Mackenzie Undercover: Taking out the Trash

The Dating Detectives

In this episode, private investigator Mackenzie recounts a complex case involving Sarah, a woman who suspected her husband Mike of infidelity after

Key takeaways

• Sarah noticed Mike became increasingly protective of his phone and changed his passcode after 16 years of marriage.
• Mackenzie used trash digging at a private residence to find receipts for pregnancy tests and prenatal vitamins.

Main topics

• Private investigation techniques
• Infidelity and surveillance

Notable quotes

A good lie is close to and the truth.

Conclusion

The episode serves as a dramatic reminder that while evidence can be h

Transcript preview

Speaker 2 (0:00) The following program contains names, places, and events that have been anonymized or fictionalized for the purposes of protection and safety. The following program is provided for entertainment purposes only and any commentary from the hosts are strictly conjecture and should not be held as making any definitive statements about the truth or identity of any particular individuals or circumstances. If you or a loved one are involved in an abusive relationship, please call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233 for support. Speaker 1 (0:36) Happy Dating Speaker 2 (0:37) Detectives Monday. Hello, hello, hello. I'm so excited. I just had to ask. Speaker 1 (0:43) I Speaker 2 (0:43) just had to ask Hannah. Wait, Speaker 1 (0:44) this is. Speaker 2 (0:46) What are we doing? Speaker 1 (0:48) What's my name again? Speaker 2 (0:49) This is Crime Junkie. No, just kidding. Speaker 1 (0:51) Oh, that's a good podcast, though. Speaker 2 (0:53) Yeah. What other podcasts are people listening to? I feel like we ask every now and then, but it's nice to hear when there's new stuff. So if you like Dating Detectives, tell us what else you like. Speaker 1 (1:01) Yeah, because if you honestly, everybody's always listening for a new binge worthy podcast. What's your binge worthy podcast? Speaker 2 (1:10) There's a show that I think we have an audience crossover with. I'm not going to say it now, but let's just say we've wanted to collaborate with them for a long time and it's coming up. So that'll be exciting. Speaker 1 (1:22) Yeah, we hope you guys are super excited. We love collabing with other pods too. It's just really fun and interesting. Everybody has a story. Yeah, of course. I have a story. I have a Mackenzie Undercarver story, Speaker 2 (1:32) as Hannah said. Speaker 1 (1:34) What? Speaker 2 (1:34) What? You don't say. We want to Speaker 1 (1:35) hear it. I'm like imagining the audience and me having a phone Speaker 2 (1:39) response like, Speaker 1 (1:40) yes, Mackenzie. Well, what's funny is that we were at, Hannah and I were recording at Dear Media Studios in LA probably like a year ago. And I was like, oh man, I have this story that I want to tell. And so we did content. We recorded content about the story. And then we have had the most amazing guest you guys know. And so I haven't had a chance to tell it. And so I was like, we need to tell this story because it's really funny. So I know like key Speaker 2 (2:02) words about it, but I don't know what actually happened. So I'm ready. Speaker 1 (2:07) Okay, so first of all, before we get into it, thank you so much for everything, for the support of our show and for the support of our guests and your kindness and your love. It means a lot to us and we are just really grateful for you and appreciate the way you guys listen and our Patreoners, our sleuthies, we love you. So thank you so much. Speaker 2 (2:26) I love that. I agree. Thank you so much. And also every time you guys comment, it cracks me up. Somebody in the last episode commented, there was bend. instead of their husband and I I love I was like how have I never heard that she was like yeah that happened with my wasband you guys are hilarious that is Speaker 1 (2:45) so funny I love that the words that y'all come up with they're hilarious wasband yeah my wasband well Speaker 2 (2:51) we want a story tell us tell us tell us okay Speaker 1 (2:58) So for this story, we're going to call our target couple Mike and Sarah. So imagine Mike is 43, Sarah is 40. And I actually know that because the only reason I know, well, I look up their information, obviously, when I take a case, but Sarah had just celebrated her 40th birthday. And I remember talking to her about why this is sad that she's dealing with a private investigator and she just turned 40. This must be the time of your life, whatever. Speaker 2 (3:26) Yeah. Speaker 1 (3:28) So Mike is 43. Sarah's 40. They had been married for 16 years and had two kids, 10 and 14. The little house in the suburbs, two decent careers, pretty normal. I think what most people would describe as a normal family life, right? It sounds like statistically normal, Speaker 2 (3:47) like 2.5 kids. Statistically, yeah. A Speaker 1 (3:49) golden retriever, like the whole thing. So Sarah is a healthcare administrator. So super normal. Mike is a regional sales manager. And I'm wondering how many people just heard sales and went. Because, you know, salespeople have to travel. So there's a little foreshadowing. Speaker 2 (4:08) Okay, for sure. And I'm also imagining because that's the title of Michael Scott in The Office. So now I'm unfortunately going to be imagining Steve Carell for the rest of the story. Speaker 1 (4:18) Oh my God, that's so funny because he kind of looks like Steve Carell too. Speaker 2 (4:22) Great. This is awesome. Maybe this is a spinoff of The Office. Hopefully we don't hate him by the end. All right. So a regional sales manager named Mike. Yeah. Speaker 1 (4:36) And his perfect family. And again, his job requires some travel and some late dinners with clients. Think the occasional overnight trip. And it never really bothered Sarah. Like she's fine. She's like this. He brings in the money. They have a good life financially. She makes good money. He makes good money, whatever. Until suddenly there's a lot. of overnight stays and it's becoming more and more frequent. And Mike is staying late at work during the week. And then she notices, and this is so common, like so, so this is an indicator many of the times is that the phone starts going everywhere with them. They become very protective of it, even into the shower, which I bring my phone into the shower. Cause I listened to my audio books or I'll listen to, you know, music or whatever. Yeah. But When you've never done that before and suddenly it's changing and you're hovering over your phone and you're rushing to it so that no one else can see what's going on, there's a problem. Yeah, if Speaker 2 (5:37) you're always angling away or facing it down. Speaker 1 (5:40) Yeah, and he changed the password. She said that they did know each other's passwords, but then he changed his all of a sudden. All right, he's a rookie at this. He's terrible at cheating. Okay, let's go. So then she noticed something really specific. So every few weeks he would have a client dinner with the same female coworker who is a subordinate of his. And this is someone that they work together to like, they worked on the same cases together, the same, I call them cases because I'm a PI, the same client opportunities, I guess, or whatever. Whatever y'all call them in sales. Anyway, so let's call her Jessica. So Jessica's 35. So she's a little younger. She works in the same sales division as Mike. And Sarah had actually met her before at company events. So she knows this girl. She's met her at the Christmas party. They've co-mingled, whatever. She wasn't some mysterious woman that like Mike meets at a bar. She's, you know, she was the work wife. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. That's yes. So she knew he was married. She met his wife. So Jessica knows all about his life and his kids. And Sarah, by the time she had called me, she said, I didn't, I don't have any proof of anything, but you know, that wife tuition, that femme tuition. I was going to say when she, did she tell you anything about what Speaker 2 (7:00) she thought of Jessica when she met her at the Christmas party? Was she? Yeah. So she says. Speaker 1 (7:04) She's professional. She's very well-dressed. She's beautiful. And again, she has no proof or anything that anything is going on. But she says, you know what? Just for shits and giggles, let's hire a PI. Like, I want to see. where he's actually going but she doesn't mention it to him because she doesn't want to feel like an asshole if she's wrong but also she's like but i still wanted to follow my gut so i kind of wanted to follow through with this pi thing and so she actually for a couple of months set aside little amounts of money like a couple hundred dollars at a time so that eventually she could hire a pi without it taking a big hit on their bank account or whatever Speaker 2 (7:47) see i don't i cannot relate to being a married person that long with kids but I don't think I could keep my mouth shut for months if I thought my partner was cheating like I feel like at some point I would have a glass of wine get a little angry and be like what's going on on your phone no I wouldn't be able to do it but I kind of commend her for playing the long Speaker 1 (8:07) game no yeah like it's it seems super impossible to me I think I'd lose my shit but anyways Speaker 1 (8:17) You guys, I think I have a serious problem with technology. 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And actually, that's really common. A lot of people will say, I feel really stupid calling you because they want to preface it by saying, if you find nothing, don't worry. I already feel stupid. It's like making fun of yourself before someone else can, basically. That's what it seems Speaker 2 (11:28) like to me. And guilt. They feel guilty that they're possibly accusing their husband of something. Speaker 1 (11:36) I started doing surveillance on the husband and I wanted to see, okay, let's see what he's doing. But first I do surveillance starting from the house early in the morning. Where is he going? He goes to work. What is he doing? He goes, so I want to kind of get a feel for him and his routine. I want to get a feel for his habits, how he drives, how he acts, how fast he goes. Does he stop to eat somewhere? Is there somewhere that he favorites as far as a store? I want to. Just kind of get a feel for him, right? Identify his Speaker 2 (12:03) patterns. Speaker 1 (12:04) Yes, thank you. Identify his patterns. So I'm keeping in touch with Sarah and I'm asking her what are the days that he's going on these rendezvous or going out to these client dinners or having these overnights, whatever. And she starts to, and she, I specifically asked her if they had shared locations and she's like, no, we don't do any of that. Like that's not anything we've ever done. And so she had never watched him or seen where he was going or whatever. Right. So the only, the first information she was getting about where he was actually going besides just what he was saying was me following him. So he says, go ahead. So Speaker 2 (12:41) you'd already started following him at this point. You're saying like you just on a day to day. Speaker 1 (12:45) Yeah. So I follow him for the first day. I want to get ahold of his patterns, his, his, you know, how he acts, his habits, things like that. So then I did one more day of just kind of pattern recognition and understanding what he's doing. And I follow him from work after work. Where does he go? Which route does he take home? And he goes straight home to her. She had told me there was nothing going on that day. Interesting. I Speaker 2 (13:07) would think, I think I'm not a PI, but I would probably just think to go straight to the day where he has the. dinner with this Jessica, but it's interesting that you do the groundwork first. That makes sense. Well, so, Speaker 1 (13:19) and real quick, so sidebar, one thing that is interesting and super important to know is that you will never find answers from the subject themselves. You will always find answers in their environment surrounding them, the people, places, and things around them. That's where you're going to get your answers because you'll get little answers from every little person, place, and thing, and you can put them together to create a bigger picture. Always. That makes sense. So by understanding the pattern, you understand which way does he take home? Because if another day he takes a weird route, you're like, wait a minute, let me log that. Yeah. And so you start tracking the things that are different. So one of the nights that I did surveillance on him where he did have a client. dinner, not a stay over, but a client dinner. He goes to a property that is about five miles down the road from them. And it is not super rural, but far enough away from it. Like you, like it'll take you 20 minutes to get to the Walmart basically. I don't know if that helps in that area. Yeah. I don't know if that helps y'all in LA, but here, if you, if it takes you 20 minutes to get to a Walmart, you far. Speaker 2 (14:29) Yeah. I got you. So it's a spread out place. Speaker 1 (14:32) Yeah, it's kind of spread out. So she's kind of in the country, but this property is huge. Like there's acreage, beautiful, like, you know, it's out there. So this is a very exclusive type neighborhood. And so he goes to this house and I- He's having his Speaker 2 (14:47) work thing in a house? Speaker 1 (14:49) Yeah, it's like this big giant property, but it's like a barn on a house. It's like a, yes, it's a residence. So this is a private residence. But there's like a guest house and everything. It's huge. Like this is a very, this is a very well to do property and community, whatever. So I'm like, all right, well, this place was big enough where you would think, oh, this is a venue. This could be like a house, but a venue for some kind of event. Don't think anything of it. He goes to this house. He stays there for a couple of hours. He's home when he tells the wife he'd be home. He was like three or four hours. And he's like, I'll be home by nine, 10 o'clock. And he's there just as long. And he goes right home. And that's what he does. Well, whenever someone goes to a residence that we're not familiar with or that I don't know what's going on, I do a little research. Who lives here? And Speaker 2 (15:34) that's allowed. Speaker 1 (15:34) Yeah. Yes. Who lives here? How long have they lived here? Who owns the cars that are here? I get the tag numbers for all the cars. So because this property is so big, I find myself parking the car and just kind of taking a stroll. And you know, it's dark. I let it get dark. And then I kind of walked up the driveway. Like it's a, it's one of those driveways where if you're going to take the trash out, you can put it on a side-by-side and drive it down the driveway. But it's not so big that you need a whole ass truck, but maybe a golf cart or a four or a side-by-side, right? So you're just Speaker 2 (16:05) walking down this empty driveway. Yeah. Speaker 1 (16:08) So what I did was I had a leash in my hand. So if anybody were asking me, what