Private eyes come clean
By John Quinlan, Journal staff writer | Posted: Sunday, July 15, 2007
Private investigator Jim Oien is shown keeping his eyes on things at his Sioux City office. (Staff photo by Tim Hynds)
He walks the mean streets of Sioux City. And Kingsley. And Holstein. An Iowa shamus, seasoned by time, he saunters into the local saloon, looking like he stepped off the pages of GQ. Gumshoes Quarterly, that is. The look in his eyes spells trouble. And her perfume lingers in his memory, like the song that haunted Bogie in that old movie. "You're dumber than you think I think you are," he quips to the dame's sawed-off gunsel. He always quips. It's what PIs do. But he's there to do a job, and no dame is going to get in his way.
Such is the stuff that dreams are made of.
In the movies and dime novels, anyway.
But when Burt Duquette, Jim Oien and Bill Barbee wake up from those film-noirish dreams, they find real life every bit as fascinating. Even if the dames they see daily are no more dangerous than their wives or granddaughters, or the waitress at their favorite coffee shop.
Such is the life of a private eye. He of the nonfictional variety. And these are three of Sioux City's finest, Or at least three sherlocks willing to spill their guts to the Journal.
Who are they?
Burt Duquette is the new kid on the block. Though 51, he started Confidential Investigations just four years ago. Then a self-employed construction worker, he won a court judgment against someone who owed him money and found out how hard it was to actually collect on the debt. He learned that private investigators had access to certain computer databases denied the general public that could help him collect on his judgment. Fascinated by the whole process, the mystery lover took a private investigators course in California and hung up his PI shingle, working out of his home office after seeing little drop-in business at a couple of regular office locations. The job also gives him a chance to use his head more than his body, a concern to someone entering his 50s.
All three private investigators are licensed by the Iowa Department of Public Safety. But Oien and Barbee have been in the business much longer, both operating out of downtown offices.
Oien, 60, started the Talon Agency, 520 Nebraska St., Suite 325, as a collection agency in 1988 with a partner who left the firm five years later. He soon moved beyond collections into regular PI work. Today, it is just Oien and his longtime assistant, Donna Peterson, and they do a little bit of everything, from surveillance to repo work, process serving, background checks and skip tracing.
Barbee, who admits to being over 40, started Intra-Lex Investigations Inc., 505 Fifth St., Suite 331, nearly 25 years ago, and is the only one of the three with previous law enforcement experience. "I started very, very young," the Siouxland native said. "I first started carrying a gun and a badge when I was 17 years old, and I've been doing it since."
He declined to say whether he still carries a gun. Oien and Duquette work unarmed, though Oien has a gun permit and, on rare occasions, has gone armed on an assignment. All three say they do everything they can to avoid violent encounters during the course of their sometimes dangerous work. And thus far they have succeeded.
The right to leave
While they generally agree that popular TV and movie PIs tend to glamorize the job, occasionally they get something right. One such instance is the attitude of Jim Rockford, the laid-back TV investigator played by James Garner years ago. "The thing I liked about Rockford," Barbee said, "was that he recognized that he didn't have to be there. And that's one of the big advantages of being an investigator. You can leave and call in people that have to be there, and that's the police."
During surveillance work, private investigators can be in places police tend to avoid because of constitutional prohibitions, elements of the law that don't apply to PIs, Barbee said. "But on the other hand, when there's real trouble, I can leave if I have to," he said.
Duquette said he has never felt threatened while doing surveillance work, though he has been the recipient of harsh words on occasion as a process server, serving legal papers on individuals. "But, you know, I'm just a messenger, I tell them," he said. "I hate to disappoint you, but it's pretty boring. Some of it! I mean I enjoy looking and doing the searches for people, and that kind of thing. Of course, it's nothing like you see on TV. No gunfights, that kind of thing."
Oien, a man who has gained a reputation as the "polite repo man," has also been verbally abused, but it's never gone past the verbal stages.
Being a private investigator is basically being a researcher, Duquette said,
Oien agreed, saying he does much of his research these days on the Internet, though occasionally he has to pound the pavement, doing routine surveillance work or going door to door asking questions.
Oftentimes it involves going over the same ground that police have already covered, though taking a different tack on the investigation, the local PIs said.
Knowing where to look
Public records, often available over the Internet, make their work easier. The skill comes in knowing where to look, Oien said, still amazed at what he can pick up from the World Wide Web.
"For instance, in a recent asset discovery case, we were able to find a million dollars' worth of land that somebody had that didn't show in the different searches, like through some folks in the assessors' offices and things like that," he said
His client had hired a company to do land title searches, but that wasn't enough.
"We did the searches online and found a million dollars' worth of property that wasn't listed in those places they had," he said.
Through information provided by PI associations and periodicals such as P.I. Magazine, local PIs have access to helpful new databases all the time, in addition to the private databases available only to private investigators and law enforcement agencies. Licensed PIs, for instance, have access to driver's license and motor vehicle registration information.
One colleague, he noted, has even figured out a way to trace the home addresses of e-mail senders, something once believed impossible.
"Our business is knowing how to get information and having links to information," basically putting the pieces of the puzzle together, Oien said.
Barbee agreed.
"Basically you need to be functional to do your job. You need appropriate education and background, a lot of dedication and flexibility and the ability to cross-reference a lot of information," he said.
Barbee does a lot of case agent-type work in the federal court system, working for the Department of Justice, mostly for the defense. "You're working in the defense capacity, appointed by the courts to basically do again what the federal agencies or police agencies don't have the manpower or time to do."
Such investigative work requires an extensive knowledge and understanding of the law "because you're a servant to the law, and you can know everything in the world, and if you can't deliver it in a professional manner and intelligent fashion into the courtroom, then you're totally dysfunctional as an investigator," he said.
This occasionally puts him in an adversarial position with law enforcement officials. "But the professionalism in the law enforcement community is when we work together, justice is the end objective -- truth and justice," Barbee said.
"As a defense investigator, you see firsthand what happens when police make mistakes and how devastating it is to people's lives. Unfortunately, the police are only human," he said.
Oien said sometimes police investigators discount something that the defense may find very important. And since it isn't in the police report that is made available to the defense, PIs must conduct their own witness interviews.
No promises
When taking on a new client, good private investigators make no promises. They guarantee no results, only that they will try to find the information requested. Taking a retainer, they charge for their time.
Duquette has done a lot of missing person cases, but he won't just hand over the missing person's whereabouts to his client -- unless it is the kind of skip tracing in which he is working for a debt collection agency or bail bondsman.
"You don't always know what's going on there," he said. "The client could be a stalker, especially if it's a guy looking for an old girlfriend or that kind of thing. I will tell them, 'I will contact the person for you and let them know that you are looking for them. And is it OK for them to contact you?' I want to avoid any problems because that would be the worst thing I could think of is to lead some nut to a person who would end up being a victim."
Oien noted a 1999 case in New Hampshire in which a PI was paid $150 to find a woman named Amy Boyer. He found her and gave the info to his client, a stalker who then tracked her down and killed her. That led to the introduction of Amy Boyer's Law in Congress that would have prohibited such investigative practices. It was ultimately removed from an appropriations bill.
"When I'm talking to somebody and they want to find somebody, I ask them for a permissible purpose," Oien said. "In other words, why is it you want me to find this person?"
His typical modus operandi is to find the person, then ask if the person wants to be contacted by his client. He gives the found person the option of contacting his client.
"It's important to do those things because I have some standards, and that's what we're looking for in the industry is to have some standards, to have some people who will act responsibly. You've got to be licensed. You're professional, and you need to act like a professional," he said.
Some less-than-professional private investigators can tarnish the reputation of the others by seeming to be in it just to make a buck, he said. "We had one of them in our association that got caught breaking into a psychiatrist's office, went to jail for it." he said. "You can get the information in a lot of ways, but you do it illegally, you're going to get caught sooner or later. It's a done deal."
It's always a thrill when the pieces of the puzzle start coming together, Oien said. It's like when the light bulb appears over a cartoon character.
Then, "I really enjoy what I'm doing," he said.
STAKEOUTS
Such is the stuff that dreams are made of.
In the movies and dime novels, anyway.
But when Burt Duquette, Jim Oien and Bill Barbee wake up from those film-noirish dreams, they find real life every bit as fascinating. Even if the dames they see daily are no more dangerous than their wives or granddaughters, or the waitress at their favorite coffee shop.
Such is the life of a private eye. He of the nonfictional variety. And these are three of Sioux City's finest, Or at least three sherlocks willing to spill their guts to the Journal.
Who are they?
Burt Duquette is the new kid on the block. Though 51, he started Confidential Investigations just four years ago. Then a self-employed construction worker, he won a court judgment against someone who owed him money and found out how hard it was to actually collect on the debt. He learned that private investigators had access to certain computer databases denied the general public that could help him collect on his judgment. Fascinated by the whole process, the mystery lover took a private investigators course in California and hung up his PI shingle, working out of his home office after seeing little drop-in business at a couple of regular office locations. The job also gives him a chance to use his head more than his body, a concern to someone entering his 50s.
All three private investigators are licensed by the Iowa Department of Public Safety. But Oien and Barbee have been in the business much longer, both operating out of downtown offices.
Oien, 60, started the Talon Agency, 520 Nebraska St., Suite 325, as a collection agency in 1988 with a partner who left the firm five years later. He soon moved beyond collections into regular PI work. Today, it is just Oien and his longtime assistant, Donna Peterson, and they do a little bit of everything, from surveillance to repo work, process serving, background checks and skip tracing.
Barbee, who admits to being over 40, started Intra-Lex Investigations Inc., 505 Fifth St., Suite 331, nearly 25 years ago, and is the only one of the three with previous law enforcement experience. "I started very, very young," the Siouxland native said. "I first started carrying a gun and a badge when I was 17 years old, and I've been doing it since."
He declined to say whether he still carries a gun. Oien and Duquette work unarmed, though Oien has a gun permit and, on rare occasions, has gone armed on an assignment. All three say they do everything they can to avoid violent encounters during the course of their sometimes dangerous work. And thus far they have succeeded.
The right to leave
While they generally agree that popular TV and movie PIs tend to glamorize the job, occasionally they get something right. One such instance is the attitude of Jim Rockford, the laid-back TV investigator played by James Garner years ago. "The thing I liked about Rockford," Barbee said, "was that he recognized that he didn't have to be there. And that's one of the big advantages of being an investigator. You can leave and call in people that have to be there, and that's the police."
During surveillance work, private investigators can be in places police tend to avoid because of constitutional prohibitions, elements of the law that don't apply to PIs, Barbee said. "But on the other hand, when there's real trouble, I can leave if I have to," he said.
Duquette said he has never felt threatened while doing surveillance work, though he has been the recipient of harsh words on occasion as a process server, serving legal papers on individuals. "But, you know, I'm just a messenger, I tell them," he said. "I hate to disappoint you, but it's pretty boring. Some of it! I mean I enjoy looking and doing the searches for people, and that kind of thing. Of course, it's nothing like you see on TV. No gunfights, that kind of thing."
Oien, a man who has gained a reputation as the "polite repo man," has also been verbally abused, but it's never gone past the verbal stages.
Being a private investigator is basically being a researcher, Duquette said,
Oien agreed, saying he does much of his research these days on the Internet, though occasionally he has to pound the pavement, doing routine surveillance work or going door to door asking questions.
Oftentimes it involves going over the same ground that police have already covered, though taking a different tack on the investigation, the local PIs said.
Knowing where to look
Public records, often available over the Internet, make their work easier. The skill comes in knowing where to look, Oien said, still amazed at what he can pick up from the World Wide Web.
"For instance, in a recent asset discovery case, we were able to find a million dollars' worth of land that somebody had that didn't show in the different searches, like through some folks in the assessors' offices and things like that," he said
His client had hired a company to do land title searches, but that wasn't enough.
"We did the searches online and found a million dollars' worth of property that wasn't listed in those places they had," he said.
Through information provided by PI associations and periodicals such as P.I. Magazine, local PIs have access to helpful new databases all the time, in addition to the private databases available only to private investigators and law enforcement agencies. Licensed PIs, for instance, have access to driver's license and motor vehicle registration information.
One colleague, he noted, has even figured out a way to trace the home addresses of e-mail senders, something once believed impossible.
"Our business is knowing how to get information and having links to information," basically putting the pieces of the puzzle together, Oien said.
Barbee agreed.
"Basically you need to be functional to do your job. You need appropriate education and background, a lot of dedication and flexibility and the ability to cross-reference a lot of information," he said.
Barbee does a lot of case agent-type work in the federal court system, working for the Department of Justice, mostly for the defense. "You're working in the defense capacity, appointed by the courts to basically do again what the federal agencies or police agencies don't have the manpower or time to do."
Such investigative work requires an extensive knowledge and understanding of the law "because you're a servant to the law, and you can know everything in the world, and if you can't deliver it in a professional manner and intelligent fashion into the courtroom, then you're totally dysfunctional as an investigator," he said.
This occasionally puts him in an adversarial position with law enforcement officials. "But the professionalism in the law enforcement community is when we work together, justice is the end objective -- truth and justice," Barbee said.
"As a defense investigator, you see firsthand what happens when police make mistakes and how devastating it is to people's lives. Unfortunately, the police are only human," he said.
Oien said sometimes police investigators discount something that the defense may find very important. And since it isn't in the police report that is made available to the defense, PIs must conduct their own witness interviews.
No promises
When taking on a new client, good private investigators make no promises. They guarantee no results, only that they will try to find the information requested. Taking a retainer, they charge for their time.
Duquette has done a lot of missing person cases, but he won't just hand over the missing person's whereabouts to his client -- unless it is the kind of skip tracing in which he is working for a debt collection agency or bail bondsman.
"You don't always know what's going on there," he said. "The client could be a stalker, especially if it's a guy looking for an old girlfriend or that kind of thing. I will tell them, 'I will contact the person for you and let them know that you are looking for them. And is it OK for them to contact you?' I want to avoid any problems because that would be the worst thing I could think of is to lead some nut to a person who would end up being a victim."
Oien noted a 1999 case in New Hampshire in which a PI was paid $150 to find a woman named Amy Boyer. He found her and gave the info to his client, a stalker who then tracked her down and killed her. That led to the introduction of Amy Boyer's Law in Congress that would have prohibited such investigative practices. It was ultimately removed from an appropriations bill.
"When I'm talking to somebody and they want to find somebody, I ask them for a permissible purpose," Oien said. "In other words, why is it you want me to find this person?"
His typical modus operandi is to find the person, then ask if the person wants to be contacted by his client. He gives the found person the option of contacting his client.
"It's important to do those things because I have some standards, and that's what we're looking for in the industry is to have some standards, to have some people who will act responsibly. You've got to be licensed. You're professional, and you need to act like a professional," he said.
Some less-than-professional private investigators can tarnish the reputation of the others by seeming to be in it just to make a buck, he said. "We had one of them in our association that got caught breaking into a psychiatrist's office, went to jail for it." he said. "You can get the information in a lot of ways, but you do it illegally, you're going to get caught sooner or later. It's a done deal."
It's always a thrill when the pieces of the puzzle start coming together, Oien said. It's like when the light bulb appears over a cartoon character.
Then, "I really enjoy what I'm doing," he said.
STAKEOUTS
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Bill Jones wrote on Jul 16, 2007 8:16 AM: