OK, here we need to define the term savage. One could allege that it could be physical but that would be fairly common. I would define it going for what really hurts … the pocket. For a very short while I was actually in the P.I business. I had two cases and you can choose which was more savage. The first involve a very sweet young librarian who came in with an older friend who had some experience with a cheating husband. I sat down with them and she said she did not believe her husband had ever cheated before but she said that the next day she was sure he was going to meet a woman he had met when they attended a wedding. I explained that our fee was $1,500 for the first 8 hours and $150 an hour after that plus expenses. Fairly expensive for the 1980s but we tried to discourage wasting our time.

She hired us immediately with the condition that we call her the minute he was nailed, which we agreed to do. We started surveillance at 8 AM after she went to work. He ran a couple errands the he was off the Birmingham about 60 minutes away and straight to a big shopping mall. We were running a 2 man surveillance so one got out and went in the upper level and watched the guy hang around a particular area until he met up with an unknown female. They watched them walk around the mall sometimes being overly friendly but nothing we could accuse him on. Then they left and went to a pharmacy where the guy bought a large bottle of wine. They then went to a motel and he registered for a room. Once in the room he was observed closing the curtains. At this point they called me and I called the wife. She asked if we would continue to watch then. In the space of about two hours she had opened a new banking account in her name only and transferred every dime they had in their joint chequing account and savings accounts into her account and cancelled all of their credit cards. She had a lock smith change all of the locks on their home and had movers move everything that was his from the house and put it on the street. She notified the police that she was divorcing him and was getting an injunction against him even being on the street where she live. She had divorce papers drawn up and prepared for us to serve on him the minute he arrive hom along with the portion order.

So this guy gets bad from Birmingham and we met him and served the papers, the police served the protection order, and an order to remove his stuff from the street. All of his credit cards are cancelled and the only money he has access to is just what he has in his pocket. His car is seized because it was now in her name and he had to call someone to help him move his stuff. That is savage.

The other one is similar except it was a doctor who took a nurse on an out of town trip. When we found and verified their cars in the long term parking at the airport we notified the wife. She promptly showed up and slashed all tires. We met him as he arrived back and served him with divorce papers and an injunction kicking him out of his million dollar home. Still pretty bad.