I Met The Real "Bones" This Week

I am going to break one of my own rules and talk about something work related in this post.  I'm breaking the rule because my experience was a minor adventure of sorts.

For the past couple of days, I have been attending a law enforcement seminar on cold homicide cases. Just like law enforcement, private investigators have to complete a set number of hours of continuing education per licensing period.  This seminar had three great things going for it.  First, it involved training on a relatively new DOJ database that might help me resolve the occasional missing person case where the subject appears to have just dropped off the face of the earth.  Second, it was taught by people who are actually qualified to teach the subject matter. And third, it was free.

PI's are kind of out of place at law enforcement seminars and I was even more careful about admitting that I am an attorney.  Cop culture is very much a closed society.  And on a practical level, law enforcement has access to all sorts of information and techniques that are out of bounds to PI's. But on the other hand, PI's can do (or at least get away with) things law enforcement cannot, especially when there is no requirement for the information to be used in court which is increasingly the case in business related matters these days.  The client often just wants to know what happened and how to stop it. 

Contrary to what you see on television and read in cheap novels, private investigators are not normally involved in homicides.  My little practice usually involves skills more like those of a good print reporter.  I am tasked with telling a client the who, what, when, where and why of a situation. I may do interviews, take some pictures, etc.  Rarely, I might do an actual surveillance.  I'm sometimes tasked with verifying who a living person (usually an employee or a job candidate) actually is and occasionally with looking for a person who just isn't where they are supposed to be any more.  But most of the time, it's just computer and telephone work.

The first day of the seminar was taught by legendary former Tulsa PD homicide detective Mike Nance.  Nance now works for a national organization that helps find missing and abducted children.  Aside from teaching us how to access the database in question, Mike gave the crew a lot of blow by blow instruction on the practical side of handling a homicide, complete with color slides of crime scenes and body parts.  While that part of his presentation didn't have much practical application for a geriatric attorney/PI with a very, very low key civil practice, it was fascinating.

The morning session of the second day of the seminar was taught by Angela Berg. Angela is THE forensic anthropologist for the Oklahoma Office of the Chief Medical Examiner.  Yes, she is Oklahoma's own "Bones." The spooky Tulsa World's photo of her posted here does not do her justice.  In person, Angela is an attractive, petite blonde with an engaging personality and a razor sharp wit.  She approaches her work with the wry, dark humor that most homicide cops and related professionals adopt as a coping mechanism to deal with one of society's most horrible and heartbreaking jobs.  She described her job for us in great detail including color slides.  All that was missing was the unforgettable smell of a human body left unattended too long.  The material Angela taught has very little practical application for me but it was fascinating.

The last speaker of the seminar was yet another legend in homicide investigations.  Harvey Pratt is a Cheyenne Chief complete with ponytail.  He is a nationally recognized forensic artist and re-constructionist.  He is also a talented Native American artist.  For many years, he was a legendary investigator with the OSBI. He assisted in major cases around the nation, some involving well known serial killers.

Good homicide investigators often have engaging personalities. It is a tool of the trade that unlocks information from witnesses and even confessions from suspects. Pratt is no exception.  He is very personable and funny.  But underneath the dark cop humor is deep intensity and a mind that routinely collects a level of detail that most of us can't imagine.

While I don't want to take anything away from the other speakers, Pratt's presentation justified the whole two day adventure for me.  I walked away from it with two priceless nuggets of information.  The first involves interviewing skills.  I have always considered myself a very good information collector.  After the military, I was professionally trained to gather information in the business world by the big name computer companies I worked for.  They taught us to read people and situations the same way most people read a newspaper.  I did a stint as a print reporter and have practiced law now for nearly fifteen years. In short, I have spent most of a lifetime in the information business.  But, Pratt taught me that I need to kick my standard, kind of laid back, interview routine up several notches in collecting details.

The second nugget is more esoteric and I had to think twice before writing about it.  One of my "projects" these days is teaching pastors and other church officials how to spot child predators attempting to access children through their organization.  I've put a lot of time and study into it but frankly didn't trust myself in one area that was always lingering in the back of my mind, the perception of an evil presence.  Science calls these people sociopaths or psychopaths but in fact they are just plain evil.  Pratt openly acknowledged that fact and the fact it can be recognized in another person.  He described sensing it despite the outwardly normal and charming personality of serial killer Ted Bundy. Pratt taught me that I can acknowledge that perception openly instead of just quietly acting on it.

At the end of the second day, I had accomplished my goals.  I had logged sixteen hours of continuing education, learned how access a high powered DOJ database that can help clear a missing persons case and been challenged to kick my game up a couple of notches in a key area of the trade.  It was time well spent.