A Day In The Life Of A PI Kinsey Investigations – Anneliese Wilson

What does a Private investigator in California on a typical workday?

What is a typical day for a Private investigator in the Los Angeles area?

What does life look like for a Private Investigator in Los Angeles?

The day started off in Los Angeles as any day working with a fellow Private Investigator in L.A. should – by meeting in a suspiciously empty car park and getting the quick rundown on what to expect. The investigator’s name was Barbara and I was surprised at how long the answer was when I asked: “what’s on the cards for today?”. Just a casual days’ work sounded like a full week’s worth back at home but I soon learned that I was in the presence of a professional Private Investigator inLos Angeles and we were now in the big leagues.

I have some experience investigating in my hometown back in Australia, and moving to Los Angeles I had the opportunity to spend the day with one of Kinsey Investigation’s finest. It was fast-paced, exciting and much more involved than I ever imagined. So if you’ve ever wondered what a day in the life of a Private Investigator in Los Angeles looks like, let me give you a little glimpse into that world!

As we drove along the 405, Barbara told me only a few of her amazing career stories and I got all the cliché questions I could think of out of the way…

“How did you become an investigator?”, “What’s the most amusing case you’ve ever had?” “Do you hate men now after all the cheating cases you get?”

(For those playing at home: She owned an employment agency that did background checks and one thing led to another and her career developed from there. At some point she somehow worked from doing backgrounds to serving legal papers, she even served Justin Bieber and I found out apparently both men AND women cheat …so there we go.)

The first task for the day: a wellness check!

Our first task for the day was a wellness check on an elderly gentleman in a Veterans hospital in the valley. The job was called in by his next-of-kin who, despite not having contact with the main family anymore, wanted to make sure he was alive and well and being properly looked after. It was called in as a missing person’s case and Barbara had already done some extensive groundwork to locate him. We were headed there to confirm this location, meet with him and report on how he was doing.

We signed ourselves in asking for him specifically by name and were led through some winding corridors to his bedside – we told no one what we were actually there for wanting his condition and current surroundings. He was deeply asleep but we managed to stir him, have a quick chat and took a few photos with him happy in his environment. He was a beautiful man who was happy for visitors but his memory and speech wasn’t what it used to be. After our short visit, we slipped out the back and into the car where Barbara reported back to the client exactly what she’d seen.

Now, I expected the phone call to go something along the lines of “he’s fine’’ but the detail Barbara had been able to observe was something else. Somehow she had made notes of who exactly was working in what room, the setup of the beds, how many people were occupying specific domains and even notes on things like how this gentleman was eating after seeing his food chart. She didn’t waste one second of her time on that job and was able to relay to the client more details than any average person could have. I was very impressed to see how she operated and excited for our next mission – finding a missing girl.

Finding a missing girl in Los Angeles: Cindy

Kinsey Investigations had received a very concerned phone call a few weeks earlier from a man who had lost contact with his daughter, “Cindy”, and was concerned about her excessive drug use. Barbara had been working on the case and after a week of work managed to find a location for Cindy, so we were making our way there to confirm this location and obtain photographic evidence for the family. As we arrived at the location, we saw police cars and soon derived that Cindy was being removed from the condo she was staying in. Thinking on her feet and posing as a concerned neighbor, we befriended Cindy and asked if she needed somewhere to store her belongings. The ordeal went on for well over 45 minutes but by the end of it, we had obtained all the information we needed to relay back to her family. We knew where she was headed (to the homeless shelter on Skid Row), where she had been living, who she was keeping in contact with and most of all, we now had her trust and her possessions, a perfect reason to find her again and open up a dialogue the next time we could interact.

Often Investigators are called in when families lose touch with members struggling with drug or alcohol addiction. The troubled members often find support in the homeless communities and lose touch with the world. This leaves families helpless and unable to enforce a rehab program (you cannot make a grown adult go to rehab no matter how much you pay!). In California this is where families turn to investigators in order to explore the possibility of Court-Ordered Conservatorship and the family can then put them in Rehabilitation. If an investigator is able to find one of these missing people, we can locate them and call the police and try to get them involved.

Next job: Locating another woman in Los Angeles!

After lunch at California Pizza Kitchen, our next job was to do exactly that. We needed to locate another woman, “Ellie” who had last been in contact with her family 6 months previously and was struggling with her drug addiction on the streets of Los Angeles. During lunch, I was presented all of Barbara’s research. She had recent security footage of Ellie walking through a shopping center and old photos from family albums so we could get a real look at her face.

Barbara and I arrived at Skid Row and we got straight to work. Barbara was almost like a savant for faces taking note of everyone as we walked through the tents physically opening them and looking inside. We talked to the communities and checked laundromats and food halls. It wasn’t glamorous work but it’s the hard groundwork needed with the perseverance of a good private investigator.

Eventually, we retraced a lead back to a shopping center where we learned through Barbara’s connection with the security network that a woman fitting Ellie’s description had just been removed from a store named Zara’s and sent back onto the street. Following the direction she was last seen heading we saw a distressed young lady wandering around a street corner without socks or shoes – we found her!

After taking covert photos to confirm with family members the identity of the lady, I was tasked to keep eyes on her for over an hour as she wandered in and out of stores, stole food from Subway and stumbled through the rainy streets. While I was doing this, Barbara was on the phone talking to the family, the family attorney and to the police and communicating with them once they got to our location. They ran the woman’s identity through their database and found there were warrants for her arrests which was perfect to kick start getting Ellie the help she needed. We observed as she was eventually remanded in custody outside an empty parking structure. She physically fought with the police and thought they were “fake” cops. The ordeal took about 3 hours but we felt reassured that she was now in safe hands as they drove off with her in the police vehicle.

Another cheating spouse in Los Angeles…

After all of that, our work wasn’t even done. On our way home we stopped by the Marina to scope out a yacht and find a good place to keep eyes on it as the next day one of Barbara’s investigators was due there for a stakeout in a potential cheating case.

Not even done yet: Taking the GPS tracker off

Even as I went to sleep that night I got a text saying that there was a job-ready and 5 am the very next morning as we had to take a GPS tracker off of a car without any detection and determine the findings as a woman had predicted that her son had been stealing from her.

I was definitely in! From what I saw, a Private Investigator in Los Angeles like Barbara is a master of all trades and multitasking. There is a reason someone hires a professional to do this level of work – and that’s because of their experience and skill. I’m ready to learn as much as I can!