Story Photos
 Photo by Bill Wagner Private detective Rich Uhlich's investigations range from tracking people physically to scouring the Internet for clues. His work led to a major break in a murder case. |
Local private eyes offer peek inside their profession
Sunday, February 4, 2007 11:32 PM PST
By Leslie Slape
Printable version
E-mail this articleFiction has permanently identified the private detective with the deerstalker cap and magnifying glass (Sherlock Holmes), the trench coat (Sam Spade) and the Ferrari (Magnum, P.I.). Fictional sleuths tackle seemingly unsolvable puzzles, often while exchanging witty banter with a partner, like Dave and Maddie in "Moonlighting."
A real private investigator looks like an ordinary person and doesn't favor distinctive clothing or cars that draw attention. Most of them work alone.
But the part about solving puzzles is genuine.
"I enjoy the challenging ones," said Rich Uhlich, a private investigator for 20 years. "I enjoy finding people that have been separated from other family members for years -- that kind of makes you feel good."
His most challenging case was the murder of Krystle Cook, a Longview 17-year-old who disappeared in 2000. Her family hired him to investigate it as a missing-person case.
Uhlich is one of seven active private investigators in Cowlitz County listed with the state Department of Licensing. There's plenty of work for those who enter the field.
"I've worked 75 to 100 criminal cases in last seven months," said Cowlitz County's newest P.I., Stan Munger, 54. He started working his first case five hours after he retired from the Longview Police Department June 30.
On July 25, "It hit me I worked 24 consecutive days without realizing it," he said. "So I kind of had to pinch myself and say, 'Knock it off. This is called retirement, for god's sake.' "
Police officers often become P.I.s
Like Munger, many retired police officers become private investigators, adapting the detective skills they honed on the job toward a civilian purpose. Other people who enter the field may have been paralegals, insurance investigators, collections agents, private security guards or military intelligence officers, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.
Munger became a P.I. because of his thirst to re-enter detective work.
"The best job in the police department was detective, a plainclothes detective investigating major crimes," said Munger, who worked 25 years at LPD before retiring as captain. He craved "the hands-on work, getting out there, interviewing witnesses, inductive-deductive reasoning, drawing inferences and putting the jigsaw together."
Most of Munger's work has been for about a dozen defense attorneys, in which he plays the counterpart of the role he used to play as an officer. Prosecuting attorneys use police detectives to investigate their half of the case.
"I have met an entire class of people as a private investigator that probably would not have talked to me as a sworn police officer," he said.
"I'm a big believer in the criminal justice system," Munger said. "I now have the full appreciation for both sides of that chessboard."
His admiration of checks and balances was heightened by a recent defense case he investigated.
"Four people were being confronted by police. Let's call them A, B, C and D. The police were told a consistent version of events by A, B, C and D, pointing the finger of blame at person E."
Person A actually committed the crime, but person E was arrested and charged, Munger said.
"They conspired, not to get E in trouble, but to protect person A," he said. "Weeks later, when E is facing trial and has a defense attorney, I interview him and he tells me what happened."
A, B, C and D developed a guilty conscience and admitted to Munger they lied to police, he said.
"In my heart of hearts, I don't think today they would have gone to police," he said. "But I was perceived as a non-threat. I couldn't arrest them. ... Without an investigator, I don't know what would have happened. E would likely been convicted for a crime he did not do."
Wide range of investigative work
Common P.I. cases include insurance fraud, accident investigations, background checks, finding missing people, checking on children's welfare during child-custody disputes, and proving or disproving infidelity.
"I'll be honest, sitting in a chair at a computer terminal, doing searching and phone calling, is not as fun as the gumshoe detective work I did at LPD," Munger said. "I like the human connection."
"The boringest jobs I have are the following of husbands and wives," Uhlich said. "Most of the time it's just sitting and waiting. They already know who it is; they just want to confirm their suspicions. They've done a lot of their own homework."
Munger's fees range from $35 to $55 an hour, "depending on who's paying, what I'm doing, what are the risk factors, and if it's a private citizen vs. courts vs. an attorney."
Uhlich charges $50 an hour for most jobs.
"Some jobs I'll bid, if it's going to be a pretty big one," he said.
Uhlich, 59, also is a former police officer, retiring from LPD in 1981. He was playing golf with a judge and a prosecutor when they talked him into becoming a private detective.
For the past 15 years, Uhlich has also worked as a corrections officer at the jail. He doesn't take on criminal cases, imagining how unpleasant it might be to guard an inmate whose case he worked on.
"My bosses don't allow it, and I understand," he said. He can't abuse his status as a county employee to dip into county records, and police officers who moonlight in civil P.I. work aren't allowed to use the police database, he said.
Nor do former officers abuse their connections, Munger said.
"No way would I corrupt the system by asking for favors or special treatment," he said. "I know the rules. I'm not a cop in private investigator clothes."
Hunting for Krystle
The Krystle Cook murder case started as a civil investigation.
For the first two weeks after the teenager disappeared, her grandmother, Delores Cook, and Krystle's aunt Dee Cook did the detective work themselves.
"We went everywhere," Delores Cook said. The women set up surveillance at the Bridgegate Apartments where Michael Andes, who dated Krystle's mother, told Longview police he dropped the girl off.
"Then we started going down drug alleys and knocking on windows," she said. "That was OK. We were so into trying to find her. Then we needed a more professional angle, someone who could get through the cracks we couldn't."
They hired Uhlich after another investigator took $1,200 from them and disappeared.
"A private investigator can be very helpful, but you have to check them out and get a good one," Cook said. She estimates she spent about $40,000 trying to find Krystle, with about $13,000 to $15,000 of that going to Uhlich, who pursued the case for more than a year.
"The biggest thing about hiring a private investigator is you've got the control," Cook said. "You're paying them. You don't have control when you have to go through the police department."
She's not faulting police, she said, but their hands are tied by rules. For example, as long as false reports kept coming in about Krystle being seen, police had to treat the case as a low-priority runaway. And police couldn't do a search without evidence to justify it.
"We, with a private investigator, could do that," she said.
She said Uhlich worked tirelessly, traveling to every place where Krystle had supposedly been seen (she actually was killed the day she disappeared).
"I even went to Tacoma, masquerading as a bum, because someone said they had seen her up there," Uhlich said.
"Then I interviewed the ex-boyfriend of Angela's a couple of times, 'cause he was the last one seen with Krystle," said Uhlich, referring to Andes. "Each time his story changed."
Uhlich drove to every spot Andes said he went the day Krystle disappeared, timing every drive. He got Andes' phone records to check his alibis.
"I proved it was impossible for him to be at the places he said he was at," said Uhlich. "I went to Longview police and said, 'This isn't a missing person, it's a murder.' "
He let Longview police take the lead on the case at that point. A year after Krystle's murder, Michael Andes' father ratted on his son and led police to Krystle's remains in Rainier. Andes was convicted in 2002 in a trial that presented evidence Uhlich collected.
P.I.s are as busy as they want to be
Both Uhlich and Munger intend to continue working as P.I.s as long as they enjoy it. Uhlich said he'll probably start taking some criminal cases in six years --- once he retires from the corrections department at age 65.
"I keep myself busy," Uhlich said. "Sometimes you have to work certain hours, but you can also work your own hours on a lot of jobs. It's not a thing where you've got to be there eight hours a day."
Munger said, "I've very much enjoyed this next career. I guess I wasn't sure how busy I was going to be. I wasn't sure how busy I wanted to be. I have now found -- in retirement, if a person wants to do nothing, that's pretty easy. If a person wants to put in an 80-hour work week, that's not difficult either."
On the Net:
More information about private investigators is on the U.S. Department of Labor's Occupational Outlook Handbook at http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos157.htm#training/
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