transcript for the R-rated, torrid details.
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