Houma sleuth spills plenty about gumshoe game

If you need to see George Day, private eye, don’t expect to find him in a dingy second floor walk-up, over a greasy hash house, with his name printed on a glazed window.

There’s no blonde tomato in an outer office whose lack of millwork skills is made up only by the way she cooks a mean cup of joe.

Day doesn’t have an office cluttered with years of old case files, newspaper clippings, a wire cage fan humming on a wooden file cabinet or a bottle of hooch stored in the right bottom drawer of an oversized walnut desk, taken out only to mark the solving of another case.

There is no blue haze rising from a gasper smoldering in an overfilled ashtray, nor is there a ringing dial horn with some sap on the other end calling for help because a couple of torpedoes rubbed out his business partner.

Day might have a career that brings up stereotypical images of great detective movies of the past, but he is definitely a private investigator of the 21st century.

Day started in the business more than two decades ago, after he got injured working offshore as an engineer. “I’d gotten kind of screwed around by the insurance company,” he said.

Represented in his legal case by Houma attorney Joseph Kopfler, now the principal partner of the law firm Kopfler & Hermann, Day was offered an opportunity to do a little investigative work by his lawyer.

“I gave him the name of a guy we had been looking for and in about 20 minutes he found him, Kopfler said of Day and his first assignment. “He has a knack for it.”

“They were looking for somebody they could train as an in-house investigator. I found the guy’s death certificate at a funeral home up in Baton Rouge. It was just a hunch. So, I got the job,” Day said.

Day worked with Kopfler for 14 years and then decided to set out on his own.

He learned early that work as a private investigator is not like the movies. There are long hours of surveillance involved, interviewing witnesses, tedious research and shooting with a camera is far more common than using a gun.

Day focuses his attention mainly on civil cases such as insurance fraud, background checks, process serving and domestic situations when one spouse is suspected of cheating on another. He is also called upon to do offshore investigations because his background gives him an edge in knowing what is involved in those work environments.

Day once did criminal cases, but stopped after he worked to get a man serving time on kidnapping charges released from prison only to have the former con go on to murder a person. “I decided then that I don’t want to do criminal cases,” he said.

Day noted that about 70 percent of his workload is spent catching people trying to defraud insurance companies with fake injuries.

“The people out there committing fraud are not only hurting the insurance companies,” he said. “They are actually hurting the people that really got hurt.”

The most challenging cases Day said he has are ones that require extensive background work.

“[I had] a case where a tractor trailer had run over about seven vehicles that had stopped at a traffic stop,” Day said. “The driver refused a breathalyzer or any blood tests at the scene. [Police] found marijuana in his truck. He swore through depositions that he had no idea what marijuana looked like.

“The day I was hired, about three days before [another] deposition I found out that [the truck driver] had been arrested for possession of marijuana in northern Louisiana about 20 years earlier.”

Not all of Day’s cases end with tragedy or amazement at what some suspects try to deny. Some carry an element of ironic humor.

“I had a job involving some professional people. The wife had hired me to find out if the husband was committing adultery with the neighbor. [The wife] called me and told me she was going to be leaving town and that would be a good time for me to find out who it was [her husband was seeing],” Day said.

“[The wife] left at about 1 p.m. Then at 3 p.m., there was a lady that arrived at the house and stayed the whole time. I caught [the husband and mystery woman] in compromising positions outside.

“So, when the wife came back to town I told her I found out who it was [with her husband]. I said I don’t know if it is your next door neighbor because I don’t know what your neighbor looks like.

“She looked at the video and goes, ‘Thank God, it’s not my neighbor. Now I don’t have to sell my house. I can just fire the babysitter,’” Day said. “She wasn’t concerned about the adultery. She was concerned about the house.”

As a private investigator, the work Day performs helps lawyers build their cases. While actively covering an average 10 to 15 cases a month results are key as most of his work is repeat business.

According to national figures, there are about 52,000 private investigators in the country. Among the 1,500 private investigators in Louisiana, Day is among the best and has been named the 2010 Legal Investigator of the Year by the Louisiana Association of Legal Investigators.

“George has been on the leading edge of investigators in Louisiana,” Kopfler said. “A good investigator is somebody who can get information, pictures, statements and facts. George has done well.”

Day noted that one thing that has kept him a step ahead in this business is changing with the times and taking advantage of technology. “I’m becoming more high tech everyday,” Day said. He also noted that same technology could keep some investigators from being among the best.

“Some [people] rely just on computers. You can’t do that. The computer is just as good as the information that is fed into them,” Day said.

He also said one thing that has hampered his industry is an excessive number of privacy laws. “[Lawmakers] make it harder for people in my position to get information,” he said. “And many are really just trying to protect themselves.”

At 57, Day said he is not ready to think about retirement. “If I get too old to get around, I might hire someone to be my legs.”

But until that day comes, don’t expect to find Day alone in his office tossing rats and mice to pass the time, only to be interrupted by a knock on the door from an auburn-haired dame with green eyes, a string of expensive marbles around her neck, a large chunk of ice on her finger and a pair of shapely gams that go all the way down to the floor.

Sure, she might whine about how her goon of a fiancée split with another skirt and took her daddy’s secret method of making lettuce, and how she needs a real man to return what is rightfully hers.

But will Day take on that kind of case? Fagedabodit.

Private investigator George Day, of Houma-based Day’s Investigations LLC, admits that there’ve been occasions when he’s had to change vehicles or positions to avoid exposure. “If anyone ever tells you they haven’t had their cover blown they’re lying,” he said. MIKE NIXON