Although it took me a little more over 5 weeks, I just coaxed my first skip out of hiding. Relatively speaking, this was an easy case for me.
The dozens of phone calls to references yielded me no information that I did not already have and same thing for the door-knocks that I did. All I got was "no, she doesnt live here anymore", and "no, I dont know where she is now".
This particular skip was allowed to be her own co-signer by the previous owner of this company. Not a practice that I employ commonly. I should probably include that her charge was Possesion of Alchohol by a Minor which indicated to me that she wasnt running from justice, but for some reason, just missed her court date and was then guilty of not picking up the phone and calling her original agent. Given that info, I told every friend/relative that if she would pick up the phone and call me, I would be willing to file a petition to reinstate her bond( I dont even know if I can since my company was under diiferent ownership and writes for a different insurance compnay now).
This skip is truly a sad (not hard but sad) case. Life has been kicking her where it hurts and she has no other criminal record other than the achohol charge and is putting herself though school now( ironicly she is a criminal justice major ). I felt like shit picking her up but its part of my job description.
It took me a few weeks of sweet talking before I ratcheted up the pressure. She finally contacted me 2 weeks into the hunt and told me about her situation and told me that she wanted to get her court process over with. We came to terms as to handling her surrender. Ever the cagey street-smart 20 yr old, she wouldn't give me her current address ( she has been living like an inner city gypsy). Well, she went ghost on me until last night( 1/26/2012). I recieved a call from her and was told, by her, that she had her affairs in order and would be ready for me to pick her up around noon today. Still being cagey, she would only give me the block of the street that she was staying at.
That brings me to noon today. I arranged for a cop buddy to meet me a few blocks down the street from her place and tried to call her...she went ghost again. Having no indemnitor to press really sucks(as does having only cell phone numbers to go off of so expensive to get get that billing info) I called both numbers that I had contact with her on on and nobody would giver up and one of the numbers stopped anwering. I changed my "nice" tone and convinced a roomate of hers that I knew the addess, knew that was her primary address and would be back and with plenty of help and that my skip would not have a prayer of getting her original bond reinstated and also let her know that I was particularly angry at being made to look like a fool for pulling all of the strings that I pulled ( those were mostly lies ).
My skip had her roommate call me about 2 hours later and she was finally ready to be picked up. I went to the address in street clothes, level III vest under my shirt, glock in my holster, and mace in my pocket ( it is a rough area on the near east side of Indianapolis. and had a cop buddy down the street. She was there, with family and rough looking friends, ready to go. I shot breeze with them for about 5 minutes and we were on our way.
A few pieces of golden advice that I have gleened from this eliminated my liablilty as far as transporting a female on a solo job. I called the sheriffs department in the county that I was transporting her to asked them to log the the time that I called, her address, and my odometer. And lastly, I velcro'd a small digital camera to my dash at an angle that covered the passenger side of my truck and most of my right side so that if any accusation were made about me doing anything that I should not be doing, I have proof that I did no such thing. I'm gonna start calling all of you seasoned guys and gals that dole out endless good advice the "Jedi Counsel"
