by Abbie Skinner
I sat down on a Sunday evening with private investigator Dave Skinner from Ashley Investigations Inc. He was tired and a little cranky, but willing to answer my questions as long as we were done by the time Mom finished making dinner. My dad, the private investigator. A couple years ago he was my dad, the lawyer, but had now exchanged his suit for jeans and a worn out T-shirt as he sprawled out on his bed. I sat down beside him, pressed play on the recorder on my phone, and started asking questions.
What exactly do you do as a private investigator?
As a private investigator I’m hired by clients to obtain information about certain people. My clients have certain situations where they need to know what someone is doing on a day to day basis and a lot of it involves verifying whether someone incurred an injury and to what extent they’re suffering from that injury and if that injury limits them from working. And so I’m hired to find that information through a number of different ways. Like surveillance on someone without them being aware, I conduct interviews on their neighbors and friends, I can interview the person themselves and I can do research through public records as to what they are doing on a day to day basis.
What is your favorite part about your job?
My favorite part is that I get to be creative. I’m trying to get information about people, usually without them knowing about it. I have to be creative in how I get that information. Whether I’m doing surveillance or I’m interviewing someone, or whether I’m making phone calls to people or talking to people face to face without them really knowing why I’m trying to get that information it takes a lot of creativity. I do a lot of research through postal office, post office, various government offices and gathering information and the most interesting part is being creative so they don’t know I’m onto them.
Have you ever been caught or discovered?
I’ve been caught a couple of times and it’s not because the person I’m investigating found out it’s because a neighbor or someone had become suspicious of seeing me and then they, uh, (pauses) figured out what I was trying to do and they told the person that I was investigating what it was about, and they were not very happy. They were very angry and violent about it.
Would that be considered your least favorite part or is there something else that you don’t like, other than being caught?
I, uh, I really love my job, but what I don’t like about it is there are times, as part of the job, that you have hours of inactivity. Someone may not be very active, though if I’m doing surveillance it may go four or five hours without them leaving the house or doing any activity but that’s usually followed up by an hour or two of pure adrenaline because once they become active and I have to be, uh, very diligent in determining what their activities are.
What are some skills you have developed through following people and trying to gather this information about them?
Well, first is preparation. I’m very good at checking sources to find out if the person is running a business or active through various sources. But then, once I’m doing surveillance, I have to be able to record video to document what they are doing. I can get video of that person without them knowing and that took a lot of practice to develop. Also, I can follow someone in a vehicle without them knowing they’re being followed and that took a lot of practice to develop as well.
Do you see yourself doing this in five years?
Yes, I do. I think I will always be doing it as part of my career. I would like to expand and do other types of investigation. And then I think I could also have investigators working for me. With the experience that I am getting I can teach other people how to do it as well and be more productive.
