I have been always quite put off by those WEB advertisements offering to find out anything about anybody, the ones that begin with questions like: "Is your spouse cheating on you? No? Are you sure?" At the same time it has become clear that the WEB is a treasure trove of information about all of us. Just search a person's name and something is likely to emerge, if only a reference to another person by the same name listed in a local obituary.

Recently an Investigator asked for information about one of the authors we had referenced in the "Recent Articles" section of this WEB site. That author had left a message at the end of the article that anyone could write to receive a complete version of the document. The Investigator had written, but received both a letter and phone call from the office in which he had worked indicating that he was no longer employed at that location. The voice on the other end of the phone also said that he had no idea where the author was.

At this point I offered to help find the person and began by searching Yahoo (using the advanced search option) using the author's complete name (First Name, Last Name and Middle initial). I found no matches. I then called the Army base in California. The office manager said he had been the Director of that Office but had left about three years previously and that they had no forwarding address. She put me in touch with the Personnel Office. The associate with whom I spoke said that he had a database of previous staff going back about two years, but could not account for anyone who had previously severed ties with the base. Also, he could find no listing indicating that the person was still on active duty.

I was a bit frustrated, but then decided to search the WEB once more. Wow! Using the same technique as the first time, I found three distinct references to the person.

• The first one provided an address and phone number in Tennessee. I called the number but received a message indicating the phone had been disconnected.
  
  
• The second was a reference to a military college based in Maryland for which the WEB page indicated that the individual was an adjunct faculty member. I called the college and spoke with the manager in the Dean's Office who acknowledged that he was so listed. She said he actually lived in Tennessee, and although she did not have an updated phone number, she did have an e-mail address. I asked whether it was a current address. She told me she used it successfully about 1 month previously.
  
  
• I e-mailed the person with that address, but about an hour later I received a "delivery not successful" e-mail.
  
  
• I noticed the third reference among the original Yahoo search results, a counseling clinic in Tennessee. I called that number, having already decided that it too was probably not connected. But no! Someone answered, and I was sure it was my prey. It was not. Nonetheless, the person with whom I spoke was a former colleague who knew that the person had left the area, he thought to move to Florida. He had no forwarding address, nor did he know where in Florida the person was living. But he did tell me that the author -- who was a forensic psychologist -- might have updated his biography on the American Board of Forensic Psychologists WEB site.
  
  
• I visited the site. Voila! He had made that change, and I discovered that he was now living approximately 20 miles from my office. In fact, contacting him was a local phone call.

The point is that the WEB has a whole lot of information that could be useful in a REAL investigation. It takes a bit of patience and luck, however, to use the resource effectively.