A skip trace usually doesn’t go like it does in the movie or books. If someone has jumped bail, or taken off with a bunch of money or information, or just disappeared mysteriously, there is rarely a chase scene that leads to lots of mayhem.

In fact, most skip trace work is done on the phone and the computer, with the private investigator tapping private and public resources and relationships in order to find the most likely place the fugitive might have landed.

Here’s USAJOBS.gov video on finding a missing person. The work that they’ve done in helping people and agencies has been amazing.

Once a list of potential destinations is put together, the PI will harness local resources or travel to the spots directly, at the preference of the client, and locate the fugitive. Taking the fugitive into custody is a service Verde can provide, but it’s not normal.

Usually the officials in the area will want to be involved in the legal capture of the person who’s on the run. In the case of missing persons who don’t want to be found, the Verde Group investigator will report this back to the client. The goal, after all, is the truth.

The most high profile skip trace case that Verde Group has been involved in took place in 1996, when Brian Alphonse was charged with locating known womanizer and erstwhile Russian restaurateur Mac Tynayt.

Mac was eventually located hiding below his own Russian eatery with his then-current girlfriend, Loretta Howard. While Alphonse was credited as the lead investigator on the job, he maintains that solve was brought by Mac’s previous lover, waitress and exotic belly dancer Belinda Hood.

Belinda’s subsequent arrest on the murder charges related to the deaths of both Mac and Loretta and her highly publicized unwillingness to budge from the trap door that held Mac and Loretta under the restaurant for two weeks led to a lot of press coverage for Alphonse.