When my dreams of being a homicide detective were dashed, I found another way to investigate unnatural deaths — and bring answers to grieving loved ones.
Before I found my way to private investigation, I first had to watch my ambition to become a homicide detective burn to the ground. I thought I was a shoo-in. I’d aced a Bachelor’s degree in criminal justice with a 4.0. I loved the topic and knew I’d carry that passion into a career in law enforcement. So I applied for a job with one of the largest police departments in the country.
My intake interview went well, Some sergeants in the department had put in a good word for me. I’d trained hard for the physical agility test.
I was ready.
And then, in rapid succession, two things happened: I fractured my leg near my kneecap, and I found out that I was pregnant with my third child.
These events completely derailed my plans. Putting three children in daycare on a police officer’s salary was a non-starter. It was going to COST me money to go to work. I felt like God/the universe was telling me, “This isn’t the job for you.” So I let the dream die and stayed home with my children for a few years.
I loved being a mom. But I was restless and still yearned for a career in criminal justice. I am also not the type to take “no” for an answer.
A close friend suggested that I “investigate” PI work.
Reader, I did.
Five years later, I’m now the owner of Prime Investigations and Legal Services LLC, leading a team of investigators. Turns out, I love being my own boss and running my investigations the way I see fit. And lots of burned-out LEO friends have told me that I made the right decision. But the values that made me want to investigate homicides for a big-city PD are still with me — as the foundation stones for my investigations practice: honesty, integrity, and respect for everyone.
And that inability to accept “no” has also served me well in my work, as you’ll see in this story.
Because little did I know that, as a private investigator, I would end up as a homicide detective of sorts, after all. I’d just be coming at death investigation from a different direction.
An Accidental Death — or Not
When I was a newly licensed PI, I got a call from a close friend, someone I had known for years. She said that she had finally broken down and taken a DNA test to trace her genealogy. For years, she had longed to find her biological parents, but she’d hesitated, afraid of what she might find.
Her fears were not unfounded.
My friend found her family. But months before she got to meet her only full-biological brother, he was found dead. His death was ruled accidental. But the family and I had solid reasons to believe that this was not an accident, and that it had, in fact, been caused with malicious intent by someone other than himself.
Why had the police not put forth even a minimal effort to verify that the death was accidental? And how was I able to figure out so easily that it was most likely a murder?
If you’ve been an investigator for longer than about ten seconds, you know that some crime victims seem to matter more than others to the powers that be. The politics of money, class, and media attention are often a factor. This family did not have a dollar to their name, and the deceased had a lengthy criminal history. So in the eyes of the police, the subject’s life had caught up to him. Case closed.
If you’ve been an investigator for longer than about ten seconds, you know that some crime victims seem to matter more than others to the powers that be.
What the police hadn’t counted on was that there was a stubborn newbie PI who yearned for homicide experience — and was willing to work the case pro bono. Honestly, I didn’t have to do much. I simply listened to the testimonies of people who had spent time with the deceased in the days before his death. They told me very interesting stories about whom he had angered and to whom he owed money.
I can’t go into greater detail, but let’s just say that my investigation developed more information. When a sheriff took a chance on my intel and agreed to look into it further, he could see what the original officers missed. Then the case was handed over to the feds.
Long story short, several people are still being investigated, and one has been charged with murder.
This was my first “unaccidenting” case. Soon there would be other cases of questionable death to investigate.
Unsuiciding
Unsuiciding – The act of reversing a cause of death determination by bringing forth evidence that contradicts suicide.
The term “unsuiciding” was coined by my friend Eli Wilkerson, a fellow PI and owner of Praxis Detective Services. We have very different styles and superpowers as private investigators, and our skills are complementary. After swapping stories during a joint case, Eli commented, “You have a way of unsuiciding people.”
I felt seen.
Eli was right: I had, more than once, conducted investigations that led to determinations of suicide being reversed, or to getting more detailed answers in cases that had previously been ruled suicides or accidents. But if I break that skill down into parts, the first important aspect is one that’s so simple, but too often overlooked: listening. People WANT to get feelings, emotions, and memories off of their chests. People want to feel like others understand them. People want to feel worthy of respect. In the case of my friend’s brother, the answer to who committed the murder was there all along, but no one was listening in the right places. No one cared enough to ask the right questions.
It all comes down to respect for everyone. And I mean EVERYONE.
A few years later, I got a similar call for help on a case — this time from a woman whose child’s death had been ruled a suicide. This mother was adamant that her son would never have intentionally pulled that trigger. When the medical examiner made the cause-of-death ruling, the mother pushed back: If her son had committed “instant” suicide, why was there a blood trail through his house? The police department had been ignoring her calls, so she called me instead.
I can fully understand a bereaved parent’s NEED to know the truth about her son’s death, to grasp at some measure of certainty that might let her pick up the pieces and carry on in life.
We’ve all had clients who are … persistent. But as a mother of four, I can fully understand a bereaved parent’s NEED to know the truth about her son’s death, to grasp at some measure of certainty that might let her pick up the pieces and carry on in life. In fact, I got pretty pushy myself, making phone calls and demanding answers on her behalf.
Ultimately, some time-stamped cell phone photos taken just minutes before his death — photos of him handling his 9mm handgun in a careless manner — demonstrated that her son had unintentionally killed himself in a tragic accident. The blood trail was caused by someone on the medical examiner’s staff. (There’s an ongoing investigation into this as well.) It soon became clear that the police didn’t want the medical examiner’s mistake getting out. I knew I could use that as leverage to pry out a little more information.
I got the client her answers. We proved that there was a lack of deliberate intent behind the “suicide.”
Which brings me to the second often overlooked aspect of this job: Advocating for a client. Sometimes, you can’t provide the answers that a bereaved loved one is looking for, but you can advocate to the police for them. Often, once law enforcement finds out that a client has a PI on the case, their attitude towards the family shifts. Suddenly, people want to be more helpful.
Each case demands a different type of advocacy, but I always start out soft.
Advocating for clients is a HUGE part of this job. Each case demands a different type of advocacy, but I always start out soft. Police work can harden people. Many officers learn to suppress emotion and may appear callous to outsiders. This is an understandable defense mechanism for people who see the worst of society day after day. So I begin by telling them I recognize the pressures and legal strictures they face.
And then I shift the conversation to my clients’ perspective:These families are in agony. And they’re counting on you, I point out.
As a female, I think I get a little more leeway when it comes to exhibiting compassion. I’ve been known to use this to my advantage. Playing up the angle of wanting to help others works wonders, and sometimes a burned-out, defensive officer can be defused by hearing more about my “why.”
I’ll take it. Whatever works.
A Complicated Truth
My most recent unsuiciding case happened out of Harris County, Texas. I had been contacted by an acquaintance whose brother was found dead in his car. The police ruled it as an overdose, but the family claimed that their brother had been clean for many years. What they did not yet know was that he had relapsed and was using heroin again.
The family was in denial about this fact and, when they learned of it, struggled to come to terms with it. They’d wanted to believe that someone had forced him to shoot up. I couldn’t give them the story they wanted. All I could do was try to find out what really happened.
It wasn’t hard to guess at the most likely answer.
Fatal fentanyl overdoses have skyrocketed in the past few years. In Harris County, someone dies from a Fetaynl overdose every single day. The problem has become so huge that there is now a specialized “overdose unit” within the police department. Many victims never knew they were taking the drug, because it’s so often mixed with other drugs, like heroin or methamphetamine.
Stepping off my soapbox … long story short, this client’s brother had not intentionally taken Fentanyl, nor tried to kill himself, and I wanted to prove it.
Maybe I made some mistakes, such as calling the drug dealer who we suspected had sold Fentanyl-laced heroin to this victim.
Looking back, maybe I made some mistakes, such as calling the drug dealer who we suspected had sold Fentanyl-laced heroin to this victim. But again, as far as I knew, no one else was really looking into the man’s death. So what did I have to lose? I kept making calls — to the narcotics overdose unit, and to the officers who handled the original scene. I requested the 911 call tapes and asked to look at photos of the items that were left in his car. I finally made enough noise that they agreed to meet with me and look over my own folder full of evidence.
As of today, charges have been brought against the dealer responsible for my client’s brother’s death. The charging complaint for his drug charges now includes the fact that his “product” killed its user. He is currently awaiting his trial in Harris County, and I hope to be there to advocate for the family throughout the trial.
If I had stopped pushing for answers for my client, this dealer would still be out there killing other people’s family members with his fentanyl-laced products. And I am truly grateful to the officer who listened to the evidence (hours of it) and verified my findings.
Sure, the officer got the credit on paper. But we got to share in the knowledge that a drug dealer will be held accountable for causing someone’s death. That is really all that matters.
Listening and Advocating
Listening and advocating. These are skills that don’t require any specialized training or certification, but they can be deployed as superpowers on behalf of your clients. In cases of deaths ruled as suicides, you’ll have to quiet your own mind (and its assumptions) and listen carefully to these grieving families — all the while, keeping in mind their fervent need to believe that their deceased loved one would never deliberately choose to die. It’s OK to share their hope that the official story isn’t the true one. But keep an open mind: You’ll also have to hear out the investigators who’ve made that determination and the people who knew a different, perhaps more complicated version of the deceased, and read between the lines of what each person is trying to tell you.
Sometimes, you’ll need to be willing to advocate and fight for information, even if, ultimately, it isn’t what the client wanted to hear. Because the most important service you can offer is your fierce advocacy for clients who feel dismissed by the system. And of course, the most important deliverable is the true story, as near as you can find, to what happened to their loved one.
The truth might not give them relief or even closure. But they’ll know they did everything they could to find it, with a fierce ally by their side. They’ll know that their loved one’s death mattered enough to YOU to stop at nothing to find out what happened.
And that’s what “respect for everyone” is all about.
About the author:
Lindsey Smith opened Prime Investigations and Legal Services in 2021 after obtaining her Master’s degree in criminal justice from Sam Houston State University. She’s a licensed private investigator and certified process server with a passion for criminal justice and psychology. Lindsey specializes in“difficult” serves and investigations.
Lindsey is a married mother of 4 children and 2 “bonus children”. In her (scant) spare time, she enjoys traveling with her family.