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Speaker 1: This is on the Job, a podcast about finding your

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Speaker 1: life's work. On the job, is brought to you by

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Speaker 1: Express Employment Professionals. This season, we're bringing you stories of

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Speaker 1: folks following their passion to carve their own career path.

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Speaker 1: For this episode, we look at a pretty non traditional

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Speaker 1: career path, being a private investigator. It's a complicated line

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Speaker 1: of work that comes with a lot of assumptions being

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Speaker 1: made about it and maybe something a lot of people

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Speaker 1: don't feel like they're cut out foreign paper. But sometimes

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Speaker 1: doing a job is less about your hard qualifications and

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Speaker 1: more about the bigger ideas that drive you. Now that

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Speaker 1: you know that we're talking to a real PI today,

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Speaker 1: you probably have some idea in your head of what

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Speaker 1: that means. So let's get that out of the way. Okay,

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Speaker 1: so what do people say to you when they hear

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Speaker 1: you're a PI. The first thing is that everyone goes, wow,

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Speaker 1: that must be exciting. Well, I've been doing this for

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Speaker 1: almost a half a century, and I don't think exciting

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Speaker 1: is the word that I would use anymore. Maybe at

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Speaker 1: one time, but not anymore. This is Kitty Kitty Hailey.

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Speaker 1: I am a professional investigator, sometimes called a PI or

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Speaker 1: a private investigator, and I am old enough to know better.

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Speaker 1: Kitty works and lives in Philadelphia. She got fiery red hair,

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Speaker 1: she's put together, kind of looks like she might be

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Speaker 1: a kindergarten teacher. You wouldn't look at her and think

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Speaker 1: she's a PI, which is also what people say to

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Speaker 1: her when they find out what she does. And then

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Speaker 1: they start to tell me how they would be a

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Speaker 1: good investigator. And they tell me either how they located

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Speaker 1: their long lost second cousin or they found their husband cheating,

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Speaker 1: and they watch all the cop shows on TV. The

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Speaker 1: thing is, Kitty is pretty much the opposite of what

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Speaker 1: you'd see on a cop show. She's been an investigator

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Speaker 1: in many forms, but currently most of what she does

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Speaker 1: is investigate the police in cases where someone is wrongfully

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Speaker 1: convicted or an officer abuses their authority. So no, I'm

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Speaker 1: not a police investigator. All right. So you've done a

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Speaker 1: lot of different things in your career, but boiled down,

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Speaker 1: what is it that you do. I gather information, period,

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Speaker 1: That's what I do. I don't censor it, I don't

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Speaker 1: editorialize it. I am a fact finder. However, the facts

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Speaker 1: that are find are about some very interesting and unusual situations.

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Speaker 1: Right now, Kitty is a criminal investigator, but for a

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Speaker 1: while she was what was called a full service investigator,

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Speaker 1: which means she did a little bit of everything, domestic people, cheating,

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Speaker 1: locating missing people. Now she does civil rights work, investigating

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Speaker 1: cases similar to George Floyd's where there's been an incident

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Speaker 1: with the police. My other clients are incarcerated and they

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Speaker 1: may not be guilty, So it's an interesting mixture of work,

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Speaker 1: but primarily I do civil rights and post conviction work.

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Speaker 1: While I was asking Kitty questions, I was surprised by

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Speaker 1: how much goes into being a PI that you'd never

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Speaker 1: know without talking to one. But some of the time,

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Speaker 1: just like on TV, Katy ends up in a courtroom

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Speaker 1: in front of a jury, presenting the facts and making

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Speaker 1: her case. Do you like being in a courtroom? I

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Speaker 1: love it. It's the best time because I think we're

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Speaker 1: all different people at different times. I'm not pretending, but

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Speaker 1: I am performing. I'm performing the Kitty Hailey who is

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Speaker 1: the investigator. I mean sometimes I'm a grandmom, and you know,

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Speaker 1: I sit on the floor with a couple of grandkids

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Speaker 1: and I play games and I make them cookies and

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Speaker 1: do all the things that grandmas do, but when I'm

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Speaker 1: in a courtroom, have control. Long before she was dominating

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Speaker 1: courtrooms and swaying juries, young Kitty Haley grew up a

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Speaker 1: pretty straight laced, brainy kid. I was a young geek.

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Speaker 1: I read a lot of books. I mean, Nancy Drew

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Speaker 1: was my best friend for the longest time, so maybe

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Speaker 1: that was part of it. I don't know. She had

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Speaker 1: a brother and a sister. They were a tight family unit,

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Speaker 1: had dinner every night with mom and dad. We're Jewish,

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Speaker 1: so we went to synagogue every Friday night together. I

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Speaker 1: don't think any of us ever got in trouble once

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Speaker 1: in our entire lives. Even so, growing up in a

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Speaker 1: non Jewish neighborhood, she saw a lot of prejudice against

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Speaker 1: her family. There were places she couldn't go, things she

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Speaker 1: couldn't do. So I knew what it was like to

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Speaker 1: be an outcast. I knew what it was like to

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Speaker 1: have in equity. And I think if I had not

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Speaker 1: been an investigator, I probably would have ended up in

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Speaker 1: some sort of social work at some point in time.

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Speaker 1: Because the inequities of the world are so great and

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Speaker 1: I can't stand a look at them. I need to

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Speaker 1: be a part of the solution, not accorded the problem.

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Speaker 1: In high school, she was great at art, so she

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Speaker 1: went to school for it, and afterwards she got a

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Speaker 1: job teaching art at a high school in Camden, New Jersey.

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Speaker 1: It was a predominantly black school during the Civil Rights movement,

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Speaker 1: and Kitty was asked to leave the school system after

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Speaker 1: being blamed for causing an uprising against the school system.

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Speaker 1: I didn't I didn't stop it. Apparently, she just helped

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Speaker 1: the students with their manifesto. Yeah. I think that was

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Speaker 1: my problem, help them to put their manifesto together. And

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Speaker 1: the problem was that I did during school time, during

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Speaker 1: school copy machines, So yeah, I shouldn't have done that maybe. Unsurprisingly,

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Speaker 1: this is when she had encountered with a police captain

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Speaker 1: who ended up becoming her husband. He was branching off

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Speaker 1: from the force to start his own PI firm, and

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Speaker 1: she started to help out while she got another teaching

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Speaker 1: job at Rutgers. And I worked as a teacher counselor

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Speaker 1: for a couple of years, doing investigative work part time,

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Speaker 1: and then eventually just transitioned over because it's what I

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Speaker 1: really wanted to do. So twenty four years old. Kitty

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Speaker 1: Haley was a PI, but it definitely wasn't glamorous. You know,

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Speaker 1: we have a small agency initially, and it was really

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Speaker 1: it was really difficult because it was just my husband enough.

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Speaker 1: They took whatever work they could get, which was mostly

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Speaker 1: domestic work. People cheating, abuse cases, custody issues, families stealing

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Speaker 1: from each other, messy stuff. My kids went to college

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Speaker 1: because I did domestic work. I mean, God, bless cheating people.

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Speaker 1: It was wonderful. Infidelity pays the bills. Yeah, absolutely, the

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Speaker 1: stereotypical stuff people think of when you're a PI, sneaking around,

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Speaker 1: following people, looking in their windows to see when the

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Speaker 1: light goes on or off. Yeah, I've done all that stuff.

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Speaker 1: I sat on surveillance for days and nights and weeks,

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Speaker 1: and I used to bring my kids on surveillance when

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Speaker 1: they were little. Sometimes they'd be so busy that her

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Speaker 1: husband would be working right through bedtime when Kitty had

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Speaker 1: to go do her surveillance work. So she'd throw the

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Speaker 1: kids in the back of the car with a blanket

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Speaker 1: and I'd go out. We'd all stood on surveillance together.

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Speaker 1: I read them books, I tell them stories as we

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Speaker 1: were driving. You hook them in with seatbelts and give

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Speaker 1: them things to play with, and every once in a

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Speaker 1: while I go, Okay, guys, hang on, mama's gotta go.

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Speaker 1: You did what we had to do. We'll get back

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Speaker 1: to our story in a second. First, a word from

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Speaker 1: Express Employment Professionals. A strong work ethic takes pride in

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Speaker 1: a job well done. This is you. But to get

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Speaker 1: an honest day's work, you need a callback. You need

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Speaker 1: a job. Express Employment Professionals can help. We'll connect you

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Speaker 1: to the right company. We're committed to your success and

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Speaker 1: never charge a fee to find you a job. Express

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Speaker 1: Nose Jobs. Get to know Express find your location at

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Speaker 1: expresspros dot com or on the Express Jobs app. Now

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Speaker 1: back to on the job. Despite the life of starting

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Speaker 1: a PI firm, Kitty was hooked. I loved the excitement,

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Speaker 1: the adventure and it was creative in its own way. Also,

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Speaker 1: having a background in art made me capable of observing

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Speaker 1: things that other people didn't see. She picked up on details.

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Speaker 1: She could recreate rooms that she was invited into during

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Speaker 1: theft investigations, and a client might be able to point

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Speaker 1: out the thing that they said was stolen from them.

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Speaker 1: This is one of the many skills that's helped Kitty

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Speaker 1: stay in the game as long as she has. What

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Speaker 1: makes someone good at what you do? Wow, I always

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Speaker 1: tell people who are interested in my field, they have

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Speaker 1: to be able to do several things really well. They

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Speaker 1: have to be able to think. You have to be

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Speaker 1: able to think and analyze. You have to be able

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Speaker 1: to observe and put your own personal prejudices out of

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Speaker 1: the way while you're observing what happened or what the

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Speaker 1: evidence is. She says. You also have to know a

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Speaker 1: lot about the law and how the court system works,

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Speaker 1: so that you know what constitutes evidence. Evidence is really

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Speaker 1: important because everything you do has to be admissible in

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Speaker 1: a court of law or you can't do it. One

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Speaker 1: of the most overlook skills, she says, writing You've got

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Speaker 1: to be able to put together a good report. If

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Speaker 1: you can't write what you did to explain it to

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Speaker 1: an attorney, then you might as well never have done

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Speaker 1: the work. Basically, you might do seventy hours worth of

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Speaker 1: surveillance and finding information, computer research and interviewing people, and

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Speaker 1: all you can give to an attorney is a five

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Speaker 1: page report. So it's like a master class in essay writing.

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Speaker 1: Sounds like there's a lot of skills they don't tell

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Speaker 1: you about on Law and Order SVU. Yes, so you

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Speaker 1: have to be able to deal with people, communicate well,

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Speaker 1: and know how to build so that you can keep

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Speaker 1: your job. That's the whole thing. It's a business. People

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Speaker 1: forget that. They think this is oh, this is great.

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Speaker 1: But if you're working for yourself, you've got to do

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Speaker 1: all of that or good work for somebody else, which

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Speaker 1: you can do. Katie says. There are so many respects

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Speaker 1: of the work. You can always try it all out

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Speaker 1: and figure out what you'd like to specialize in. Especially

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Speaker 1: in the age of social media. You could be a techie,

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Speaker 1: you could work online investigations. There's a ton of different

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Speaker 1: ways to go about it. That's not what I like

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Speaker 1: to do. It's not my comfort zone. Put me in

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Speaker 1: front of somebody and I will interview them until I

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Speaker 1: get every lest bit of information out of them, and

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Speaker 1: that I do well. Kitty says, in the beginning, she

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Speaker 1: was saying yes to any job that came her way.

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Speaker 1: She had to. That can get you in trouble. There

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Speaker 1: was a nice couple who came to see us. They

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Speaker 1: had just come from a funeral actually, and so they

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Speaker 1: were well dressed, and she wanted us to find her

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Speaker 1: missing children. The woman's ex husband had taken the kids.

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Speaker 1: It's not uncommon in these cases, so Kittie got involved,

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Speaker 1: only to later find out that without their nice clothing,

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Speaker 1: they were members of the Hell's Angels who were involved

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Speaker 1: in a dispute with a rival gang. We were right

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Speaker 1: in the middle of it, and I was stupid. I

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Speaker 1: didn't know anything about this. It was my first introduction

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Speaker 1: to anything criminal. I only learned about it when I

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Speaker 1: left their house and four big black SUVs pulled me

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Speaker 1: off to the side of the road and four people

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Speaker 1: identify themselves as the FBI and wanted to know what

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Speaker 1: I was doing in the house. That was not something

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Speaker 1: that a twenty four year old should have to go through.

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Speaker 1: It was scary. Do they make you second guess? Oh

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Speaker 1: my god, like, what am I doing? No? It maybe

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Speaker 1: learned to be more careful about who my clients are,

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Speaker 1: at least to know what was really expected of me,

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Speaker 1: Because my clients right now, some of them are guilty

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Speaker 1: as hell. You know some of them are innocent, but

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Speaker 1: you don't know until you investigate it. So I need

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Speaker 1: to I've learned to investigate my clients as well as

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Speaker 1: to investigate what they want me to investigate. Do you

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Speaker 1: ever do jobs for people that you kind of don't

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Speaker 1: feel comfortable doing. Yeah, but I'm not them. I'm still

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Speaker 1: doing my job. So take any case where there's a

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Speaker 1: prosecutor and a defendant. Whether she's hired by the defense

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Speaker 1: or the prosecution, her job doesn't change. So if there

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Speaker 1: was a bullet, we're going to find a bullet. If

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Speaker 1: you have a witness who says she saw X Y

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Speaker 1: and Z, bolt investigator is going to find x Y

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Speaker 1: and Z. The prosecution investigator and the defense investigator are

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Speaker 1: both going to find the same information because the facts

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Speaker 1: don't change. I'm not supporting a person, I'm finding out facts. Still,

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Speaker 1: she knows that what she does has a huge impact

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Speaker 1: on people's lives. When I ask if she's okay with that,

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Speaker 1: she tells me about a case where a guy called

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Speaker 1: Kitty saying he suspected his wife was cheating on him

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Speaker 1: every day when he went to work. He wanted her

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Speaker 1: to find out. Turns out his wife was with a

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Speaker 1: neighbor next door. Kitty had the evidence and testified in

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Speaker 1: their court hearing the following morning. I'm in my office

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Speaker 1: and I get a phone call and it's the woman

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Speaker 1: who I testified against, and she says to me, how

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Speaker 1: can you sleep with yourself doing the ugly work that

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Speaker 1: you do, spying on people, peering in windows? How do

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Speaker 1: you sleep with yourself? And I remember saying to her,

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Speaker 1: I don't. I don't sleep with myself. I speak with

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Speaker 1: my husband. You out her hand, sleep with somebody else

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Speaker 1: who says this. So no, I'm not the people I'm

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Speaker 1: working for or against. I'm still me with my own

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Speaker 1: ethics and my own morals. But if in the process

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Speaker 1: I help somebody make a life decision that will change

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Speaker 1: the course of their life, or allow them to make

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Speaker 1: an informed decision, then I've done a good job. Kitty

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Speaker 1: has a deep respect for the impact her work has,

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Speaker 1: good or bad, which is why over the last many

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Speaker 1: years she's become a nationally recognized investigative ethicist. She literally

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Speaker 1: wrote the book on ethical standards for being an investigator,

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Speaker 1: and she tours the country giving lectures on how to

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Speaker 1: do this job in a responsible way. Recently, she was

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Speaker 1: doing a session with a pretty elite group of investigators

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Speaker 1: and somebody asked me the question, how do you show

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Speaker 1: empathy and it just blew me for a loop. And

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Speaker 1: I said, I don't I feel it being a PI

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Speaker 1: sounds like a cool job, and Kitty says it is.

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Speaker 1: But on the flip side, there are times when you

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Speaker 1: are talking to a person on the worst day of

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Speaker 1: their life, people who have lost a loved one or

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Speaker 1: were a victim of a crime, people scared for their life.

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Speaker 1: And if you don't appreciate that, then maybe you shouldn't

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Speaker 1: be doing this job. You've got to understand that everyone

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Speaker 1: has been traumatized in some way, and I'm a to

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Speaker 1: their horror and I need to record it. I need

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Speaker 1: to be able to elicit the information from them so

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Speaker 1: that I can take their statements so that when I

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Speaker 1: present it in court it has meaning and gravatas, and

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Speaker 1: that comes from respect. Talking with Kitty reminded me of

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Speaker 1: something pretty amazing I heard the famous therapist and author

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Speaker 1: Esther Perel say on a podcast once when she was

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Speaker 1: talking about our relationship to our jobs. She said, next

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Speaker 1: time you're at dinner with new friends or at a

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Speaker 1: party and you're about to ask the routine question what

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Speaker 1: do you do for a living? Instead ask what would

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Speaker 1: you do if you weren't doing the job you do now.

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Speaker 1: That's always stuck with me because I feel like so

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Speaker 1: many of us write off what we can do for

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Speaker 1: work because we don't have the education for it, or

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Speaker 1: we didn't grow up around it, or we don't look there.

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Speaker 1: But sometimes what qualifies you for a job is your

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Speaker 1: deepest beliefs, the thing that gets you up in the morning.

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Speaker 1: Kitty still looks like a high school art teacher, but

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Speaker 1: her desire led her to being one of the most

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Speaker 1: respected investigators in her industry. That desire she had as

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Speaker 1: a young nerdy outcast to be part of the solution

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Speaker 1: rather than the problem. I asked her if she still

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Speaker 1: felt that way about her work. Oh, my, every day.

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Speaker 1: You know, we work so hard on a case and

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Speaker 1: don't always see the end of it. Sometimes all the

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Speaker 1: information goes to an attorney and you never know what happened. Wow,

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Speaker 1: I didn't even think of that. That's some very delayed satisfaction,

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Speaker 1: if any at all. Yeah. Okay, So I worked with

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Speaker 1: a gentleman from Philadelphia. I could say his name because

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Speaker 1: he is now free. It's jim Dennis. He was wrongfully

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Speaker 1: incarcerated almost twenty years ago. Jimmie Dennis is an R

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Speaker 1: and B musician in Philadelphia, and when he was twenty one,

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Speaker 1: he was wrongfully convicted of our murder. No physical evidence,

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Speaker 1: no weapon, no DNA, and he was put on death row.

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Speaker 1: Kitty worked on his case, and eighteen years later I

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Speaker 1: was sitting in a coffee shop and I got a

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Speaker 1: telephone call and a voice said, missus Kitty, I just

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Speaker 1: want to thank you, and I said, who is this?

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Speaker 1: He said, this is Jimmy Dennis. I'm on my way

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Speaker 1: home from prison. And I said in that coffee shop

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Speaker 1: and cried like a baby. It was so wonderful to

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Speaker 1: know that work I had done for eighteen years had

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Speaker 1: finally resulted in someone going home to a family a

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Speaker 1: baby he had never held, a child he had not seen.

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Speaker 1: You know, it was somebody whose life was able to

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Speaker 1: be not put hole again, but at least she was

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Speaker 1: able to live a life outside of the four walls

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Speaker 1: of an eight by ten seven, which he was in

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Speaker 1: for eighteen years. You know, that was That's humbling. So yeah,

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Speaker 1: I love what I do. It's not easy, it's hard work,

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Speaker 1: it's long hours, and it's so free and satisfying. It's great.

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Speaker 1: And I'm going to do it until I can't stand

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Speaker 1: up anymore. For On the Job, I'm Otus Gray. To

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Speaker 1: learn more about Kitty and her work, go to Kitty

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Speaker 1: Hailey dot com. Thanks for listening to On the Job,

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Speaker 1: brought to you by Express Employment Professionals. The season of

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Speaker 1: On the Job is produced by Audiation. The episodes written

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Speaker 1: and produced by me Otis Gray. Our executive producer is

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Speaker 1: Sandy Smallens. The show is mixed by Matt Noble for

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Speaker 1: Audiation Studios at the Loft in Bronxville, New York. Music

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Speaker 1: by Blue Dot Sessions. Find us on iHeartRadio and Apple Podcasts.

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Speaker 1: If you liked what you heard, please consider rating and

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Speaker 1: reviewing the show on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen.

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Speaker 1: We'll see you next time. For more inspiring stories about

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Speaker 1: discovering your life's work, Audition