Often you may have seen a note on the walls of stations or
other public places that would read as “Mr. XYZ, We have been searching for you
for a long time, show yourself”. It goes without saying that such a note has
one chance in one million to be read by the missing person. If the missing
person is not a habitual one, the most important thing to be done at the
instance is to contact the local law enforcement agencies. They have their own
methods to locate the missing persons and the picture should not exclude the
role of private investigators as well. We should have a deeper look on how the
private investigation is done in order to locate a missing person.
“Skip Tracing” is one familiar technique utilized by privateinvestigators. It basically means tracing someone who has been missing for
something or by someone. So first of all the possibility of someone missing on
his/her own will, should be excluded, as it happens in a lot share of cases
coming to private investigators. So we can divide the “skips” into two types.
1. Persons not missing intentionally
This category includes abducted children, missing heir,
missing witness, those required for genealogy, or one who owes some type of
payment etc.
2. Persons intentionally missing
This category includes bail bond skips, runaway children,
persons demanded by the court of the law etc.
Now when you are to start an investigation go in the
following manner. First of all narrow down the clues. This can be done by
meeting all the people the missing person knew. In this search you may find
someone who says for instance “O, Yeah, he, last time when I met him, wished to
visit the Mei Heong Yuen Desserts”
Some times this kind of probe gives you important
information. Immediately start to focus on that very area where the missing one
wished to go.
Another trick that can be injected into the investigation is
to send a letter at the address of the missing one and write on the envelope
“address requested”.
Now the post man will do the job, he will fetch you the
new address. Of course this tactic is not going to work in case of a hardcore
person, but in 5 to 10 % cases you may be lucky enough to get the address, who
knows.
If you have phone number, you can locate the address by
contacting the phone companies. This may also help you probe in a limited
number of cases, but you have to ensure that you go for all the available
means.
In a small number of cases internet may do a job for you.
There are websites with paid databases and also some free sites like
whitepages.com etc., which can be employed to seek the missing one.
Of course the investigator must not forget to see the death
indices of the suspected area, which may terminate an investigation with the
death of the missing one.
An investigator must employ the people connections as a tool
for probing out the missed one. It goes without saying that the missed one
eventually does contacts his/her family members. Putting surveillance at the
family members may be a very good idea in some of the cases.
Phone records should be traced in order you are not finding a
way through. This must be the ultimate option as investigating agencies are
notorious for tracking the people’s private phone records. Fulfilling all the
legal demands you may go for this option.
Develop the professional skills and don’t consider any clue
trifle in your struggle to probe out the missed one.
