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​his week on the Writer's Detective Bureau, StayHomeWriMo, public health, DEA cases and more counter surveillance. I'm Adam Richardson and this is the Writer's Detective Bureau.

Welcome to episode number 84 of the Writer's Detective Bureau, the podcast dedicated to helping authors and screenwriters write professional quality crime-related fiction. This week I'm answering your questions about the new StayHomeWriMo initiative, how law enforcement works during a public health crisis, whether DEA discloses case info to local cops, and how one might spot surveillance in a restaurant.

I need to thank Gold Shield patrons, Debra Dunbar from debradunbar.com, C.C. Jameson from ccjameson.com, Larry Keeton, Vicki Tharp at vickitharpe.com, Chrysann, Larry Darter, Natalie Barelli of nataliebarelli.com, Craig Kingsman of craigkingsman.com, Lynn Vitale and Marco Carocari of marcocarocari.com for their support. And I also need to send a big thank you to my Silver Cuff-link and Coffee Club patrons as well. You can find links to all of the writers supporting this episode by going to the show notes at writersdetective.com/84. And to learn about setting up your own Patreon account for your author business or to support the show for as little as $2 per month, visit writersdetective.com/patreon. P-A-T-R-E-O-N.

​How quickly the world has changed. How are you holding up? I saw a new take on a popular meme recently and it said, "Introverts, check on your extroverted friends. They are not okay." I am definitely an introvert and would probably love to be self-isolating. I say probably because I'm still working as usual, but if I was in self-isolation mode, I'd seriously consider tackling StayHomeWriMo brought to you by the NaNoWriMo folks. They are posting daily self-care checklist of things to do for yourself while you're stuck inside. Each day has four things to do. Number one is for mental wellbeing, number two is for creative wellbeing, three, social wellbeing, and four, physical wellbeing.

So day one's checklist was for mental wellbeing, put your phone in a drawer for half an hour and give yourself a break from the news and social media. For the creative wellbeing, they gave you a writing prompt. Write about a character who's stuck inside. How do they feel about it? Why are they there? For social wellbeing, write and mail a letter to a friend or a family member. And for physical wellbeing, take note of where the tensest points in your body are. Take three deep breaths while relaxing those muscles. So I'll provide a link to the StayHomeWriMo page in the show notes at writersdetective.com/84 if you'd like to get the daily checklists sent to you.

Also, Pat Flynn of Smart Passive Income, who I consider a virtual mentor of sorts, has some great content right now geared toward dealing with the quarantine as an online business owner, which as a writer you are. Pat's showing up every morning on YouTube for a Q and A and he just put out a great video on five things you can lean into to make the most of the new time you have and come out better on the other end. So I'll link to that video in the show notes as well. So watch it when you have a chance and think about how this giant timeout can be viewed as a chance for you to do something you wouldn't have been able to do otherwise. This is you time and we're going to get through this and I can't wait to see what you create.

And if you're just looking for a laugh and a little rabbit hole to go down, follow end NCWHM on Twitter. It's the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City. Unlike most places, it's closed right now. So the museum left Tim, their head of security, in charge of the museum's social media account while the museum is closed. Tim's a grandpa and he's learning the ropes of how to use Twitter and he is funny. I'm not really into the whole cowboy thing and it doesn't have anything to do with police work, but I am loving this account and I bet you might as well. So check it out on Twitter at NCWHM if you just want a smile for a bit and help him go viral in a good way. All right, let's get into this week's questions...                                                                                                                                                                    Continue reading...

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​This week on the Writer's Detective Bureau, Medicolegal Death Investigators and Swatting. I'm Adam Richardson and this is the Writer's Detective Bureau. Welcome to episode 83 of the Writer's Detective Bureau, the podcast dedicated to helping authors and screenwriters write professional quality crime related fiction. And this week I'm answering your questions about Medicolegal Death Investigators and swatting.

But first, I need to thank Gold Shield patrons, Debra Dunbar from debradunbar.com, C.C. Jameson from ccjameson.com, Larry Keeton, Vicki Tharp at vickitharp.com, Chrysann, Larry Darter, Natalie Barelli of nataliebarelli.com, Craig Kingsman of craigkingsman.com, and my latest Gold Shield patron Lynn Vitale for their support. And I'd also like to send a huge thank you to my Silver Cuff-link and Coffee Club patrons as well.

You can find links to all of the writers supporting this episode in the show notes at writersdetective.com/83. To learn about setting up your own Patreon account for your author business or to support the show for as little as $2 per month, visit writersdetective.com/Patreon, P-A-T-R-E-O-N.

So do you have any good recipes for that new cocktail? The Quarantini? You're probably thinking a coronavirus joke. et tu Brute, that's a twofer  right there, a coronavirus joke topped with an ides of March reference. Man, oh man, I leave you guys alone for a week, go take a little alcoholaday for my birthday and I come home to this mess? Ah, in all seriousness, I hope you are home and healthy and enjoying a little solitude while COVID-19 runs its course. 

And please, seriously do take the recommended precautions seriously, I know you've been bombarded with notices and alerts and instructions and emails from every business you've ever done business with, but now is the time to take a much deserved staycation. If you're in the U S and your workplace has closed or reduced your hours and they aren't paying you, file for temporary unemployment right now then finish all those online courses you paid for, never finished.

Download a new book, reread that page turning you love back in the '90s and it's been collecting dust in that overstuffed bookcase. Finish writing your book, hey pot, I'm kettle. Send me a question to answer on next week's podcast, sleep in, run a bath, just relax, it's time for a mindset shift. Right now, the world is getting a multi-week break just to chill, to learn to be still to enjoy the peace and unplug.

I mean, you guys are writers, just imagine you're on deadline, this should be easy, you've been training for this, I certainly wish I could. Being in law enforcement means that we're going to get busy very soon because all of those closure orders that the state governors and city managers are working on signing right now, well, guess who gets to enforce all of those...                                                                           Continue reading...
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​his week on the Writer's Detective Bureau. Interview dialogue, and a cozy missing person turned murder mystery. I'm Adam Richardson and this is the Writer's Detective Bureau.

Welcome to episode 82 of the Writer's Detective Bureau, the podcast dedicated to helping authors and screenwriters write professional quality crime-related fiction. And this week I'm answering your questions about how to make the dialogue in your interview scenes more believable, and how best to tackle a missing person turned murder case as a cozy. But first, I need to thank my Gold Shield patrons, Debra Dunbar, from debradunbar.com, C.C. Jameson, from ccjameson.com, Larry Keeton, Vicki Tharp, at vickitharp.com, Chrysann, Larry Darter, Natalie Barelli of nataliebarelli.com, and Craig Kingsman of craigkingsman.com for their support. I also want to send a huge thank you to my Silver Cuff-link and Coffee Club patrons as well. You can find links to all of the writers supporting this episode in the show notes at writersdetective.com/82. And to learn about setting up your own Patreon account for your author business, or to support the show for as little as $2 per month, visit writersdetective.com/Patreon. P-A-T-R-E-O-N.

And before I get to this week's questions, I want to wish Joan Raymond of joanraymondwritinganddesign.com​ a very happy birthday. Joan was my very first patron on Patreon, and she was kind enough to invite me to speak at the Writers of Kern Annual Conference later this month. Hopefully the coronavirus doesn't hamper the conference plans, because I've already booked my hotel room and I'm looking forward to the drive up to finally meet Joan in person, on the streets of Bakersfield. Wait, that didn't come out right. So my talk for the conference is titled, Interviewing like a Detective, which, as luck would have it, dovetails nicely into this week's first question.

​Craig Kingsman, of craigkingsman.com, who happens to be one of my Gold Shield patrons, asked this in the Facebook group. Craig wrote, "Police interviews are a weak point in my writing. Can anyone recommend any resources to help me learn how to get this right?" Craig, you are not alone. It is a daunting task to try to boil down what is, for us, the detectives, a several-hour round of verbal chess and to do that into just few pages, while also keeping it captivating and believable, that's a very tall order.

But before I go into answering your question, I want to share what Harry Harris, a member of our Facebook group, and also a recently-retired detective from London, England wrote. Harry writes, "Detectives in the UK use a particular model that I will explain. It may help. This model is effective for catching out inconsistencies in a suspect's story.

First phase is where you allow a full recall of events. No questions, unless to clarify something said. Second phase is where you will take their account and split it into subjects to probe, i.e., "You said you were in the Dog and Duck pub. Tell me, who else was in? Who was behind the bar? Who can confirm you were there?" Etc. We're now really committing them to their story. This phase can be lengthy. The final phase is a challenge phase. Now is the time to shoot their story out of the water by putting the evidence to them. "An eye witness puts you at the crime scene." "Your fingerprint was found on the knife." "You are on CCTV." If a suspect has been talking, they will now most likely be going, "no comment". In reality, most suspects maintain no comment throughout, so you would quickly go through the model and get to the challenge quickly. In UK law, we can hold an inference of guilt on a suspect who fails to account for evidence against them. This ultimately is a tool for the jury to help them deliberate. Hope this is of some help."

Well, Harry is spot on with his suggestions, but here in the US... ​                                                                                                     Continue reading...

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​This week on the Writer's Detective Bureau, recorded in a wire tap, what gets kept as evidence and counter surveillance techniques. I'm Adam Richardson, and this is the Writer's Detective Bureau.

Welcome to episode number 81 of the Writer's Detective Bureau, the podcast dedicated to helping authors and screenwriters write professional quality crime related fiction. And this week I'm answering your questions about whether a wiretap investigation has to target a specific person, and how you find out if you've been recorded as part of a wiretap investigation. I'm also talking about what items get kept as evidence and what property gets returned to a victim. And lastly, I'll be talking about counter surveillance techniques that you, I mean your characters, can use to see if you're, I mean they, are being followed.
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But first I need to thank my gold shield patrons, Debra Dunbar from debradunbar.com, C.C. Jameson from ccjameson.com, Larry Keeton, Vicki Tharp at vickitharp.com, Chrysann, Larry Darter, Natalie Barelli of nataliebarelli.com, and Craig Kingsman of craigkingsman.com for their support. And thanks also go to my silver cuff link and coffee club patrons for their support as well. You can find links to all of the writers supporting this episode by going to the show notes at writersdetective.com/81. And to learn about setting up your own Patreon account for your author business or to support the show for as little as $2 per month, visit writersdetective.com/patreon.

This week's first question comes from Joel Shulkin who asks, "The episode on wiretapping was very useful, but I have a couple of questions that relate to a situation in my work in progress. First, do police have to identify someone as a suspect in order to obtain a wire tap warrant, or could it simply be a person of interest or even a witness who has refused to answer questions? Second, what if the subject to be wiretapped is a minor? Do the police have to follow any different procedures or process than they would for an adult? Do they need to notify the parent? Thanks so much." Great questions, Joel. There's a lot that goes into getting a wiretap because the courts have held that it's one of the most invasive types of surveillance that government can do with regard to a person's privacy. So we, the cops, have to exhaust other means of investigation first, and that investigation has to be directed at a known person or persons at least to begin with.

And those targets of the wiretap investigation must be suspects in the crime that you're investigating. So to answer the latter part of your first question, we cannot target the phones of a witness or a victim because they haven't done anything wrong. So there's no reason, legally speaking, for the government to intrude on their privacy. And in fact, there are actually a limited number of crimes that we can even get a wire tap for. So it varies based on whether you're seeking a federal wire tap order or a wire tap order through the state court that you're, within the state that you're in, as to which crimes you can and cannot get a wire order for. But regardless of whether you're going the federal route or the state route, those crimes are specified in the law, and all of them are going to be major cases. So assuming you're investigating one of the crimes that you can get a communications intercept order for, there's more to it than just explaining your probable cause like in an affidavit for a search warrant or an arrest warrant...                                                                                                                                         Continue reading...