“No, it’s nothing like it is portrayed on TV,” said private Investigator E.L. Black. “I’ve found myself running a few times, but I’ve never actually been in a life-threatening situation.”
Ms. Black works mostly in Unicoi County, Washington County and Knoxville. She says she did do some work locally for a party in Asia not long ago and sent the information via the Internet. Black works mostly with child custody cases, divorce cases, insurance fraud, arson, and adult abuse cases. She says she has even repossessed cars in her line of work.
“Anytime you are shadowing someone it can get dangerous. People get angry. You don’t know how they will react in these situations,” Black said. She said the domestic abuse cases are the most dangerous.
Ms. Black was born in Dixon County, VA, lived most of her life in Los Angeles, California, moved to Johnson City, then came to Unicoi County in 2003.
She says she had a very abusive home life. She was forced to drop out of school in seventh grade. “Then I found out that I could escape my abusive situation by losing myself in books,” she said. “I read everything I could get my hands on. My mother would get angry and grab my books and throw them away, but this made me even more determined to read, just to get back at her. My stubbornness paid off in that I took the college entrance exam and scored high enough to be accepted into college.”
Ms. Black says she keeps a dictionary beside her all the time and it has become like her second Bible. When she encounters a word she doesn’t know she will look it up and learn about it. She became a private investigator while she was still in college. She graduated from ETSU with a GPA of 3.7 in 2006. Her major was criminal justice with a minor in social work. She was 57 years old when she graduated.
“You can overcome abuse,” she said. “You don’t have to let it rule your life or cause you to become like your abuser. You can rise above it if you have the determination.”
Black is currently attending the Citizens’ Police Academy in Unicoi County which she highly recommends to anyone who would like to know more about local law enforcement.
She is quite familiar with the law enforcement in Unicoi County as she did her field training here during her college studies. She did 237 hours of training with the UCSD, worked inside the jail, in dispatch, in the courtroom and on investigations.
She still attends the Citizens’ Police Academy each year because she says this helps her stay up to date on the changes in laws and procedures. “Some of the classes are redundant, but there is always something new and interesting to be learned in each one,” she said.
Black has her own business that she operates from her home office. She says that her cases can sometimes last only one day and then again they can take up to ten days to complete. “It depends on how much information the client needs or how long they want me to work on a case. My fees are on a daily basis,” she explained.
Black does a lot of undercover work and she sometimes works with two other investigators in Washington County, but most of the time she works alone. She says the local law enforcement is very helpful and they work with her when necessary. She also shares leads with them and alerts them to any potential criminal activities.
“Erwin is a great place to live, great people, hard working people and they care about one another and they care about their families,” Black said. “This is something you don’t see in Los Angeles.”
Although she has had back surgeries and fought a battle with cancer, has been divorced from her children’s father since they were very young, was raised in an abusive home, she has still managed to overcome all this and live the kind of life she always dreamed of. A life that involves working in law enforcement.
She says she has had a very rewarding life but she attributes it all to God’s help. “My children often say that I had to raise them all by myself, but I wasn’t alone. Many nights on my knees I would cry ‘God, I need help,’ and He always heard and answered. I wasn’t alone - I have great faith in the Almighty.”
Ms. Black plans to return to ETSU in September where she will begin working on her masters degree. “Life is a choice,” she said. “I gave myself permission to make mistakes but not to be stupid. I’ve learned to laugh at myself and to get up whenever I fall down. It’s been an interesting life, and I’m not finished yet.”
