Local investigator tackles high-profile murder case

A murder case in Nicaragua is getting a lot of attention in this country. Eric Volz, 27, has appeared on the Today Show. He’s accused of raping and murdering his former girlfriend. His family has asked Colorado Springs bondsman Bobby Brown to help with the investigation.

Nashville resident Eric Volz was in Managua, Nicaragua publishing a magazine. Nicaraguan police say he drove more than two hours to his former girlfriend’s house and raped and killed her. Eric Volz, witnesses, and now Bobby Brown all say that is impossible.

Bail News Roundup - April 13, 2007

The AboutBail.com staff have noticed a change in the air, and it’s not just the milder temperatures that come with spring. Around the country, bail professionals are waking up to the news that new legislation may soon change the way agents do business. It could be a sign of the new visibility of bail bondsmen and agents. Whatever the cause, though, the industry is changing in Tennessee, Connecticut, and other states. The headlines that had us reading and talking this week were:

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Background and Drug & Alcohol Screenings – Riverside County, CA

Riverside County In-Home Supportive Services Public Authority (IHSS PA) is seeking proposals from parties interested in providing Background and Drug and Alcohol Screenings of prospective IHSS Home Care Workers.

The scheduled due date for this bid is April 30, 2007 by 1:30 PM

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Background Checks for City of Ocala, Florida - Human Resources Department

The Human Resources Department for the City of Ocala, Florida is requesting bids for conducting background checks. All bids shall be addressed to W. Darryl Muse, Purchasing Director, City of Ocala, 2100 NE 30th Avenue, Ocala, Florida 34470, and plainly marked on the envelope, B3105: BACKGROUND CHECKS FOR HUMAN RESOURCES to be opened at: 3:00 P.M., April 5, 2007.

The scheduled due date for this bid is April 5, 2007 by 3:00 PM

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Private Investigations for Maricopa County, AZ

The intent of this contract is to identify qualified providers of private investigator services for the Maricopa County Office of Contract Counsel for defendants in criminal proceedings, and civil or criminal contempt proceedings in Maricopa County Justice and Superior Courts, as well as civil proceedings in Juvenile Dependency/Severance cases in the Juvenile Court. Contractor may also be assigned to investigate on behalf of witnesses or other persons involved in other proceedings in the courts of Maricopa County. Multiple contractor awards will be made. Maricopa County reserves the right to make subsequent awards as requirements may demand.

The scheduled due date for this bid is April 17, 2007 by 2:00 PM Mountain Time

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When Intel acknowledged two weeks ago that it may have lost months worth of e-mails involving about 100 employees, including top executives, the legendary Silicon Valley company seemed caught off-guard. Experts wondered how a $35 billion corporation. The answer may be surprising: Outside of heavily regulated industries like financial services and health care, most companies do a poor job of managing their e-mail.

Unless a business buys software to archive and categorize messages ahead of time, executives run the risk of being ill-prepared when their firm gets hauled into court or receives a government subpoena. At that point it may be too late - firms are often forced to retrieve and turn over thousands of e-mails from disparate backup disk and tape systems, sometimes at a cost of millions of dollars.

“Right now, the majority of companies are aware of the problem and that they need [this software]. But the majority haven’t deployed it yet,” said Masha Khmartseva, an analyst at the Radicati Group in Palo Alto. She estimates that as many as one-quarter of public companies in Silicon Valley lack any kind of e-mail archiving system.

Seniors are frequently reluctant to involve police or social-service agencies, officials say.

The elderly can be victims of abuse in many of the same ways as the young, but with fewer eyes watching and more perceived social taboos, professionals say.

Data indicate only a a quarter of all senior abuse cases are referred for help - the rest remain hidden.

That compares to a report rate of about 60 percent of all family violence incidents, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.

Every day, bus drivers take children to school, but now before getting keys to the bus, school bus drivers are being asked to clear several hurdles and will soon face FBI background checks.

According to the FBI, the mode of transportation could become the target of terrorism.

“Naturally, they carry our most precious cargo, so naturally, they are a big consideration and what would cause more mass hysteria than someone taking over a school bus?” said Plum Transport Supervisor Tom Zeminski.

A child abuser, a man who stole thousands of dollars from a widow’s pension and three drug offenders were working last week in North Jersey schools despite a state law that bans their employment.

The state Department of Education ordered Friday that the five employees be fired after The Record informed state officials about their convictions.

Four of the workers committed their offenses after becoming school employees. The fifth slipped through because his background was checked two years before he was hired and he broke the law in the interim.

Schools officials say they aren’t certain how many more people with criminal records are working around children because there’s no system in place for checking the background of school workers once they are hired.

When Janice Smolinski’s 31-year-old son Billy disappeared in 2004, there were no Amber Alerts, no urgent police investigations.

Police made the family wait three days to report the Waterbury man’s disappearance because a neighbor believed he had left town voluntarily. They had to organize their own search parties and pressure police to fingerprint Billy’s truck, his mother said.

When authorities did take the case, they lost or misplaced the family’s DNA samples — including Billy’s razor shavings — three times, Smolinski said.

Two-and-a-half years later, Billy Smolinski is nowhere to be found and his mother has joined a national grass-roots effort to lobby for more consistent laws for handling missing adult cases.

• Group for Private Investigators
• Group for Process Servers