I don’t know Thomas Peele very well. Heck, I haven’t even read his new book. But when I heard about it– a deep, unflinching probe into the murder of journalist Chauncey Bailey by culprits from Your Black Muslim Bakery–I just had to start exploring. How better to whet my true- crime appetite than a sit-down […]
I didn’t pay much attention in 2007 when readers of The Recorder legal newspaper in San Francisco had selected me as Best Private Investigator/Skip Tracer. It was a small field. It was sort of a nice honor. I won the thing a few more times. Granted, it’s kind of a vanity poll and designed to […]
The witness sat across from me at the Denny’s in San Pablo, her hands and fingers playing all over her mouth and face as she talked about the gun being hers and not her boyfriend’s. I took the hand-mouth-talk action as classic deception. She had incentive to lie. Her parolee boyfriend was facing gun charges […]
The huge image is the new logo at Spencer Legal Investigations, Inc., our new investigations company. I’m a bit embarrassed to say I don’t know all the historical significance of the Knights Templar, but it looks cool. Cooler than the hackneyed fedora silhouette, magnifying glass shtick, trench coats and all the other worn PI images. […]
Handy, helpful tips for an attorney looking to match the best investigator for the case. (Published in the 2009 Alameda County Bar Association Bulletin.)
I took the photo of the victim’s mother and wrote this article in 2008 for the Oakbook magazine. What I love about digital media is that it lives forever. My reason for posting this is to get it out into the public domain because it’s still an open case. The subhead “Oakland’s Other Assassination” refers […]
On a Saturday morning in 2009 in San Francisco a 75-year-old grandmother of 10 and mother of 5 had a green light and started to walk across Bush Street at Polk heading east. She was an estimated 6 feet into the crosswalk when a sanitation truck made a right, ran over her with its rear […]
I am good at my job but need to improve my business. Know what I mean? As a small business person I am not alone. I am starting a partnership and wanted some reminders about what it takes to succeed in business. So like any smart dude, I turned to my better half for advice. […]
A colleague on a list-serve bemoaned a business client who had turned away from him in favor of a cheap, online background check service. The down-in-the mouth gumshoe asked for advice on what he should tell the client. I read the occasionally salty but excellent responses from colleagues. Pundits predicted that the internet would be […]
I have never been much for mysteries or private eye books, like Sue Grafton’s tedious alphabetical progression with “B is for Bung-hole.” (Sorry, made that one up but you get the gist.) If I can’t relate to the character I lose interest. It would be like me trying to watch “Magnum PI.” I have no […]
