My husband and I dated for over four years before getting married. We were young when we got together. High school young.
I started bringing him to my huge family gatherings around Thanksgiving back in 1998. Like every family, we have a sprinkle of eccentric mixed with the usual madness large families tend to possess.
I have an uncle who is a tried and true hermit. Never been married, no kids, no property ownership to speak of other than a ramshackle dump of a place he used to call home when I was growing up.
My Uncle Brian has always been a favorite of mine. As you can imagine, the mystery that surrounds my uncle, who very rarely graces us with his presence, fascinated me to no end as a kid. Here is this man who spends all his time trapping and hunting in the thick Southwest Missouri woods of McDonald County. A little backward and quirky, but surprisingly smart and a solid conversationalist if you can catch him in his element and get him to talking about the arrowheads he makes or the latest book he’s been reading. Growing up, he and I had many-a-talk about books. Those conversations always happened when I was exploring in the woods or tucked away next to a tree somewhere, my head deep into the pages of a book.
Since my Uncle Brian never came around much (still doesn’t), my husband very quickly adopted the notion that my family and I were completely making up this “Uncle Brian” out of thin air. Hand to heart, he refused to believe Uncle Brian was a real person. This went on for four years, as he never laid eyes on my uncle in all the family get-togethers we had.
My uncle had never been to a wedding when I married my husband. But since Uncle Brian and I have always had a bit of a bond (mostly over our book reading), he actually showed up on my wedding day. My dumbfounded and disbelieving husband was truly shocked that day.
It’s difficult to believe certain things without actually experiencing or seeing those things for yourself. It didn’t matter how many times I tried convincing my husband that my Uncle Brian was a real person. He refused to believe me. The longer this went on, the more staunch my husband became in his disbelief.
As private investigators, it is absolutely imperative for us to keep an open mind during our cases, check ourselves for tunnel vision, and never assume something isn’t true just because we haven’t observed it.
When you’ve clocked 20 hours surveilling a residence and haven’t observed your subject, it doesn’t mean he doesn’t live there. He could be on vacation and a friend is house-sitting for him. He could be recovering from surgery and unable to come and go for awhile. Heck, he could be quarantining for COVID and have an aversion to the outdoors. Although you haven’t seen him around, this doesn’t mean you can definitively say he doesn’t live there.
If that suspect you are interviewing isn’t showing any of the typical signs of remorse, could it be because she is innocent? Sure. Could it be because she is a sociopath? Also possible. Could it even be that she is autistic and certainly remorseful, but doesn’t display typical signs of remorse you’ve seen with prior suspects? Yes. A doesn’t always automatically lead to B in our work. A may lead to C first, then to D, then back to B. A might never lead to B.
I conduct adoption searches on the regular and I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard these words or something similar on the other end of the line, “There’s no way my brother is your client’s birth father. I’ve never heard any family rumors that would even suggest such a thing.” Again, never assume something isn’t true just because you haven’t observed it.
My husband was (comically) absolutely convinced my Uncle Brian was an elaborate hoax my whole family was in on. If only that were true, it would be the best prank in the history of pranks. The longer this went on, the harder it became to convince my husband otherwise.
We must not allow that to happen in our work as private investigators. Be wary of tunnel vision. Consider all possibilities. Don’t assume. And don’t rule anything out until it can definitively be ruled out with solid evidence. Some legends that were assumed myths actually turn out to be authentic after all.