Ok thanks. One more question. We have the money (his money that was left to us) to hire a private detective. Can they investigate and determine if it was a murder? If so how does that work ? Do they actually investigate and try to find the person involved and solve and arrest person? Or is this just wishful thinking? Are they allowed to do Dna testing ?
A private detective can investigate, but they cannot officially determine if a death is murder or not. All they can do is gather information and provide it to you - and to whomever else you allow them to provide it. MAYBE they can uncover enough info to convince the police to take another look. Maybe not.
And, no, they cannot compel DNA. They can collect items that you can pay to have tested for DNA, but, if there is no sample to compare the sample to, then it's sort of moot.
Miadora said:
I just want to know what happened. I am 9o% sure someone killed him. I and any rational person iwould be 100% sure someone was in his house when he died and took his cards and withdrew thousands of dollars from his account. Also he transferred $ 10,000 to his checking account the day before. Also moved all his investments same day.
All of which can have non-criminal explanations. They may seem suspicious to you or even to others, but, they may also be perfectly innocuous.
What would you do ? Lawyer ? Private detectives ? I am at a loss and am investigating it my self... Even going to use a black light to see where gash happened in house... Blood looks like it was cleaned up... Just small spots around house on floor. A rinsed out bloody dish towel found in bedroom upstairs. A little on bathroom sink. I am next going to get chip out of land line phone and see if someone can recover messages.
Sounds like he may have had the head injury before he died. Maybe he fell and hurt himself. Who knows?
As for what to do, well, you may be doing it. You can pay for a private forensic pathologist (an autopsy), you can hire a PI to do some legwork, and you can gather whatever financial records you can get a hold of in order to try and convince someone to look into the matter. But, nothing can FORCE the police, the state's attorney, or anyone else to investigate if they feel there is nothing there. Before you will likely get them to investigate the DEATH, you may well have to work through the state medical examiner as I previously mentioned. As long as the death is determined to be of natural causes, then the police will have a very difficult time justifying an investigation and probably could not get the subpoenas or search warrants they might otherwise need to look into the financial suspicions.
As for the financial questions, those transactions should be pretty easy to track down as to who did what and when, but, the bank may not legally be able to tell you squat, so you may not have the whole story.