When someone skips court, it turns into a different kind of work — tactical, focused, and high-stakes. There’s a big difference between a “mistake” where you miss court and an “on purpose” where you’re running and hiding from the obligation.
Not everyone understands what “bounty hunting” or fugitive recovery really looks like, so here’s a behind-the-scenes look that keeps things respectful but real.
The miss
He had a court date.
He didn’t show.
Family said they didn’t know where he was.
Phone was dead.
To be honest … the story smelled wrong.
Oh, and did I mention … we had a hurricane happen right after that missed court date.
The investigation
I started where I always do – address history, references, social media. Nothing was popping.
The approach
My partner and I went to the address on file. There was a tree laying neatly right through the center of the trailer.
Excuse me, Mr. Tree. That’s not a parking spot.
We still knocked politely, announced ourselves, waited, made entry, and cleared the space. We’ve found people living in worse conditions than this – but nobody was there except a dead squirrel in the corner. And of course the damn tree.
The visit next door
It turned out that the cosigner was the girlfriend’s mom – and she lived right next door. We paid her a visit. I knocked at the door and a face – the defendant’s face – quickly appeared and disappeared from the window. It was soon replaced by the cosigner’s face. She came outside to discuss matters.
“Miss Kay, I’m going to be honest with you …”
Keep in mind, I already saw my defendant in the house. So I know already you’re lying, ma’am. But sure, let’s play around with honesty.
“He’s at his mama’s in Kentucky.”
Oh. Well, this is just a formality, but we need to search your house ma’am. You know, so we can tell the insurance company we did our jobs.
“Let me put the dogs up.”
Fellow bondsmen will snicker with recognition when they read that. “Let me put the dogs up” is almost always code for “Let me hide the defendant.”
The entry
After a few minutes (and some thumping and bumping), she let my partner and I into the house. Our usual mode of searching was for him to do the poking around while I do what I do best – gather information.
I immediately discerned that there were a bunch of people in the house – and they were all very drunk – and at this point it was about 10:30 in the morning. Great.
The girlfriend started chatting me up, so I asked her point blank – did the defendant really go off to Kentucky?
She gave me a funny look and said “No … he’s got a girlfriend down at the beach, her name is Kathy.”
Her brother slurred, “Yeah, that’s it … Kathy … ” with a half-baked grin.
Show me your hands!
Just as he said the name, I heard my partner holler, “SHOW ME YOUR HANDS” and I knew that the “dog” the homeowner was putting up was indeed actually our defendant.
As I turned to go and assist, I asked “What was that girl’s name again?”
The voices were coming from the laundry room. As I neared, I smelled it before I saw what was happening.
They had hidden the defendant in a massive pile of rumpled up clothing that was covered in dog poo and urine. He was handcuffing himself. He literally smelled so bad that my partner refused to handcuff him. I have a cast iron stomach, so I wandered into the room to properly cuff him, search him, and get him out of there. Yes … I was treading VERY carefully.
The march
We walked him right past his girl (who’d thrown him under the bus in her lies) and her mama (who really should’ve gone to prison for her role in this debacle) and all of the drunk family members. We had to lay a trash bag on the seat of the truck because there was poo on him. Got him surrendered at the jail (with no thanks from the jailer for how he smelled). Needless to say, rebonding was out of the question.
The lesson
Fugitive recovery is often all about recognizing the lies – in fact, I often tell people that I get lied to for a living.
The real kicker to this story is that if he’d come to the door like a grown man, we’d have carried him to the jail and rebonded him. We both felt really bad about the fact that a tree was parked right in the middle of his living room. Hurricane Florence was very hard on our community and we’d never make a bad situation worse … we’re just often powerless to prevent defendants from making things worse on themselves.
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