Francois McKinnon: Welcome to the Miami PI Chronicles Podcast. I am your host Francois McKinnon of McKinnon Investigative Team and I am Oscar Santamaria of Optimum Investigation. We created this podcast with the goal to educate, inform, and entertain aspiring, beginner, and seasoned professionals in the investigative field.
Oscar Santamaria: With over 60 years of combined experience, we offer invaluable insights and lessons learned. While 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 do not forget to like, share, and follow. Welcome back to the show, Oscar. How are you this week?
Francois McKinnon: Doing well, Francois. How about yourself? I am doing great. It has been a crazy week getting ready for the show and getting ready for the book signings. And it has just been a lot of work. What have you been doing? Any surveillance this week?
Oscar Santamaria: Yes, yes, I have been. You know what? I started reading your book, Peter Gray’s Many Faces, and it is my understanding that you’re going to be having a book signing, I think, next weekend.
Francois McKinnon: Yeah, I have a funny story. Yesterday was Saturday, and I get a text message from George, my friend George and Marlene, telling me, we’re here at the Panisio Coffee House, and there is nobody here. What is going on? So instead of texting, I was driving. I called them back. Apparently, they came on the wrong date for the book signing. So they came, he flew in from Florida. They have a house in Asheville. So they flew in, and then they decided just to come without calling me in advance, and they showed up at the book signing, which is going to be—I am just going to give you the information now for people listening, so they do not show up a week in advance like George and Marlene. Although it was great to see them. We went for lunch. We walked around the main street in Waynesville. It was very fun. But it is too bad that they couldn’t be here. So the book signing is going to be Saturday, November 16th, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Panisio Coffee Company, located at 66 Commerce Street in Waynesville, North Carolina. And then we have another one for people of the afternoon, which will be Thursday, November 21st, from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. at the Frog Level Brewing Company. It is a beautiful place in Waynesville. And it is located at 56 Commerce Street in Waynesville. So all of you that can make it, please come down and enjoy a coffee or a beer, and we’ll be able to discuss the book, and I’ll be signing some copies as well. So that has been exciting. And you started reading the book. How are you enjoying it so far?
Oscar Santamaria: I did. I am enjoying it quite well.
Francois McKinnon: You’re just saying that. You’re just saying that.
Oscar Santamaria: I swear to you, I started reading it, and it started off with a bang. I have got to be honest with you. You know what? I believe that most books should start that way because it really grabs your attention. Sometimes people want to build to the bang, but you just started with the bang, and I like that. I appreciated that. Let us just cut to the chase.
Francois McKinnon: It is just the way I write because I wrote reports all my life for 30 something years. Now, putting it in a book format, I studied quite a bit of how to do it, but it was an approach that I am glad that you like it, but it was an approach that many people who have read the book so far have told me, oh, we love that because it gets right into the dirt. Then you find out why, and there is a lot of twists and turns coming up. I am telling you that right now, so you’re going to have your hands full, and it is a pretty good novel. I like it. I love the story. It is a story about a young teenager from California who was kidnapped years ago, and my firm was retained to locate this girl and bring her back home safe to California. It was quite an adventure. It was not an easy gig, and it is all in the book. It is very exciting. I’ll tell you what, I am getting phone calls. People are liking it. This week in our local Mountaineer newspaper, they wrote a very nice piece about the book. That was the first time that I was exposed to the media, and they actually wrote a very nice piece. I was very happy, excited about the book signing, and what about you?
Oscar Santamaria: Let us see. Episode 18, I spoke about taking some time off and taking my daughter to the Taylor Swift concert. She was trying to get tickets, so just to update you a little bit on that, we went out there that evening, and she was not able to get tickets.
Francois McKinnon: That is so sad. She was not able to?
Oscar Santamaria: Yeah, she was not able to. We parked right across the street from the stadium. Apparently, a lot of people were doing that, hordes of people out there. I guess once these concerts start, these ticket supply places start reducing the prices because this is actually a very long concert. It is hours and hours long. I think my daughter went in Boston. I think it was three hours. Yeah. I do not know. It is a long show. So it never really got cheap enough to buy.
Francois McKinnon: What were they selling the tickets for, if you know?
Oscar Santamaria: They were going for about 1600 dollars, but that is not the only thing. Then there is these fees of about 350 or 400 dollars, so it is just ridiculous. It is just not worth it. It is just not worth it. Too bad she couldn’t get in, maybe some other time.
Francois McKinnon: I am sure there’ll be millions of these.
Oscar Santamaria: Yeah, plus on the way home, I just started singing Taylor Swift songs, so it is almost like the same thing. Who was singing them? You were? Yeah, I was singing them.
Francois McKinnon: Poor thing. She must have really been crying for many reasons.
Oscar Santamaria: So we wanted to discuss this week. I said adding insult to injury, but hold on. So I had also mentioned last week how I’d taken some time off. Yes. How do you feel about that?
Oscar Santamaria: Well, I mean, that was good, but it was extremely short lived. So last week, actually for the past 10 days now, I got two multiple day, long day surveillances. I mean, 18, 19 hours on one, and as that one was winding down, I ended up getting another one that was 10 to 11 hours a day. And on one of those days, I actually had to work 19 hours. And if you’re talking about travel time, well over 20 hours in the car. And the body starts doing some weird stuff after a certain amount of time. It is not like this is the first time I ever worked long hours, but this is the first time I ever worked like 19 hours, cooped up in a car. I never got out. I never was able to stretch my legs. We were trying to be very covert because we didn’t want to blow up our cover considering we were going to be there multiple days, you know, almost around the clock. So I remembered about the – well, first of all, there is nothing more demoralizing than working 10 hours and then realizing you still have nine hours to go. I remember those days.
Francois McKinnon: Yeah, so, you know, that is kind of heartbreaking. Hey, listen, let us take a little break because we need to fix something with the microphone we have. So you were mentioning that it was hard on the legs and the body being in the car for almost 20 hours in one day. Were you able to at least walk around a little bit of the car or do some exercise for your feet and legs?
Oscar Santamaria: No, unfortunately not. I was cooped up. I mean, I was trying to stretch my legs while I was in the car. But, you know, everything was okay until after like about hour 16. That is when, you know, my legs started twitching. I had that restless leg syndrome. And it actually took me a couple of days to, you know, recover from that really long stint. It didn’t help matters that in the morning I got up at 2 at 11. I had to drive down to the Marathon, the Keys, and work a couple of days down there all while this other case was going on. And then I got another one. But there is one good thing about it. When you work these long hours and then you start working an eight hour shift, an eight hour shift is nothing. I mean, you can do that.
Francois McKinnon: I have done it before. You go, ah, it is eight hours, piece of cake, right?
Oscar Santamaria: Yeah, it is like a hop, skip, and a jump. How was it in the Keys? It was nice. You know, I didn’t find the lady, but, you know, she was supposed to show up to an appointment and she never did. And we didn’t have any address for her other than that she would be going to this appointment. But it didn’t matter. I ended up getting another one for multiple days, and that was about 11 hours with travel time. It was even more because it was about an hour and a half from my location. And I remember at one point the lady left on foot and I had to follow her. And she, by the time I got out of my car, after about 10 hours or nine hours in the car, it took me quite a while to get moving. My back was slumped over, and she just kept gaining ground on me. The more she walked, and, you know, I am here hunched over. It takes a while to straighten up your back after you’re in a car. I mean, even so bad, the indignity of suffering, like an 80 year old man passed me up, and he had this, like, little chain of longs. And he literally passed me, and my claimant is gaining more and more ground. And, man, it is, you know, it just shows you that, you know, getting old sucks. And also a sad realization that I came to this week is that I am no longer a belt guy. A what? A belt. I can no longer wear belts. Something’s been happening to me over, like, the last, I do not know, sometime, like, after 40. And my pants just do not stay up with the belt anymore. And the more the years go by, the worse it gets. I cannot go anywhere in public with my kids. They’re like, Dad, pull up your pants. I have actually had to change my religion because of my pants situation. I was practicing Catholic, and there is a lot of standing and then kneeling. And it is just too much for my conditions. In any event, I just, you know. For now, I have left the Catholic Church, and I am now in a non denominational church where there is just basically sitting. There is no standing. There is no kneeling, you know. So there is no constantly having to check if I am flashing somebody behind me. So in any event, I am now searching Amazon, and I am going to become a suspender guy. I think that is the remedy for my situation. So out with the belt and with the suspenders.
Francois McKinnon: It is kind of a PI thing. I have seen big PIs, you know, wearing suspenders and a bow tie. Well, maybe they had that same condition I had. The condition is called go and exercise. I lost 40 pounds.
Oscar Santamaria: I do not know if just being out of shape is the reason why that happens. I actually saw it happening as a young kid, and I was like, why is that so weird when people hit, like, after 40 years old, they start getting that plumber’s crack. I mean, wherever they go. Because they do not care about buying the right pants. That is what it is. And buy a belt. Listen, I have a belt, and I pull it so tight. My eyes are basically bulging out, and it does not matter. It does not matter. The pants still start coming down. It is the most annoying thing. I am tired of dealing with it. I am a suspender guy. And I might even purchase some overalls, you know, just for good measure.
Francois McKinnon: Those are very comfortable, by the way. Living out in Western North Carolina, I have seen.
Oscar Santamaria: In any event, so I told you about I had these couple of jobs that came in. It required me to have to hire some people out. One of the people that I was working with I did not work with before. It was supposed to be just like a couple of days, and it turned out to be over 10 days on that job alone. And it happened from one moment to the next. We never really discussed money or anything. And I am here hiring people that I have got to ultimately pay, and I didn’t really discuss this with my client. The other job, I kind of knew the person already, and I knew that he was good for it. But what I did is something that I would not recommend for anybody because that could be a really hard hit. You end up having to float some money out there by hiring people on a case, and then something happens where they do not get paid for the job, and then they tell you you have to wait. You might be accustomed, and your contractors might be accustomed of you paying them pretty quickly. And now there is a holdup. So, you know, just do not do what I did. Always try to discuss that. And when all possible is get a retainer for these types of jobs because…
Francois McKinnon: Well, Oscar, these days I agree with you. These days I totally agree and require a large retainer up front because you have to pay other people, you have to pay yourself, you have to pay expenses. And I got burned at one point several times, and you and I were discussing retainer agreements before in one of the shows. It is one of the most important parts because you and I want to get results for our clients, right? So once we get the job, we want to get ahead already. We want to find out information. Information costs us money to gather, and our time is valuable. Because you want to do such a good job or whatever, you get ahead of yourself, and then you end up losing a lot of money when they call back and they say, you know what, we changed our mind, we went with somebody else, and you already burnt a lot of money. And I remember you were talking about a case with a lawyer that was in May, and I do not know if you got paid, but they were not even responding to your emails. And you did the work and you paid subcontractors that were helping you out on the job. So we know it is not a fair world, but I think it is very important to get a good retainer agreement. And what are your thoughts on that?
Oscar Santamaria: For sure. But it is one thing when you’re doing the work, it is another thing when you’re actually paying other people to help you out with these cases, because then you’re actually out money, especially if you’re not going to get paid or the person just decides that, you know what, I do not want to pay you. Which, you know, I have heard stories of that happening quite a bit. Some PIs in this industry had reputations of just being kind of like scumbags in that regard where they would farm out jobs and then they would take forever to pay or they just wouldn’t pay you.
Francois McKinnon: Well, they were using the money they received from their clients to pay on the bills without paying their subcontractors, and that is totally… I have always… My name is so good on that because I have gotten money elsewhere to pay my guys first because I didn’t get paid, which is my fault. And now I strictly work on retainer agreements. In advance, in my bank, and then I start working because I am tired of getting burned, you know. I should have known that years ago, but you try to give the benefit of the doubt to people that you’ve known before and done work with, and then they do this. Not fair, but we’re learning something, and we want to share that with other investigators. Do not feel bad about asking for money up front. When people call us as private investigators, usually it is because they need help. And we’re there to help, but we have to be compensated. Your thoughts?
Oscar Santamaria: I cannot agree with you more. You’ve got to just watch out. It is all about your bottom line, and if you take a job and you’ve got to pay a lot of people up front, you’ve got to be very, very careful because it is a stressful situation. So, you know, do not try to do what I did and take these jobs last minute and hope and pray that the chips fall in the right places because it may not happen, and then you can really get screwed. So do as I say, not as I do.
Francois McKinnon: We always do. We never listen. We do what you say, but obviously you’re not doing anything that you’re saying to us. But that is you, and there is nothing wrong with that. About getting paid, you were talking about doing the job yourself, your hours yourself. You’re saying, well, that is one thing, but when you have to pay others, then it is out of your pocket. But your personal time when you’re out there working, then you do not get paid.
Oscar Santamaria: No, the bottom line is you want to get paid. I am just saying is that it hurts twice as much when you’re actually having to pay people for a job that you’re not going to get paid for because it is the right thing to do. If someone is out there, and they’re actually doing the work, and they’ve got to be paid first, whatever it is. That was my dumb mistake. If I didn’t get paid for that, for doing exactly what I am telling you people not to do. So we’ll just see what happens. Stay tuned.
Francois McKinnon: I totally agree, and let us hope it doesn’t happen again to neither of us. That would be nice. Sure, that is going to stick on my side because I am not doing this anymore. Getting stuck with very high hotel bills and having to pay flights for people was perfectly done, and it didn’t happen. So with that being said, listen, what do you want to talk about?
Oscar Santamaria: You know, Francois, time certainly flies by. I mean, I was listening to the news the other day, and they were talking about those Menendez brothers. I guess there is a Netflix special out, and now there is this push to get them out.
Francois McKinnon: I actually saw the Netflix special, and, you know, I tend to go with the legalities of things. Now, listen, the Menendez brothers, Lyle and Erik, they may be eligible, at least, from prison after 30 years of being in jail. In 1994, they both kill their mothers and fathers for sexually abusing them.
Oscar Santamaria: I actually believe that was in 1989 that the crimes happened. This is 35 years.
Francois McKinnon: Perhaps, but I think they went to court in 94, maybe.
Oscar Santamaria: They had a mistrial, I think, the first time, and then they had another one where they were found guilty. A lot of the things that they alleged their parents did to them weren’t admitted into court. But in any event, you know, for some reason, there is always a push to get these people out of jail. What they did, and listen, I do not know if their father did what they’re alleging. I mean, to me, that almost sounds like it is just, you know, a way to perhaps give them motive and maybe get some sympathy from the court. But what they did was heinous. They shot their parents. They shot both of their parents while they were in bed. No, no. I think they were downstairs watching TV, but then they went outside and after they shot the mother and father and then they reloaded, came back in, and then shot the mother a whole bunch of times again. They claim in court because of the fact that she is the one. Well, in any event, they were so broken up that then they go out and they start spending a whole bunch of money, which was out of character for a couple of the kids’ parents who just got murdered. And to me, they just seemed like they were very rich, spoiled, privileged kids that didn’t want to live under maybe the rule of their father. And they decided, you know what, let us just kill them and get their money. He is a rich guy. Now, you know, they’re going to get out. They’re still relatively young. And, you know, listen, if you can do that to your parents, that takes a special kind of psychopath in my book. And I do not know. Listen, I believe in redemption and all, but, you know, I would be more comfortable if they spent at least another 10 years in prison, me personally. Yeah, well, I am sure they’re going to end up ending up on their feet for sure. They’re going to get, I am sure, book deals and, you know, documentary deals and go on lecture circuits, God knows, you know. But I am not sure if justice was served, but, you know, to each their own. We’ll wrap up this week’s episode. Thank you for listening. We’ll see you next week.
SHARE:
