How does a private investigator help alongside the police?
Daniel gives the family's leads steady attention and hands everything useful to the detective. The work is:
- interviews with friends, coworkers and the last people in contact;
- canvassing the areas where the person was last known to be;
- public records and public online research;
- follow-up on tips, each one logged.
Every lead, and anything that suggests a crime, goes to the investigating agency. Daniel does not interfere with a police investigation and has no access to law enforcement databases. Only the police can enter a person in the national crime database.
Adults may choose to leave, and police may treat that differently from an endangered person. In a missing adult investigation of that kind, Daniel can still follow the family's leads and look for signs that the person is safe.
Who asks for a missing persons investigation?
A parent, spouse, adult child or sibling of an adult who has gone missing in Oklahoma. You can call on the day you make the report, or weeks later.
How and when your family receives updates is set out in the written agreement. The police remain your source for official information about the case.
This page is about people who are missing. If you have only lost touch with someone, see locates and skip tracing. If the worry is an older relative and the people around that relative, see elder abuse and exploitation.
What does Oklahoma law require of the police, and what is lawful for an investigator?
Oklahoma law puts the police report first and says what an agency must do with it. The first three rules here come from the 2019 act the Legislature named Francine's Law.
No Oklahoma law enforcement agency may require a delay in taking a report of a missing person when reliable information shows the person is missing, or require next of kin to appear first. 74 O.S. § 151.3(E)
There is no waiting period for a report of a missing child, and the child's name goes into the national crime database within two hours. 74 O.S. § 151.3(H)
Within 30 days of a report, the agency submits the case to NamUs, the national missing and unidentified persons system, and collects records and voluntary family DNA samples. 74 O.S. § 151.3(C)
Law enforcement sends missing person reports to the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation (OSBI) and enters them in the national crime database. 74 O.S. § 150.12A(A)
OSBI's Office of Liaison for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Persons assists families with NamUs and with court cases. 74 O.S. § 150.12A-1
Under Oklahoma's licensing act, private investigation includes investigations of missing persons. 59 O.S. § 1750.2(4)
Getting someone's phone records by lying to a phone company is a federal crime. 18 U.S.C. § 1039
Daniel does not obtain a missing person's call or location records.
Oklahoma's Computer Crimes Act makes it a crime to access another person's computer, account or data without authorization, or to ask someone else to. 21 O.S. § 1953
Daniel does not log into a missing person's phone, email or social media accounts.
Nothing on this site is legal advice. Ask your attorney how the law applies to your situation.
What will your family receive?
- A lead log: every tip, what was done about it and the result.
- A list of the people contacted and the records checked.
- A written summary of what was done and what was found, set out so that it can be shared with the detective.
- Photographs and video only where field work produces them.
- Daniel, available to testify about the work performed.
What information helps at the start?
The first consultation is free. Work begins only after a written agreement is signed and a retainer is paid, as how it works explains. Gather what you can:
- a recent photograph and a physical description;
- the phone number and its carrier;
- the vehicle and its plate number;
- social media accounts;
- friends, coworkers and usual places;
- the date, time and place the person was last seen;
- any medical needs;
- the police report number and the detective's name.
What it costs depends on how much ground has to be covered and how fast: an intensive first phase, later follow-up, interviews, travel and mileage. All of it is set out in the written agreement before work begins. The cost guide explains each factor.
What should you do first when someone is missing?
If someone is missing, report it to local law enforcement first. A private investigator can work alongside that report.
- Report to your local police or sheriff now. Write down the report number and the detective's name.
- For a missing child, call 911 or the police immediately.
- Ask the agency about NamUs.
- Contact the OSBI Missing Persons Clearinghouse at 1-800-522-8017, and check the Oklahoma Missing Persons Index it links to.
- When you have made the report, call or text Daniel.
Share every new tip with the detective. Be careful with anyone who asks for money in exchange for information.
If someone is in danger right now, call 911. Fuller Investigations is not an emergency service.