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How to Find Missing People
Expert Skip Tracing by Frank M. Ahearn
I began my career in 1984 as a skip tracer — a professional dedicated to finding missing people — and as a social engineer skilled in extracting private and hidden information. Back then, the world was a very different place. Databases were minimal, the internet hadn't yet been born, and finding someone required hard, manual work. Investigators had to rely on pulling records — phone logs, banking activity, credit card statements, travel itineraries, utility bills — and conducting in-person interviews to uncover leads. Finding missing people was truly an art form rooted in instinct, persistence, and creativity. And in many ways, it still is.
Today, while technology has changed how some traces are found, the fundamentals remain the same: people always leave a trail — no matter how carefully they try to disappear.
My Approach to Finding Missing People
The key to finding someone who has disappeared isn't just running online searches or checking public records — it’s thinking differently.
Instead of searching forward (looking for new activity), I always search backward — analyzing the subject’s actions in the days, weeks, and months before they vanished. The goal is to connect the visible actions to the invisible movements — uncovering the details that most investigators miss.
When working a case, I ask critical questions:
- Where did the subject travel leading up to their disappearance?
- Who did they associate with?
- Were there financial changes, large withdrawals, or suspicious activity?
- What behaviors were out of character?
- Were there signs of preparation — such as closing accounts, selling assets, or cutting off relationships?
- Were there unexpected patterns — like trips to unusual locations, unknown contacts, or odd communications?
