This episode of the Miami PI Chronicles podcast is brought to you by the law offices of Richard E. Basha and Associates specializing in all aspects of commercial, civil, business law and litigation. Their office is located in the Bank of America building located at 401 East Los Olis Boulevard, Sweet 1400 for Lauderdale, Florida, 33301 for a free consultation. Please call 954-523-4882. That's 954-523-4882. For all your investigative needs, please call McKinnon Investigative Group at 954-513-7414. That's 954-513-7414 or email us at myginvestigationsetoutlook.com. Welcome to the Miami PI Chronicles podcast. I'm your host Francois McKinnon from McKinnon Investigative Group. And I'm Oscar Santamaria of Optimum Investigations. We created this podcast with the goal to educate, inform and entertain aspiring beginner and seasoned professionals in the investigative field. With over 60 years of combined experience, we offer invaluable insights and lessons learned. But we may not have all the answers. Our knowledge can certainly benefit anyone interested in this dynamic profession. So sit back, listen and enjoy these episodes. Please don't forget to like, share and call them. Hey, Oscar, how are you this week? I'm good. I'm doing your self-rinx for it. I'm doing good. I just finally finished off my manuscript for my book, a many places, one of many of the genres, you know, and we send it off to the entire manuscript to the editor this week. So we should have the book. I'll congratulate you. Thank you. It's been a lot of work. I've been doing this for two years, prepping, developing characters and the relationship between the characters and everything else. So it's been exciting. And finally, it's coming to a realization. And the first book out of a series of books is very important to be done properly with the proper editor and everything else because of the fact that all of the books, the books are based on investigations that we've done that I've done. And my company has done with one guy, his name is Enrique, it's kind of you, but whatever, he's terribly handsome though. I don't know if that would work for you. But either way, it's been an exciting journey and I'm excited that I were at this point now that the book is going to go and keep publishing and then finally be published. And we're going to be able to talk about the book on our show and also share some of the chapters with our audience at one point. So it's exciting. On today's show, we're going to be discussing the case of the lady in the suitcase. This is a murder mystery case that a good friend of mine and colleague did the super private investigator Ken Brennan years ago. And it's a case that's always fascinating. We're also going to discuss something that you're very up there with is contracts and retainer agreements, which is probably one of the most overlooked documents by PIs and specifically young PIs that are new to the industry because of the fact that they just, you know, they're excited, they talk to a client, they just want to get the retainer, the money, and then move forward. And it's definitely not the fact, correct? It's very important to have a contract. I know you have several of them. I would like you to discuss a little bit what you think people should do. And I believe also that you've posted on our email. So if anybody wants to get the copies of those contracts, they can email us at miginvestigations@ourlook.com or at Miami PI Chronicles@gmail.com. Yes. So for sure, contracts should never be overlooked. I mean, that's really designed to cover you and cover your client. Never ever let negotiations or the important aspects of a case or of an assignment just be left is word of mouth. You want to have everything. And there's so many things that can come up. You want to talk about the hours involved, the price involved. Are you going to charge mileage? Are you not going to charge mileage? Will there be travel time involved? Is the report automatically going to be generated or is that going to be an extra cost? When are the monies due? How are the monies to be dispersed? Just a whole slew of things, the realities of surveillance, you know, there's no guarantees. You have to put that in there. Anything can happen. The subject cannot be active. They can be lost during mobile surveillance. They could have moved. There's just so many things and you don't want to be penalized for that because when you get a client and I'm not talking about attorneys or insurance companies, but I'm sure no, a client on a domestic case or a child custody case, they don't know anything about private investigators in most cases. You know, so you have to educate that. There's no guarantees in this business. Anything can happen. They can burn a light. Like I said, they may not leave. They may have moved. You may have gotten burned. All of these things. And they have to be made aware of it. That's one thing that a lot of people don't understand is that I know you and I and many other professional private investigators, we care about the results. And like you said, getting burned at a light, it's happened to everybody in life. And let's say you sat somewhere or followed the subjects at different places. And then after seven hours, let's say at $100 an hour as an example, your $700 is down. You only have limited video and information to give to the client. So some of the clients would say, well, I'm not paying for that. So if you don't have a contract like you do and I do, then you could get burned. That is entirely correct. What if there's support proceedings involved a deposition? You need to get paid for that. You need to spell that out in your. So you have this on your contract that in case that there's mediation, you have to appear in court. Is there some kind of minimum? Is that hourly? How is my specific one is $125 an hour for four hour minimum and then $125 for each additional hour after that. Some people just block off the whole time and do eight hours. So whatever you feel most comfortable with is something that you should put in your contract. Definitely want to watch out for that. If I end up burning a light and nowadays you have a lot of these red light cameras, sometimes you have to park really quick in some sort of meter parking and there's just not enough time to deal with that. I have it in my contract that if I get any traffic tickets or any parking tickets as during the course of this investigation, they're liable for it. Even if that means me getting something in the mail a month later, as long as I can prove that it's within that timeframe that I was on that surveillance, they're responsible for it. So I also try to keep it short. I've seen some that are like reading war and peace. You want to keep it simple. I would say within one page, you have them just sign one page and be done with it. If not, if you have multiple pages and you have to initial this and that and it's like, you know, listen, I'm not going to make my client treat a novel. This is what I expect, A, B, C, D, and E and it's all going to fit in one page. So that's what I do. You're right. It's to the point and it's good for both sides for you as a private investigator and it's good for the client. So they know what they're embarking on at this new jersey if they haven't used the private investigator before, you know, if they haven't used your firm. So they get educated as to what could happen, what could not happen, and all sorts of other scenarios, right? And I think it's a brilliant idea and I've used it many years and I got burned myself by a lot of money. I can tell you that, like you said, having a short format is much better because I had a in attorney friend of mine that created one. So I would not get burned again by a lot of money. And it turned out he gave me a 13 page or something like that, dark and it's like closing on the house. And I don't think anybody ate want to do that. And it's overwhelming. And I believe it's a lot of repetition of the same legal language. So I mean, it could be I really don't know. I just like to make things short and sweet. And that's what my contract is. It's short, sweet to the point. And it covers all the bases that I think that I need to have covered. And as far as yeah, getting burned, I would encourage everybody. In fact, I would demand everybody to get a retainer up front. Don't try to be, you know, Mr. Nice Guy and think that, oh, they're good for it. People aren't good for it when you do eight hours and nothing to do with you, but the person is inactive. All of a sudden they found out that they were out on vacation or home sick. People don't want to pay that. So aside from having it for a client agreement, I would also have one for subcontractors, you know, I have a small agency and I don't really not in a position where I need to hire full time employees. So I hire a lot of subcontractors and you want to have everything spelled out before you hire one of these people. You know, you want to make sure I mean, first of all, before you even get into the contracts, I would suggest that you get a sample report from them. Always request a sample report. That's going to tell you, you know, if they know the lingo, if they know how to put pictures in order, they're going to probably give you the best thing that they have. So don't even get into contracts until you get a copy of a sample report. If they don't have one shame on them, they should have one. That's very good advice. You can weed a lot of people out and save everybody a lot of time with a sample report. So food for thought, if you don't have one, you should get one. Last week, I think we had an emailer that was asking about how they can get more work. And I said to email people PIs. And specifically, one thing that I forgot to mention is I would include in that email a sample report. So they can act, you'll move to the top of the list. If you put a nice quality sample report, whatever it is, a surveillance report, a background report, a locate report, just something, you know, for the type of work that show your product to your future report. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, that's it. That makes a lot of sense. Exactly. I wouldn't prefer that if somebody, I had somebody send me a couple resumes the past few days, and I was looking at it. And the guy was extremely detailed. And he did and what he can accomplish and his military by God, where it shits into executive protection, his background and surveillance for years for insurance defense company. This resume was probably one of the better one I've seen. And it was to the point that he spoke about reports, how he writes his reports. And he would like, he even asked me, he wanted a copy of our reports to see how it was before we spoke. So I thought it was genius. Yeah. Well, more important than resumes is I want to see that sample reported theirs, because you know, anybody can write anything they want on a resume. So, you know, I want to see one. I want to see how they embed photos. I want to see how they write. I want to see if they're careless or not. You can tell a lot by people, right, a person's report. Yes. So, you know, this is a type of a profession where it's attention to detail. You know, you're dealing with professionals. You know, you don't want to have a lot of grammatical errors and things of that nature. But just to continue on a little bit with this subcontractor, yes, there's going to be a lot of things that you have to cover. You know, when is payment expected? How much is payment? Are you going to pay travel time? Are you not going to pay travel time? What is the turnaround time between when you sign a report and the time they turn it in? Once the case is done, you want to put hard deadlines on them, you know, by 24 hours after the case or 48 hours after the case, you need to submit a report video and invoice at that time. And you want to talk about how they'll get paid. If there are subcontractor, obviously, you want to make them aware that you're not taking taxes out. That's their responsibility. What if there's a court testimony need depositions or a trial? What are you going to do that? You have to address these matters, include all of that into your agreement. And it's going to save you a lot of headaches down the line. Great. That's great advice. So we're going to take a quick break and we're going to come back with the unbelievable mystery of the lady in the suitcase in Miami. It's a fascinating case that's taken over myself for many years and a good friend of mine kept Brennan was able to achieve and solve the case. So we'll be right back. And we're back. So Francois, we're talking about your buddy Ken Brennan and the case that he had. And let me just tell you that I recall watching that episode on, I think it was like a prime time or 48 hours and it really made an impact on me because I'm a private investigator. I do surveillance. I go, but that criminal investigations and the way that whole thing unraveled, I mean, to me, that was like a work of art. And so I am familiar with it. And I'm glad that you bought it up. I think to you, it's a work of art because of the fact that your position as a private investigator is that you see details. When I'm on surveillance, all I do, I watch tags whenever I drive, I looked at everything. And I'm looking for the subject, obviously. But in this particular case, this young 21 year old woman from the Ukraine worked as a cruise ship employee and was injured on the job, which happens often you do a lot of surveillance on these cases. I've actually worked out of that hotel. So I was familiar with it when I was watching it, but I'm sorry, go ahead. No, no, it's all good. That's why I wanted to get your input because they had the fantastic camera system by dinner was in 2005. It's attention to detail in our business. And that's all it is. A, you need to care. B, you need to want to get a result. And then C, you need to pay attention to the smallest detail. Why do you think criminal investigators have boards? They have investigative boards, right? So on a wall, there'll be photographs, maps, every little detail goes on there. And then these guys will sit there. And I'm talking FBI, CIA, they'll do the same thing. DEA, they'll look at a board and say, what piece is missing here? And the fact that Kent Brennan, I believe, was a federal investigator prior to being a private investigator. And I know he was in law enforcement. He had a great career. He's a fantastic guy. But the thing about him is I know him personally, and he's crazy. He's like crazy. He doesn't let go. He doesn't pay for an answer. He's just focused on getting the job done. In his case, he works mostly cold cases now. He's probably the top investigator was in the United States for this type of investigation. And kudos to him. He's a great guy, just a little crazy when it comes to work. And there's nothing wrong with that. He just wants to get results. And in this particular case, this young lady will summarize it. And at the end of the show, we'll post links for people that want to go on YouTube and visit our site on YouTube, as well our channel, as well as get the links where they can visually see who Kent Brennan is and the victim in this case, and the person who committed these crimes. So Ken gets involved after the Miami PD cannot get any more answers. They find this young woman body. 21 years old, naked by near the Everglades. So you know, with a Miami airport is that a lot of people do. She was taken to the border of the Everglades where it's full of alligators and whatnot, you know, and it's what's a dangerous place to be. She was left for dead and the assailant thought she was dead. And she wasn't. The next morning, after she was found, I don't know. It's somebody that worked in electricity. It could have been an AT&T or whatever it is in Florida. But what is it called? FP&M. FP&M. Yeah, employee found her body the next day, called her, they took a helicopter and their vector to Jackson Memorial. She was in critical condition. She had been beaten over the dead many, many times. She was raped and she was left for dead. So Ken gets involved in this case because when she came around to it, she contacted a lawyer. And I believe she was trying to sue the hotel or the insurance company for not properly securing the place where somebody came into her room and assaulted her and raped her and almost killed her. So here comes Ken. He gets in on the job. He actually gets along well with the police officer. They share information and then Ken gets access to the videotape of the hotel, the security video footage, which back then you're looking at 2005 is not the state of the art 4k camera video that we get these days. With that being said, he's able to get a timeline because at a certain point during the night, they say, okay, she didn't go anywhere. And Ken is going, she had to go somewhere for her to end up by the Everglades. She had to go somewhere looking at the videotape over and over again. He said it doesn't make sense. So he goes and checks with the director of security at the hotel. And they realize that the timestamp is different from the actual time. So there's a 17 minute gap where they think something happened because she's seen at three o'clock in the morning, let's say getting into the elevator with a large man and he doesn't seem to know or he gives her, he waves her into the elevator. They go up the elevator. And because of the 17 minute gap that Ken was able to figure out, they thought that she may have gone to his room. She may have been a positive dude. That was what the police thought. Once Ken shaved out that 17 minutes out of the entire case, it became obvious that this man went up to her room. That was a consensus. But then that to be accurate, I'll give you a timeline here. So at 528 AM, he's outside. Okay, we do know what Ken does after he sees these things, he reshoots it and takes a measuring tape by the elevator to see how high the elevator is. And the carpet, he measures the carpet where the subject is seen carrying this suitcase. So between those two rules, he's able to gather and to ascertain the size of the suitcase, right? What take them on and got them on going after this particular guy is the fact that when the guy, the guy is 280 plus pounds. He's a huge man. The victim in this case is a small petit female. So he's observed over the threshold of the elevator, looking around and using both of his hands. And this is a huge man. He's got a literally lift up to carry the suitcase over the threshold of an elevator, which is flat, right? So he wheels are out. This is at 528 AM. He's on camera almost at the door of the hotel. And then, yeah, 528 AM. The camera picks him back up at 621 AM with those suitcase. He returns to the hotel without the suitcase. So between this time, between 528 and 621, if you're at the Miami airport, you want to go at the line of the everglades, just 40 minutes, right? So there's also images of them carrying the suitcase and putting it in the truck of his car. So we know it's his car. So Ken was able to deduct that, why would this guy check out and come back at the hotel without a suitcase? It may no sense. So the fact that the 17 minute gap that they thought was missing was because of the equipment was not set. And you know how important it is to have security cameras that are set properly and always checked and always upgraded, because there's all sorts of technical thing that must be done to a good security camera system. And my dude, this is in 2005. They had a very good system. They could have seen the girl leave anywhere else, but the suitcase. So Ken goes to a friend of his that owns a gym and he knows how tall the victim is, how much he weighs and everything. So they get a similar girl, but he purchases the suitcase. That's the exact same size as this. They set up a tripod, like we do. And videotapes the whole thing. The girl literally gets into the suitcase herself against up immediately, not an issue at all. So later on in the case, this guy ends up because now the police had recovered her DNA in the victim. And now they compared it to two other males that they thought may have had a sexual interaction with her, but they were completely disclosed. They were dismissed. So then detective Brennan with the police department obtained a warrant to get his DNA sample. Once they do that, you know, once that you put that into the system is DNA, it goes all over the country, correct? I forget the name of it, but we'll mention it again. So other female that had been assaulted by other police departments in other cities, Brennan was able to find them and to interview them. And then once that his DNA was compared to all of these other victims, the case was solved. So instead of doing two years, he's doing 20 plus years plus plus plus because of his attention to detail and not giving up. In this year, Brennan was able to take a monster off the street. This man raped a lot of women prior to this. And they were able to tie up a bunch of them, but possibly not all of them, you know? Yeah, they said that case really made an impression. I think the guy ended up being a serial killer. Yeah, he was and also a serial rapist. And the fact there's another point that I find that amazing, he ended up working for the food courts at Miami Bojo. And Ken went once you see this man exit the elevator is a large tall black male. But that's all you can see. It's you cannot see anything else. They enhanced the video. They were not able to do much except to see a t-shirt that said Mercury with a special type of new engine that had just come out. It was introduced, I believe at Miami Bojo. So therefore, he paid attention to that, went to Mercury, taught to the executive and asked them, how many shirts did you make? Who did you give them to? And their answer, and nobody would think of it. Their answer was, oh, we gave it to the food court employees. All of them like take some for your friends. They just wanted to unload them at the end of the show. And this was the day before the end of the show. So because of the engine, he went to Mercury, he spoke to them, the Mercury Outboard company, and he was able to determine, okay, because this guy was staying in the same hotel as a victim. So it could have been in this room, and he could have done, you know, it was your say until they had the DNA evidence. And then after that, there was a Brendan the Raptor, the case and did a fantastic job. Anyways, the monsters on the street. And it's one of those cases that when you know the guy, like I know you with having a beer and talking, and he's giving you the details of how we came up with these answers, I thought was always fascinating, because after it said, it's a lot easier to say, oh, I would have done the same thing, right? But Monday morning order backing. But the fact that he thought of the small details, and as you know, small details in our industry are very important. No, absolutely. It was an incredible job that he did in the hats off to him. Yeah, I totally agree. Well, we're gonna wrap it up for today. Thank you, everyone, for listening and we look forward to see you in the next show. We're going to talk a lot more about other investigation cases that are a little bit on the funnier side than this. But thank you so much and stay tuned. Thank you for listening to the My Me P.I. Chronicles podcast. For all of your investigative needs in Florida, please contact making an investigative group at 954-5137414. That's 954-5137414, or visit us at www.miginvestigations.com. Thanks again for listening, and please remember to share, follow, and like. [Music] You [BLANK_AUDIO]
