When someone dies under unexplained or unexpected circumstances, families can feel fraught with anger and frustration. How could such a thing have happened? When will those responsible be brought to account? While patience may feel like a resource that is impossible to muster at this difficult time, the work of the death investigator is critical to the conviction of the guilty and the protection of the innocent. For true justice to be served, the truth must be brought to light.
With that in mind, today we are going to look at what the death investigation process involves—because understanding what is happening and why can take some of that distinctly painful bite out of the process. If you are facing such a challenging reality as you read this, hopefully our guide will provide at least a little vital peace of mind.
How a Death Investigator Serves the Bereaved
All too often, when someone dies, the circumstances surrounding the tragedy remain unpleasantly murky. Was it an unfortunate workplace accident or a dreadful case of negligence? What it a wrongful death or a homicide? An accidental overdose or a suicide? These harrowing questions can have dramatic implications for survivors, ranging from whether criminal proceedings might follow to whether a much-needed life insurance policy will pay out.
It is the role of the death investigator to reveal critical facts so that every question mark can be eliminated. At various stages of the the death investigation process, this mantle may be carried by a coroner or medical examiner, a law enforcement officer or agent, or a private investigator tasked with following clues that would otherwise be left to go cold.
It is important to know that, no matter the conclusions drawn as the investigatory process unfolds, there are always options available to continue pursuit of the truth. The first step, however, is to allow the coroner or medical examiner to do their work—so what exactly does that entail.
The First Stages of the Death Investigation Process
When somebody dies in a way that is unexplained, unexpected, violent, or due to an potentially infectious disease or pathogen, the very first action taken is to investigate the death scene, and this responsibility falls primarily upon the local coroner’s or medical examiner’s office.
A coroner or medical examiner will make an assessment as to whether police should be involved—if they aren’t already—and will document the scene, taking photographs and gathering evidence. They may also be the ones who track down next of kin to inform them of what has happened. Once this stage of the investigation reaches the appropriate point, they will arrange the removal of the body.
If it is considered pertinent, the coroner or medical examiner will conduct an examination of the body and potentially also order a post-mortem. A certified forensic pathologist will conduct the post-mortem exam, and may send samples to a lab for analysis in order to reveal more about the cause of death.
Once the coroner or medical examiner is ready to draw a conclusion on the manner of death, they will issue a death certificate. From there, if foul play is suspected, police or federal investigators will continue to investigate circumstances surrounding the death in order to build a case for prosecution and bring potential perpetrators to justice.
As the Death Investigation Process Progresses
If no crime is detected and nothing about the death warrants further investigative intervention by the state, the case of your loved one will be officially closed. If the police investigation evolves into a homicide, negligence, or wrongful death investigation, resources will be applied based on the scope and nature of the crime—hopefully moving towards resolution and the desperately needed answers that survivors are bound to be waiting for.
Unfortunately, at times, those left behind after a death are left feeling underserved by the authorities, dissatisfied with a coroner’s conclusion, or infuriated when the police seem to move onto other cases. If this is your reality, an independent death investigator from a private investigations firm can be the best candidate to pick up pursuit of the facts and right any wrongs that may have occurred along the way.
When investigating a death of any kind, a private investigator from Lauth Investigations International will comb through every piece of information available and roll out every resource in their toolkit to bring to light what others have missed. National licensure means that we can hunt through information databases on a par with those used by law enforcement—gaining insights that would never be available to survivors seeking answers alone.
By reexamining witnesses, analyzing evidence afresh, and pursuing new physical and digital leads, we can continue to fight for justice on your behalf, whether other avenues are exhausted or ongoing. If your loved one’s case remains open with the police, a private investigator can enter into collaboration with the authorities, bringing fresh eyes and enthusiasm to the search. So, if you require assistance with a death investigation, don’t hesitate to reach out. Our dedicated team are waiting for your call and can give no-commitment guidance on your options. Get in contact today to learn more about how we can help.
When faced with thoughts of the loss of a loved one, we’d all hope that their cause of death would be fully understood and investigated if the need ever arose. It is the role of the Coroner or Medical Examiner’s office—and potentially law enforcement, too—to uncover the facts when the manner of a death is not immediately apparent. But what can the bereaved do if their gut tells them that the facts haven’t been illuminated? In these unwelcome situations, a suspicious death investigator can be the ally required to turn the search lights back on, and reveal what remains unseen.
A death investigation is a vital process, because what appears to be apparent suicide may in fact be a natural death, and what appears to be unsuspicious may actually be criminal. For those left behind, a lingering question mark can be a brutal burden to bear. Survivors can raise and pursue their concerns with the authorities and will hopefully get authentic answers quickly, but a private investigator with extensive experience in conducting death investigations provides opportunity for those who feel powerless to reclaim some control over the journey of loss.
The Navigation of a Death Investigation
When someone dies under suspicious or simply obscure circumstances, it’s vital to know that the jurisdiction of the coroner begins before they are even alerted. It is essential that concerned parties engage in following the letter of the law—as knowingly failing to notify the coroner or enforcement agency of a death that later warrants an investigation is a punishable infraction. However, while those tasked with the investigation carry out their work, turning to other sources of support and initiating an independent suspicious death investigation is a ready option to anyone feeling let down by the usual channels.
All too often, misidentified or unresolved cases of accident, wrongful death, suicide, or homicide are left languishing in a pile of papers as family and friends remain stuck in limbo. When the coroner’s verdict doesn’t sit right or the police fall short on the resources necessary to find the truths you seek, it is reassuring to know that a private investigator’s duty is to you above all else—they only stop digging when you tell them to, and they’ll enlist every investigative resource in their toolkit to uncover new leads and gather fresh evidence.
How a Private Investigator Takes Action in a Death Investigation
The role of a private investigator and the police in the case of suspicious death investigations is different in some ways, however in others it is very much aligned. Licenced private investigators have access to many of the same resources and information databases that law enforcement do. Meanwhile, in certain instances, their capacity extends further—as they follow trails of evidence over state lines where police jurisdiction might end, or continue to comb for leads when the authorities’ resources would be pulled towards other cases.
At times, private investigators may work alongside or collaborate with the authorities, doubling down on the effort to bring the facts to light. At others, they pick up where a traditional investigation left off, ensuring that loved ones achieve the sense of justice and truth that they deserve. Armed with forensic skills, surveillance tools, honed interpersonal expertise, and the capacity to perform background checks—among an array of other resources—the PI often finds crucial threads to pull upon that the coroner or police missed.
Suspicious death investigators from Lauth Investigations International draw on more than 30 years experience in a broad array of investigatory capacities, including finding missing persons, resolving unsolved homicides, and revealing concealed crimes. We understand fully the impact that these types of cases can have on those whose life they touch, and approach every case with compassion and dedication. If your instincts are telling you that all is not right and you would like assistance in a death investigation, our impassioned team of private investigators is here to help. You can connect with us at any time for a no-obligation consultation, so reach out today and discover more about how we can serve you in this difficult time.
Private investigators are invaluable to bringing crucial context to many matters of private citizens every day. However, one of the ways private investigators can have a huge impact is by serving as a second pair of eyes in both death investigations and unsolved homicides. Families of subjects in unsolved death investigations often go years without closure in their loved ones’ cases. Hiring a private investigator in a death investigation can provide the answers necessary to attain justice.
Whether it’s an unsolved homicide, or a death investigation, it’s always worth it to get more than one set of eyes on any case. Any human investigator is susceptible to tunnel vision or bias, but private investigators have an edge over law enforcement. One of the top reasons law enforcement may be unable to uncover answers in a homicide or death investigation is the lack of attention they are able to give each case. The average police department investigator can have as many as 30 cases on their desk at any given time, which means their total attention must be divided 30 times. The average private investigator handles between 3-4 cases at any given time, meaning each case gets the attention it deserves. This means a private investigator looking into a death investigation—even years after the fact—may see something that the original investigator did not observe.
A typical detractor in unsolved homicides or death investigations is time itself. The more time passes between a death and the onset of the investigation, the more time there is for witnesses to disappear, evidence to erode, and valuable leads to be lost to the tick of the clock. The same machinations that allow a caseload to hinder investigations are the same that allow bureaucracy to drive a wedge further between an investigator and the truth. Law enforcement officers who investigate death investigations are subject to a chain of command and red tape designed to protect the public at large. However, private investigators are not subject to that same chain of command. Most private investigators are either self-employed or only answer to one other supervisor above them, depending on the structure of their firm. This means that most private investigators are given a degree of autonomy unlike anything present in law enforcement. Private investigators can pursue leads and courses of action within a death investigation without having to fight the red tape.
Lauth Investigations International is passionate about applying their intelligence-gathering disciplines to unsolved homicides and death investigations. Our comprehensive field investigations and thorough reports can give families closure and answer long-pondered questions as to the fate of their loved ones. We have a 90% success rate across all of our casework, and carry a glowing A+ rating with the Better Business Bureau. For more information, please visit us online at www.lauthinveststg.wpengine.com.
Every week there are new stories in the news about teenagers who have either run away or been kidnapped. When parents see these tragedies play out through media coverage, there’s usually one common thread running through their minds, “This could not happen to my child.” Despite statistics on the demographics most often affected by missing or runaway teens, no family is immune. Parents of a missing child or teen will most certainly have never found themselves in these frightful circumstances before and be at a loss for how to proceed. In addition to filing a report with police, the parents might also consider hiring a private investigator to conduct an independent, concurrent investigation. Finding missing teens is not always the speciality of an individual law enforcement agency, which means your child could fall through the cracks. Finding missing teens is not easy, especially when they do not want to be found. That’s why many families rely on the independent tenacity of private investigators to find their missing teens. Should you hire a private investigator to locate your missing or runaway child?
An Overwhelming Task
The Office of Justice Programs estimates the first 48 hours after your child goes missing are the most crucial in the timeline of any investigation. During these moments, your instinct might be to go find the child yourself or help conduct searches; however, as a parent or guardian of a missing child, your information is the most crucial. A 1982 congressional mandate requires law enforcement to immediately take a report following the disappearance of a child under the age of 18. However, recent reports estimate the excess of some 800,000 missing persons cases reported every year, 85-90% of those cases are individuals under the age of 18. What this statistic tells us is law enforcement, in most parts of the country, are overwhelmed by a caseload (with some departments averaging over 40 cases per investigator) leaving your missing child as a file amidst a stack of equally devastating missing child cases. As law enforcement agencies across the country remain stretched, missing child cases—especially ones where the child appears to have run away—are not always the first priority, as investigators attempt to perform a triage regarding which case requires their attention the most. Private investigators only average between three and four cases at any given time, meaning your child’s case will be at the top of their list of priorities. During the crucial FIRST 48 hours, having a private investigator treat your case as a priority can be the difference between acquiring invaluable information and losing a lead.
Constitutional Red Tape
One of the glowing advantages of hiring a private investigator to find your missing child or teen is the fact PIs possess far more autonomy than the average law enforcement officer or investigator. For instance, when a suspect has been identified, law enforcement often must secure a warrant for them to be tracked as the investigation unfolds. Paperwork and bureaucracy within the chain of command can cause the wheels of justice to turn slowly in regards to local or state law enforcement. Not only are PI’s not required to file this sort of paperwork, but they can also do so without the supervision of a governing law enforcement administration, so the case progression is not stalled for lack of warrant or administration approval.
The Binds of Jurisdiction
With a private investigator conducting an independent, concurrent investigation, there will never be any issues of jurisdiction when pursuing leads. Say your family lives in Indiana, but while on an out-of-state family vacation, your child goes missing in a crowd. As missing and abducted children across state or even international borders, local law enforcement exponentially lose power to follow leads maybe illuminating the child’s whereabouts. It is also not uncommon for two or more law enforcement agencies to enter a tug of war when it comes to who has jurisdiction over a particular case based on the specific circumstances. This can lead to the loss of leads or time as agencies hash out the details. Private investigators are never bound by jurisdictional bureaucracy. They can travel between states following the trail of a missing child, all without having to file any paperwork or obtain special permissions from superiors.
While law enforcement may have a wealth of experience and exclusive tools at their disposal, it’s important to remember that these civil servants are often overwhelmed with an immense case-load and can only do so much when it comes to the constitutional and jurisdictional boundaries they cannot cross. Private investigators have the expertise and similar tools of law enforcement, while also having the time to treat your case as a top priority.
Carie McMichael is the Communications and Media Specialist for Lauth Investigations International, writing about investigative topics such as missing persons and corporate investigations. For more information on missing persons topics, please visit our website.
Why Private Investigators Have an Advantage Over Police
For months, the family of 5-year-old Lucas Hernandez wondered if they would ever have answers in his mysterious disappearance. On the day he disappeared, he was left in the care of his father’s girlfriend, Emily Glass. In the missing persons report, Glass told investigators on February 17th, 2018, she saw Lucas playing in his room around three in the afternoon. She then took a shower and fell asleep. When she awoke around six in the evening, Lucas was nowhere to be found.
Law enforcement in Wichita investigated for months, unearthing no credible leads into Lucas’ disappearance. Months later, on May 24th, locals were shocked after a private investigator blew the case wide open by informing law enforcement Emily Glass had led them to the decomposing remains of little Lucas under a nearby bridge. Why would Glass, after dealing with law enforcement for months, only then break her silence regarding her knowledge of the little boy’s body? The answer is as simple as this: Private investigators have advantages law enforcement do not when it comes to conducting concurrent independent investigations in criminal and missing persons cases.
So how is a private investigator’s approach different from the approach of a local, state, or federal law enforcement agency? The first thing to consider is the caseload of most law enforcement agencies. From the moment an initial report is made, in both criminal and missing persons cases, law enforcement have the meticulous and overwhelming task of gathering evidence to build a case that will secure justice on behalf of the victims and the state. Crime scenes need to be mined for evidence by medical examiners and crime scene technicians. Detectives and other investigators need to canvass witnesses—sometimes dozens of people—in the area who might have seen or heard something. Now imagine the workload of one case multiplied by 40 or 50 times. An audit conducted in Portland Oregon in 2007 reviewed law enforcement data from Portland itself, and nine other surrounding cities, to conclude the average caseload for a detective in Portland was a median of 54. This is compared to a 5-year average of 56 cases. Knowing statistics like these are similar in law enforcement agencies all across the country, it’s easy to see how the progress of cases might slow to a crawl. Agencies are overwhelmed, and this is where private investigators have the advantage. Private investigators may only handle one or two cases at a time, giving them their full focus and attention. Wichita law enforcement might have faced similar challenges of an overwhelming caseload when it came to investigating Lucas Hernandez’s disappearance. An article released by the Wichita Eagle in mid-December of 2017 revealed, as of publication, there were still ten homicides from the year 2017 remaining unsolved as the new year approached.
Another compelling advantage for private investigators might initially sound like a disadvantage: Private investigators have no powers of arrest. It seems counter-intuitive that a private investigator may use the same tools as law enforcement, ask the same questions, and may even come to the same conclusion as law enforcement without the ability to arrest a suspect for the crime. However, the case of Hernandez showcased exactly why a private investigator—and their inability to arrest—broke the case wide open. Jim Murray of Star Investigations told KMBC News in Kansas, “We’re less of a threat sometimes to people that we’re talking to because we have no powers of arrest,” said Jim. “We can’t arrest them.” This could explain why Emily Glass finally led a private investigator to Lucas’s body, because she knew they could not put handcuffs on her in that moment.
Unfortunately, family members and locals will never have the truth about what happened to Lucas. In the wake of the private investigator’s discovery, autopsy reports were found to be inconsistent with what Glass told both police and the PI, but before the People could build a case against her, Glass was found dead from an apparent suicide. However, were it not for the efforts of the private investigator, Lucas’s father may never have had answers in his son’s disappearance.
Carie McMichael is the Communications and Media Specialist for Lauth Investigations International, writing about investigative topics such as missing persons and corporate investigations. To learn more about what we do, please visit our website.
Unfortunately, family members and locals will never have the truth about what happened to Lucas. In the wake of the private investigator’s discovery, autopsy reports were found to be inconsistent with what Glass told both police and the PI, but before the People could build a case against her, Glass was found dead from an apparent suicide. However, were it not for the efforts of the private investigator, Lucas’s father may never have had answers in his son’s disappearance.