Private eye job not all blondes

Investigator Davis clues the layman in

Friday, July 4, 2008

Click here to enlarge this photo File photo by GARY SMITH Lloyd Davis is a private investigator in Waldorf E-Mail This Article | Print This Story

‘‘When I need to meet a client, that is where I suggest we meet,” Davis said. ‘‘I don’t even want to know their name or phone number until after we meet, especially if it is a surveillance case. I wouldn’t want to break their confidentiality.”

Davis, a third-generation law enforcement officer, became a private investigator after he retired as a homicide detective in Washington, D.C., in 1982.

‘‘I have always wanted to be a private investigator, ever since I was a kid and would listen to ‘The Shadow,’” Davis said. ‘‘I used to go into National Detective Agency, on K Street, while I was working homicides in the area, just to look at their forms and paperwork.”

Davis received his Maryland license in 1983, after he was able to demonstrate he had seven years of investigative experience and was able to provide proof he had liability insurance.

‘‘You need 1,300 hours of experience to get certified in Virginia, and I had to get seven years of experience to get my Maryland license, but in D.C., anyone can get a license. All you need to do is apply, and pay the $1,300 fee,” Davis said.

Variety is the spice of life: There is no such thing as a typical day for Davis, as he does everything from trying to find missing persons, to conducting background checks, to handling workman’s compensation cases. Davis said his job sometimes involves a lot of surveillance, especially when it is a domestic case. For those cases he starts his day around 5:30 a.m.

‘‘I get up, get a cup of coffee and a newspaper, and sit in the car and wait for a while,” Davis said. ‘‘Sometimes my job is just to follow someone, especially in the workman’s comp cases, where sometimes people claim their injuries prohibit them from driving. Sometimes I wait to see if someone is doing something that they are claiming they can’t do. I am not saying people aren’t injured, I just don’t think some people are as injured to the extent that they say they are.”

Davis frequently investigates missing person’s cases, and not many people stay missing after he decides he wants to get a hold of them.

‘‘I solve about 85 to 90 percent of my missing persons cases,” he said. ‘‘I take into account how long a person is gone, and what type of paper trail someone would leave behind. Most people don’t know that if you disappear to Florida, when you apply for a driver’s license there, they forward the information back to Maryland that you have surrendered your Maryland license.”

Davis said that people who want to disappear must leave their identity behind.

‘‘Leave your car here,” Davis said.

‘‘Leave your friends, and leave your job. If you are going to leave town, and want to make a clean start, leave it all behind.”

Snooping around the world: Davis once had a surveillance case that took him to Jamaica. A woman’s boyfriend wanted Davis to follow the woman on vacation, to see how she was spending her days and nights. Davis had to get a woman partner from another detective agency to accompany him, as it was a couples-only resort.

‘‘Every night we would put a matchstick in her door, to see if she left during the night,” Davis said. ‘‘The second night we were there, when we went to put the matchstick in, there was already one there. It turns out that someone else was watching the same woman. In addition to having a boyfriend that didn’t trust her, she also had a husband that didn’t trust her.”

Davis’ work takes him to areas that are frequently in bad neighborhoods.

He said he once went to talk to a woman on Wheeler Road in D.C. ‘‘When I opened the door there were eight or nine men there playing craps,” he said. ‘‘I just went upstairs and spoke to the woman, and I came down; luckily no one bothered me.”

Davis suggest if you are ever in a bad area, drive around the block once, just to get a feel for the situation before you park and go inside.

Honors public and private: Davis has been honored as National Police Officer of the Month during his career, and has founded and been president of the Private Investigators Alliance of Maryland.

He said if you want to become a private investigator, you need to go to school, and learn how to work a computer.

‘‘Don’t expect to become a millionaire overnight either,” Davis said.

‘‘When you first get started, it is hard to convince some people you know what you are doing.

‘‘If you like meeting people, and want an exciting life, then this job is for you,” Davis added.

‘‘Remember,” he said, ‘‘we are not private detectives, we are private investigators. We don’t detect crime, we investigate.”

Joany Nazdin

Got an idea for someone to profile in On the job? Send your suggestions to Kayleigh Kulp at kkulp@somdnews.com or 7 Industrial Park Drive, Waldorf, MD 20602. Call 301-764-2851.