Confessions of a Private Investigator: Why Digging Through Trash is Part of the Job

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Although my job isn’t ripped from the pages of a detective novel, we handle a wide range of cases. Sometimes that means digging through someone's trash. Yes—literally.

At Miears Investigations, we follow leads wherever they take us—even if that means ending up in a dumpster.

One of the most well-known recent examples of this is the Golden State Killer, or as we now know him, Joseph James DeAngelo. Between 1974 and 1986, DeAngelo committed at least thirteen murders, fifty-one sexual assaults, and a wide array of other terrible crimes. It wasn’t until 2018—almost forty-five years later—that 72-year-old DeAngelo was finally forced to answer for his crimes.

When consumer DNA services became widely available, law enforcement compared old Golden State Killer crime scene DNA to public databases. They identified matches to distant relatives of the suspect. By building out those family trees, they identified a familiar name: Joseph James DeAngelo.

As it turned out, DeAngelo had been a suspect for some time, but until recently, there hadn’t been enough evidence to arrest him. That changed when investigators searched his trash and recovered discarded items containing his DNA—the evidence they needed to finally produce a direct match.

I'm not usually searching trash cans for DNA, but the principle is the same. In asset investigations, I sometimes need to hone my inner raccoon. In these cases, individuals are often avoiding financial obligations. What they don't realize is that what throw away can be just what I need to uncover hidden assets.

Dumpster diving probably isn't what I'd lead with on career day, but sometimes it's what gets the job done.

Every job has its bizarre little quirks. What’s something unusual or unexpected in your line of work?

Comment below and let me know.