Finding a missing person – Our Private investigators featured in the Media!

BY B.A.WOLFORD / KINSEY INVESTIGATIONS, INC

It is very difficult to ﬁnd a missing person in Los Angeles, but we receive calls all the time.
There are many pieces to the puzzle.

Where did they go?

How did they wind up in LA?

Who do they know here?

Investigators check with family, friends and social media, and they have the family ﬁll out a missing person’s report with the police, which populates in the NCIC, the National Crime Information Center. The family may also be asked to provide other information and contacts. When searching for a missing person, it’s extremely valuable to have many sources.

SEVERAL EXAMPLES ILLUSTRATE THE POINT:

Visiting Los Angeles and gone missing

While traveling with her not-so-savory boyfriend, the adult daughter goes missing while in Los Angeles, and out-of-state parents are frantic. The investigators talk to siblings, friends, Facebook friends, without result.

Finally, a break. Boyfriend’s roommate reports, “I’m not sure if this is relevant or not, but I received a missed call and caller ID says XYZ hotel near LAX”. At the XYZ hotel, the car previously described is in the parking lot, and it’s the daughter’s. Not knowing the situation between the young couple, both the investigator and the police separate them and talk to them. The daughter gets her dad on the phone and decides to return to her home in another state. The investigator escorts her all the way to LAX, then to the gate, to make sure she gets on the plane. Her sister calls to confirm she made it home.

A Gap Semester in LA

Adult son comes out here for college from the East Coast. He loves Los Angeles. But he is acting strangely when he goes home to visit parents. His grades are failing. His parents decide to have him sit out a semester, see how it goes, possibly take local community classes.

Their son promises to increase his GPA and take school more seriously. He comesbacktoLA — and “disappears”. In this instance, he chooses to be homeless, just wandering LA.

Soon, he’s in trouble, arrested and let go by police. Then there is a warrant. (Good, if he is run by the police in future for any reason, he will show up as missing person). Nothing, nothing… a year goes by. Still nothing… One day, the investigator is driving to Hollywood to serve a business some paperwork. There is this man sleeping on a bench that fits his description. It’s him! Mom confirms it. He comes in, starts rehab and counseling…

Many months go by, and he is reunited with his family.

Missing from Brentwood

A troubled young woman goes missing from Brentwood. One day, at the sober-living facility where she lived, she was provided with two tokens for transportation. And then she was gone. When interviewed, people at the program remembered her mentioning… parks, lagoons, water. Investigation of all the area parks with water — exhaustive efforts— eventually turned her up. The parents and daughter reunited.

I will remember that call from that happy mother for the rest of my life.

Each and every case is unique. Why people come to Los Angeles, I don’t know.

Maybe the same reason I did. The sunshine, the warm weather, the beach — these are what drew me here. People do not always have a plan and they get “lost”.

We are there to help them get found.