In this episode the guys continue the conversation with Thomas Martin. Tom has been a Private Investigator since the early 80’s when he retired from federal law enforcement.
We talk with Tom about divorce, cults, mass shootings, drugs, the opioid epidemic, terrorism, and also Tom’s experience with Charles Manson.
Tune in to see Private Investigation Through a Therapist’s Eyes!
Listen to Episode #84 – Private Investigations and Mental Health with Thomas Martin
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Episode #84 Transcription
Craig Graves: [00:00:00] Alright. Hey Chris, how you doing, man?
Chris Gazdik: [00:00:05] You know what I was thinking about our intros, Craig and I, I remember back in the day when we started this thing, you freaked me out one day you went like three…..twoooooo oooooonee.
Well, and I was like, what is this guy doing? We progressed to like, Hey, what’s up, man?
Thomas Martin: [00:00:21] There you go.
Chris Gazdik: [00:00:23] Um, mr.
Tom Martin is back with us for a part two. And this is through a therapist. eyes the podcast, Greg Graves is still with us. Chris Gazdak is me. And we invite you to see the world through the lens of a real mental health and substance abuse therapist with the goal for emotional growth, medium of the podcast, knowing this is not the.
Delivery of therapy service, please, in any way. Um, we want to grow this year. So we’re asking, I liked some, I didn’t do this last show, Greg, but I saw that we had like, um, like. Several like under what was it like seven or $8 loads, like immediately in the state of Iowa of all places. So I wanted to challenge all those folks that just listened to an Iowa to our last episode has been a couple of now when this released to turn that into 16, by sending the show link to one friend or family member that they know you think that would work with turn we’ll turn, it will turn into double digits in the state.
Craig Graves: [00:01:17] Would you maybe as contagious as the coronavirus,
Chris Gazdik: [00:01:22] there you go. The human emotional experience. Let’s figure this thing out together with three voices. So we gave a little bit more of a, of an intro for this, uh, this gentleman who’s spending time with us, mr. Tom Martin. I think what I wanted to say, uh, this time is as the checkout last, last week show.
And, and you’ll see what I’m talking about this guys, dude, Craig. Impressive guy. Would you say,
Craig Graves: [00:01:48] Oh, absolutely. I enjoyed the last conversation. Very, very much intently.
Chris Gazdik: [00:01:51] It is Martinpi.com. I know Tom, you told me you didn’t want to sell anything, but I want these guys to know in our listening audience, Martinpi.com and you have really a lot of really cool stuff there.
That’s free for the public to help them. We talked about a very difficult topic last week with human trafficking. Um, And, uh, and, and you find people and you, you work with people, uh, thank you, by the way, for your service for our country for years and years, as you’re now almost a retired, are you ever going to retire that by the way?
Thomas Martin: [00:02:22] Well, you see there’s a one when they don’t play golf, so probably not. Right.
Chris Gazdik: [00:02:27] What do you got on this website and what, what, what is there to help people free that they can take advantage of?
Thomas Martin: [00:02:32] Well, if they go to Martinpi.com, then on the very first page, it’s a red arrow and it says podcast listeners, and they just click on that.
Then they can go to a number of free items that can help them. First of all, our book, a first book, if you only knew it’s on there for free. 16 chapters. You can go to the area that, um, might apply to you, whether it’s, you know, runaway, teenage security, a missing persons, divorce cases, et cetera. Uh, we have stuff on there for your listeners regarding, um, uh, for your site, how to locate people for free eight, eight date night and click on there and go through everything.
And. Find people before they spend any money on the internet. Uh, one of the big things in our latest book was 155 most asked questions in a divorce. That’s on the website now for free.
Chris Gazdik: [00:03:24] We’ll always do a number, Tom, that always drives me nuts. Like the five greatest things for financial wealth, the seven signs of depression.
The why is there always gotta be a number, man?
Thomas Martin: [00:03:33] I just say people like it. I mean, I tried to come up with, I started writing when I wrote the book a few years ago. The second one, I tried to come up with all these. Questions that people have in a divorce. And I said, well, I’ll do the top 10 of 20. Then it got to a hundred.
I got to hold on. That was a list of all. Yeah. Who has a list of 155, nobody, but it’s there and it’s really great. The attorneys love it. You go through, if you got to go through the process of a divorce, you just highlight the ones that are applicable to you. And then when you go to your attorney or you’re going to be light years ahead, there’s stuff on there about electronic eavesdropping detection, sweeps.
If you think your home or. Office has been bugged, a lot of good stuff there and it’s all for free and we’re glad to do it.
Chris Gazdik: [00:04:13] I saw a picture on your website with like stuff that you’ve actually found like little widgets and bugs and stuff like, is that, is that FBI stuff real man?
Thomas Martin: [00:04:21] Oh, that’s actually stuff we found.
I mean, the tech, the technology today is just mind blowing. I have three technicians in them. Ton of equipment that finds the stuff and we find them in coffee, pots and TVs, and we’re finding a camp. We find a camera’s now, and these guys put cameras in their wives bedroom so they can see who they’re having sex with.
Very, very, very bizarre.
Chris Gazdik: [00:04:43] Okay. The current event thing, jump here to, uh, my take on the coronavirus as a, as we hope people are kinda, I mean, by this time, man, we’re we’re two weeks away from, from Erin is where we recording this on April the 11th. I mean, you know about right now, This week and next week, people are really going to start hitting a tough emotional time.
I want to say. And so, uh, as we’re releasing this show a couple of weeks from now, math, I guess you’ve been in a tough time. I mean, not working unemployment, um, You know, hardships with domestic violence, we’re all supposed to play Parcheesi on our house and chill out and have fun family time together.
Well, that, ain’t the case. A lot of times for people where we’re really, really struggling now. And so I just want to encourage, you know, everyone in the nation and our audience, we’re going to get through this. Okay. We we’re we’re we’re, we’ll be in a better day. There, there is zero doubt about that, but I wanted to give some mental health effects on the shutdown, sort of, you know, a shooter and real quick, just to get your brain to be thinking.
And, and, and the second part of it is positive about this bottom line. So the mental health effects of the shutdown sound interesting. Craig, mr. Graves?
Craig Graves: [00:05:53] Yes, it does
Chris Gazdik: [00:05:55] increases in porn use. Increases in sex in general concept of COVID 19 babies, people are talking about that. You ever heard that term yet?
COVID-19 babies.
Craig Graves: [00:06:07] I’m sure there’ll be a lot of them.
Chris Gazdik: [00:06:08] Yeah. Yeah. Um, feelings of productivity taken away on unemployment and the devastations of that emotional concerns, a increase in societal experience of anxiety. I mentioned that last time, um, especially the OCD type of anxiety. Increases in depression increases in domestic violence.
These are the ones we’re really hitting right now on April 11th at the tough time with this, when people are done with their lawn projects and stuff. Secondly, though, positive outcomes, I want people to kind of start thinking about, um, and, uh, appreciation for health care workers. You know, that’s something that we’ve never had.
That’s new, that’s new and interesting to see developing new appreciation for telehealth services guys, in my practice, I’m transitioning over to telehealth about a month ago. I would have told you, I don’t, I don’t want to do that. I am shocked, honestly, at how effective it is. That’s, that’s a neat and new development that, that we’re going to see attention and home work, life balance, and respect of that family leave appreciation.
Those are things that are, think our society might be changing towards cultural realization or awakening to where, when we work together on a large scale, we, the public, which is what our nation is founded on. We, the public can really make a difference. People coming together. The power of the people all on the same powerful lengths together.
I think we’re experiencing that with our willingness to shut down and, and help this. Uh, what do they got flatten the curve, uh, D politicizing events. Craig. I actually made that on my positive lists. I don’t know. That’s how I wrote. Maybe, maybe, maybe, probably wishful thinking there on that one, but that’s the way I’m saying this whole COVID thing.
What do you guys think about all that? Mess. I just rattled off.
Thomas Martin: [00:08:03] I think it’s a great positive list than I and I, uh, in our business, uh, we obviously we shut down our offices March 14th and haven’t looked back. Um, but we have seen a interesting increase in the amount of calls, uh, about divorce attorneys.
So there seems to be, I mean, normally we’d get one or two calls a week and we’ve got in three or four calls saying, I can’t take it. The closeness over the last month has exploded or the guy’s trying to get out of the house to go somewhere. And the marriage is kind of what sours. No, I mean, I like your positiveness, but, and if from our world that’s a lot of people are not doing so well.
So those positive things should be. Should definitely be thought about.
Chris Gazdik: [00:08:49] Yeah. Yeah. It it’s, it’s something that we did some shows on it. I, I, I refer people to episode 11, you know, the foundations of marriage counseling and some Gottman material, John Gottman nailed fundamental patterns that people go through, uh, in marriages and cyclically.
I’m talking about just over and over and over again, and almost pretty universally. So that lays out some really, really cool stuff. It changed the way I do marriage counseling, honestly. Um, but yeah. When you have that much time and that much closeness. The stress that you typically feel is that much more?
Thomas Martin: [00:09:23] No, I agree. I tell some the other day my happened in my life. My wife took a shot at me, but thank God. She’s not a good shot. And she missed, so it can, it can, it can happen anywhere. So I think we just all gotta be a little more patient and forgiving.
Chris Gazdik: [00:09:36] Do you mean that literally?
Thomas Martin: [00:09:37] No, no, no.
Chris Gazdik: [00:09:39] Sure. DEA agent,
Thomas Martin: [00:09:46] they gave me a gun, but so no problem. Gotcha.
Chris Gazdik: [00:09:51] Uh, keeping stuff or things I’m missing, Craig, any, anything that, um, we got going on, we’re going to launch into a myriad of topics.
Craig Graves: [00:09:58] I think we are ready to roll dude.
Chris Gazdik: [00:10:00] Okay. Anything left over from last show that, you know, you, I feel like at one point I kind of cut you off. There’s so much to cover things that your brain still spinning on.
Craig Graves: [00:10:09] No, I think it’s good that they come, at least from my side. I’m good. I’m just.
Chris Gazdik: [00:10:13] Okay. So here’s what I thought I’d do, Tom. I wanted to take advantage of, of your incredible experiences yeah. That we have in, in. And, uh, I really just kind of wanted to go down through to cover as many topics as we could. I mean, this is going to feel like a little bit of a schizophrenia episode, cause we’re going to, you know, in a bipolar fashion, those are our mental health jokes, you know?
Sorry, sorry for that. But you know, it kind of covers many little things as we can kind of touch on. Um, and, and, and I’m going to list them all really. And then we’ll just go down and touch through them to see, you know, what you feel is, is the most helpful. And what you’re most experienced talking about.
Definitely want to touch on cults. Let’s kind of start there, but, um, yeah, you see national attention on mass shooters. What your perspective is divorce proceedings investigations with affairs and such, uh, coming into contact with cults. It’s like I said. I think I want to start there drug enforcement and, and, and the borders.
Um, don’t really want to get political, but, you know, drug enforcement, I thought you might have some really interesting perspectives there. Uh, explaining your theme. I really want to hit this one to your cell phone number is your new social security number that struck me when I was researching you a little bit.
I find that super fascinating. Uh, did you work with terrorism prevention efforts? Uh, how, how, how do you, how do different world cultures affect mental health having traveled and dealt with so many issues? I’m curious about your perspective with that, the opioid epidemic, um, how coronavirus might affect world affairs, societal norms and stuff, and then location systems and family, the reunions.
I know that’s like a crazy list. But that’s just stuff that I, if we had like 10 hours, I’d love to, to hit on all of them. We’re probably not going to be able to hit, obviously in detail much of those, but that’s kind of the topics I’m thinking in my head.
Thomas Martin: [00:11:51] All right. We’ll be succinct. And to the point, hopefully.
Chris Gazdik: [00:11:54] Exactly. Right. Does that sound schizophrenict? Cut.
It hit all those things, man. I watch your brain
Thomas Martin: [00:12:01] cause I got to go to sleep in 10 hours. So I gotta get this done.
Chris Gazdik: [00:12:07] Charles Manson. I promise in the last episode would hit that. Is it
the cult reality is another one. Like we talked about sex trafficking and human trafficking and stuff.
I feel like this is another one of those sort of under the radar, not really known about realities. That is all around us and Craig, I don’t think we’ve even done a show on cults yet. Is that a correct statement?
Craig Graves: [00:12:34] Yeah, we haven’t.
Chris Gazdik: [00:12:35] Yeah. It’s it’s coming guys. It’s in my head. Um, what do you know about coming into contact with, with cults and how prevalent that is with, with people in the investigations you do?
Thomas Martin: [00:12:50] Well, we don’t do a lot of cult investigations and those that we do where they’re basically fallen into the locates where somebody a parent comes to us or a relative comes to us and says, Hey, Mary Jane or Billy Bob is gone. We think they’re up in San Francisco or North Carolina or whatever. And, um, they’ve gotten themselves into this, uh, group home.
They don’t call them cults. They call them group homes and it’s very, very difficult. To extricate the people from there. Cause they don’t want to, it’s very difficult to get on the land. It’s very difficult to even bring somebody like yourself along where they can talk to them and try to get them out.
Chris Gazdik: [00:13:28] Let me jump in real quick. You say they, they called them group homes. I have sort of a perception that calls are sort of religiously guided organizations and whatnot. What, what do you call it? Group homes.
Thomas Martin: [00:13:40] Well, it’s a, it’s basically a group of people. Uh, and I think that’s why they come. And it’s a group of people who are getting together and they want to do everything from farming to sex, too, whatever their daily occurrence is, are they want to do it together.
So as a group, that’s kind of what they’re doing. And. That’s what we find. I mean, that’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s probably, uh, I don’t know, mostly most of the cults that we run into two, there there’s severe, as you would guess. Mental health problems. Yeah. I mean, serious mental health problems. I mean, I had the experience when I was a young agent and going to the courthouse when Charlie Manson was arrested in the four or five girls around the corner.
Every day before they all got done and we’d go by them, say, hi, how are you doing girls? And then, and they would look off into the distance and, you know, Charlie’s this and carve stuff into their foreheads. You could see how they could be manipulated and how it would be easy for them to. Two are easy for Charlie to get them to go commit murders is what they did.
So, Oh yeah. They call them group homes and we’ll find them there when they’re very, very tight knit. I mean, it’s, it’s, it’s a tough thing to crack as a pi.
Chris Gazdik: [00:14:55] It is a small, tight community. That is a closed environment. Typically that’s one of the big factors in, in looking at groups of people with that. And, and we do, we, you know, Southern Baptist churches, I’m not saying this other Baptist churches are bad, but I’m saying some Southern churches, um, I mean, we have a local community, Craig, I don’t know if you know the story, but in a town close to us, like it’s, it’s like infiltrated the whole town, uh, a religious organization.
We look at Scientology, there’s a lot out about, um, you know, that rather large group and whatnot. Um, how much illegal behavior or problems have you come across? Tom in, in, in dealing with, uh, groups, people like that. I guess group homes. That’s weird group homes referred to. By people, how much illegal behavior comes from all of that?
Thomas Martin: [00:15:43] Well, I think the main thing that we see is, you know, the drug use and they’re growing the drugs or they’re procuring and drugs are transporting them. They’re concealing them. And, and most of the cults, as you say, or what we termed in our office, it’s a group homes, uh, where they’re, you know, psychological warfare on the, on the people.
Um, Yeah, it evolves around drugs and you know, their daily community help each other out and listening to their music. Just, just what you see on TV. But I will say, uh, once we find a place, you know, say it’s in Iowa or Chicago or Minnesota, it’s really tough to get the people out of there. Uh, it’s it’s even hard to get it or they have security it as we.
Then the CIA at Langley does, it’s just incredible.
Chris Gazdik: [00:16:33] They’ve essentially drank the Koolaid and believe in their leader.
Thomas Martin: [00:16:36] You’re not going to get in there. I mean, we can find out where they’re at, but it’s very hard to get them out. I mean, they just, they don’t, they have security. I mean, they have ex federal agents and cops that are paid a nice salary to guard the locked gate.
You’re not going to
Chris Gazdik: [00:16:53] really
Thomas Martin: [00:16:54] Oh yeah.
Chris Gazdik: [00:16:55] Agents that they have recruited to be a part of the group, that
Thomas Martin: [00:16:59] group they’re part of the security team. Very, very common.
Chris Gazdik: [00:17:04] I think I’m confused.
Thomas Martin: [00:17:06] Alright, so you have, you have a cult, let’s say a 50 people that are on a ranch that has. 20,000 acres and there they’ve got the cows and the pigs and they’re growing their own corn and they’re smoking their dope to make sure that nobody else gets on there.
And to make sure more importantly, that nobody leaves that is a secured system. And that system is guarded by hugely. Ex law enforcement officers, nothing wrong with it. Everybody deserves to make a living and you’re not going to get through them. I can guarantee you.
Chris Gazdik: [00:17:40] Oh, I think I understand. So the group themselves have hired a security team to procure.
The perimeter and whatnot of said place.
Thomas Martin: [00:17:51] Yeah. Yeah. Usually the person that has the group and as putting it all together for obviously a lot of monetary gain, because sometimes the people will leave and have jobs. There’ll be making something well that person’s going to get all the money, not the 50 people that are in the group.
Chris Gazdik: [00:18:06] And they have a right to do that. It’s like
Thomas Martin: [00:18:07] a hundred percent 100 percent. And so to make sure that he has in more control, I think 99.9% of them are have security. And, uh, those guys are a formidable tasks to be sure. So,
Chris Gazdik: [00:18:22] yeah, listening audience, we’re going to do a show on Colts because it is something that is way more common than you would think it to be.
For sure. It’s been in my head for actually quite a while now, why we haven’t done it, but I’m gonna tell us about Charles Manson. So you sat down and stared him down. I mean, he stared you down, like what happened here?
Thomas Martin: [00:18:38] Well, this is where I got to eat a little ego. I’m not always happy when they bring it up, but I was a young agent over in the jail and the word came back that, uh, uh, the actual verdict.
Was going to be rendered into the courtroom on Charlie. And so I’d seen and been in the courtroom and a couple of times, and Charlie had this way of sitting at the chair and then Vincent Bugliosi, the prosecutor would get on him and getting on him or tell him, tell him the jury, all the bad stuff he would wheel around in his chair and look at the jury or jury, or he’d look at the audience.
So the day that I went there, I obviously had a contact in this courtroom and I got front row, maybe 10 feet from Charlie. So I figure, you know, I’ve been yelling agent on 23 years old, or so this is 1971, something like that. Wow. Well, you know, I’m going to, I’m going to, I’m going to give it to Charlie, right?
Cause I’m, I’m an agent I’m gonna to put up with this. Right. So the next thing I know, I never thought in a million years, Charlie wheels around and for some reason I’m dressed like a cop and my suit and my tie and everything. He looks right dead at me. And so we engaged and I said, okay. So we stared at each other for about.
I would say it’s the longest 15 seconds of my life till I blinked. And I looked away, I just said, I mean, it’s the most evil, terrifying person and that I’ve ever seen. And, uh, just, I, I, I saw no advantage engaging him and, you know, I’ll give, give Charlie the victory. He, he would’ve won. He won that. He won that day and I just.
Chris Gazdik: [00:20:14] You know, what’s fascinating about that to me is, is, you know, when I’m in a therapy session, right? Like, um, and people are dealing with their trauma or, or a shame based feeling, you know, it’s the alcoholic who’s breaking down and getting real with themselves. I mean, you know, it, it is a very powerful thing too.
The the eyes, you know, and, and, and contact with the eyes. I mean, it’s why, you know, we teach our young little boys and girls look up, so you don’t look him in the eye, shake his hand and stand, you know, that’s what you’re presenting yourself. There’s also a lot of caring that goes in making that, that caring eye contact and what, but there’s also that power struggle.
It depends on what the, what the relationship is. So, so that was as fascinating to see that you locked eyes with Charlie Manson and the, and the experience that that was in, in, in experiencing that connection. It was almost like a, like a, like an electric toxic connection is what I’m hearing you.
Thomas Martin: [00:21:05] Well, it was actually almost like 49 or 50 years ago.
And I remember it as if, um, uh, happened this morning to look into his eyes that close to this kind of monster and the evilness of it. The darkness is just like, it was, I was looking through Charlie. But Charlie was, you know, shooting with the beams and it was maybe I shouldn’t go to therapy, but when she’s something there I felt, I felt like, Oh, I really don’t like this.
I really did not like that experience.
Chris Gazdik: [00:21:36] Wow. That is weird.
Thomas Martin: [00:21:37] That’s yeah, I, uh, Charlie won. Okay.
Chris Gazdik: [00:21:43] That’s what you mean by swallowing pride yet? He didn’t, he didn’t win in the end. That’s for sure. Criag, what are you thinking about cults? Did you know anything about them?
Craig Graves: [00:21:53] Uh, not really anything Chris more than I’ve heard on the news, you know, think about David Koresh and things like that.
When I think about Cults and, you know, you mentioned Scientology, Joe Rogan talked about cults one day and he said that all religions were Cults. And I don’t want to go that far. I don’t, I don’t agree with that, but, you know,
Chris Gazdik: [00:22:14] I guess, Tom, what I’m wondering is are we able to break them up, like in, can we really break them down because they are so destructive.
They’re so powerful in, in the psyche of. Of the people that subconsciously don’t even know they’re being brain warped. It’s, it’s, it’s an awful reality. Can we really hit him?
Thomas Martin: [00:22:33] Well, I think what I would do, if, if, if I wanted to learn about cults, I might think about Scientology, which is, I think. Some people would say it’s a cult on steroids.
And if you really want to have an interesting show, try to interview because I am not one, uh, some of the private investigators in this country that have gone up against Scientology, and I think they will give you a perspective. Of cults like nobody else can, and then they will also give you their perspective of whether or not that that is a cult.
Um, it’s very, very interesting to talk to those guys. And just on the other side, just very quickly. Most of the people in the cults would disagree a hundred percent that this is great. This is, you know, this is great. Everything’s wonderful. Leave us alone. And some of them go on for years
Chris Gazdik: [00:23:25] yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. Th the definition is something that is really hotly, contested, and confusing.
Like if you asked, you know, you know, 90 people on the street, you know, what’s a cult, you’d get. You’d get a lot of different answers. Even if you asked 10 therapists, you’d probably get a lot of, kind of confusing, conflicted understanding on what really makes up a cult. That’s why I kind of said, and you know, a closed contains smaller environments.
Sometimes it’s larger scale, but it’s really kind of concealed.
Craig Graves: [00:23:54] Oh, go ahead. I was just going to ask, were they a big thing? I mean, because you only hear about only cults I’ve ever heard about. They end badly. Right? David caress, Jim Jones, the Hale bop comment, Cult, whatever that thing was. Charles Manson. I mean, are there, are there cults out there?
There? I don’t want to say successful but, well, I think it’s a, it’s a good point.
Thomas Martin: [00:24:16] We don’t, we don’t have a lot of locates now where we’re finding people and they end up in a cult, the seventies and they, when I was an agent, yes. And the eighties, when I started the pi business, it was, it was, it was very common, but not anymore.
And I think it’s because we didn’t come up with this group home thing, which I know you may have not heard of. I think that was a term that was started in the nineties by some of the cults, because the word cult. It’s total negativity. If you say you have a group home, that’s more inviting, that’s more domestic.
And, and, and I must say, I can’t remember. As I sit here today, when the last time we located somebody who was in cult, Uh, a cultural bound situation. Cause as Craig says, yeah, because Craig says they been killing people or setting things on fire or are shooting themselves or doing crazy stuff.
Chris Gazdik: [00:25:06] So I would be curious if it’s diminished a little bit, because you had early in my career, you know, it was a, it was a pretty big issue and, and, and whatnot.
Uh, it, the reason why I’m tripping out about the group home, I mean, you know, we have group homes in the mental health field. Right. That’s it. Yeah. Yeah, that that tripped me up. I I’ll have to think about that, that a lot and listen to the playback and learn and learn from that. Let’s try to move on to transition to, um, mass shooters, uh, the national attention.
Did you guys, when you were working with the FBI and, and you know, kind of the awareness of it has really exploded we’ve chronicled on this show has been an interesting topic for us. What has been your contact with that? Kind of early on when it began to take off because you’ve been doing the PI work for how long?
About seven, eight years. We’ll call it 10.
Thomas Martin: [00:25:51] No, I’ve been doing NPI work for 40 years since 1981.
Chris Gazdik: [00:25:55] Oh, well, wait a minute. So when did you leave the three letter world and what?
Thomas Martin: [00:25:59] Well, I was there from 69 to 81, so it’s been almost forty years.
Chris Gazdik: [00:26:03] Okay. We won’t, we won’t ask how old you are.
Thomas Martin: [00:26:06] 73 proud of it.
Chris Gazdik: [00:26:10] So what do you remember?
Was that an issue back then? I guess?
Thomas Martin: [00:26:13] Yep. It wasn’t. I mean, there was no mass shootings and most of the, the talented people in the three letter agencies now, uh, I think there’s. There’s a few PIs that do, uh, schools for, uh, corporations for the public educations and stuff. And I think they some purpose, uh, I think it’s it’s, it gets back to my law enforcement days.
They can teach you all day and run through all the physical training. Oh, but it’s totally different when it happens. And I think you can, I think the training is important. I don’t want to minimize that, but in my world, when I was a federal agent, there was no talk of any mass shootings. And I think most of the training that’s done today is how to react to the shootings.
Not that the prevention you can’t prevent it. I don’t believe. I mean, how do you prevent a guy from getting the guns that he can get? I mean, yeah.
Chris Gazdik: [00:27:06] And it’s hard to know and be, have any kind of predictors. That’s something we’ve struggled in the mental health field. I mean, we’ve, we’ve talked about Craig on the show, you know, self harm and homicidal ideation and things that we try to do to screen people, but it is really hard to find any kind of predictive nature of who’s going to be shooting, you know, groups of people.
I mean, it’s, it’s remarkable.
Thomas Martin: [00:27:26] Yeah. Don’t you guys find in your, in your, in your practice that it’s, it’s, it’s almost a very difficult to pinpoint those or predict who they are. They’re always kind of outside of the box.
Chris Gazdik: [00:27:36] Absolutely. I mean, you know, you look back to your days of profiling with the FBI and whatnot and how you kind of studied that on a deep level.
We had a lot of information in the sixties, seventies and eighties on how to profile and whatnot, but I, I don’t know, like how do you predictively profile? How successful can that possibly be?
Thomas Martin: [00:27:55] Broad world is pretty easy. I mean, it’s much common sense when you’re a profiler. It’s got basic stuff here at the LA airport and you have informants a be at the ticket agents or the baggage handlers.
And somebody gets on an airplane in Miami and pays cash for ticket to LA and they don’t have any bags. He might be able to profile at that. Person’s probably adult feller. And I think, you know, your, your children can probably do the same thing. And I’ve talked to a lot of profilers that are, you know, currently profilers in the 2020 as we speak.
Um, and, and they really, there’s no way that they sit back and say, uh, I know that Craig or Chris is going to be, has all the propensity to be a shooter. They might be able to say here’s a list of stuff, male, white, 30, you know, bought it, ended up, but take that what the profiled and put that into the real world to stop it.
I don’t think it’s going to happen. I haven’t seen that model ever. Well, Craig,
Chris Gazdik: [00:28:52] was it you that found that article that we did a show on that was about the mass shooter? I think it was wasn’t
Craig Graves: [00:28:59] uggh, which one?
We did it. We did a show on the national study that came across. No, it was our mastermind buddy. David send it to me and I brought it to the show and we got, they recently did a study, Tom, that, that actually did kind of list some of the main characteristics that, that, uh, government, I think it was a government funded study of some sort did it.
It was really, it was pretty neat. So I guess we’re point is we’re getting a clearer picture of. Of all of that, um,
Thomas Martin: [00:29:26] help, would that help the law enforcement community using that data set?
Craig Graves: [00:29:31] It was kind of broad though. It was, if my memory is right, it was had a rough childhood, um, things like that. It
Chris Gazdik: [00:29:41] was things that were pretty universal.
Craig Graves: [00:29:43] It wasn’t really he’s, you know, torn to be a 25 year old, white male with red hair. It wasn’t anything like, it was very broad, you know,
Chris Gazdik: [00:29:52] it was for specific characteristics to look out for it. It’s a starting point, I think is what,
Craig Graves: [00:29:57] I mean a starting point. I think, I don’t know if I use the word specific, but it was kind of broad.
There’s a, I always bring this up and we’re talking about this topic, but there was a lady on the Joe Rogan show. Her name was dr. Kelly Brogan. And she says that every one of these mass shooters, Tom is on some kind of SSRI. Do you have any knowledge about anything like that?
Thomas Martin: [00:30:22] I don’t, um, most of the mass shooters, uh, cases, uh, I have not, you know, we don’t have any in our office.
We never came across most of the personalities. And, and since then, uh, it’s kinda, you know, downward spiral or with people at Nana, we just haven’t seen, so yeah.
Chris Gazdik: [00:30:43] So you had an interesting theme that I wanted to get to because it was fascinating to me. Um, your cell phone number is the new social security number.
I mean, it’s almost like alarming to me when I read that on your site from a private investigator. Perspective. What does that even mean?
Thomas Martin: [00:31:04] Well, I sat down one day and wrote a blog because I thought it was very, very important to let the public know that this fascination was social security numbers, uh, is, is really very much overplayed.
Uh, I can have everybody’s social security number in our database and we hardly ever use it because it’s old school. So I sat down and I said, what would I rather have? Whatever they have. Chris and Greg’s social security number or would I rather have your socials? Uh, I mean your social security number or your cell phone as a supposedly yeah.
Private investigator knows, you know, I want to do backgrounds. I want to find out about your what’s in your ad. I want to find everything about it. So I wrote this article and then USA today picked it up and it was front page on their paper and they didn’t believe me. So the reporter said, okay, we’re going to, challenge you. I said, fine.
The artistic. Cause it’s the articles on our website and it was on front page. So this very astute, a no nonsense reporter. I said, well, I don’t even need to know your name because you call me and I got your cell phone number. So you to stand by in three days, I’m going to send you documentation for my own system.
And this is a system called US unite. It’s one of the foremost databases on the planet. I started with a floppy disc in 1981. And it’s grown since then. So you’re in it. Craig’s in it. Your wives are in it. How does Greg behave yourself and make me look good on this show? I’ll have to. So anyway, I took the cell phone number, put it into our system.
And I gave him 150 pages on himself and I FedEx and I had staff FedEx it to it. And the article that you’re referring to, that particular article they wrote in USA today, you can read and to say the least he was stunned. Absolutely stunned. And the reason it’s important is if you look on your business card, or if you interface with people that you’re doing your podcast with, or in your practices, you’re always given your cell phone number out, right?
So I could take your cell phone number and I can get your name. I can get your address. I can get your date of birth. I can get your social security number. I can then run your name through our system. Civil records, criminal records. I can do bankruptcies, notice a diff. Which means tax liens. I do all your property, consumer public filings.
I can do, uh, corporate records, you know, the list goes on and on and on, but here’s the difference. And the only we wanted to take the social and, and find out on people yeah. With the cell phone. Okay. What I can do is I can then get into your, your phone. I can find out if you called Chris to set up an appointment for therapy, I can find out who you’ve been texting, who you’ve been emailing.
I can see all your photos, good, bad, or indifferent, and then I can use, I can then use that information quite easily to blackmail you. So if I saw that Chris had maybe sent an inappropriate photo to somebody, I might be able then to send him a note, send me $500, Chris, or I’m going to have this on the internet.
Uh, so imagine the machine that you have in your hand and a bad guy, getting a hold of that, what he could do with it. So yeah. Your cell phone is your new social security number. Read it. You read the article. I think you’ll even be shocked.
Chris Gazdik: [00:34:29] It’s almost scary.
Thomas Martin: [00:34:31] Yeah. It’s it’s it’s you would be, uh, you would be, I would say a gas is sometimes the word, uh, what’s out there in social media and what we can, what we can actually get and what we can get in the, in the, in the truest sense of the word that’s out there and public data.
Chris Gazdik: [00:34:47] Craig, What do you take from that, man?
Craig Graves: [00:34:49] That’s interesting. I had a conversation with a friend of mine one time. And if you read the book of revelation, it says that everybody allowed the Mark of the beast in the end, right? And they pull up their eyes, that’s going to be a chip or it’s going to be something. And she said, no, you’re the market.
The base is going to be your cell phone. And so, wow. That’s all I’m saying my back that up.
Chris Gazdik: [00:35:11] Wow. I’m thinking about taking my cell phone and going off the grid and put it in a toilet right now.
Thomas Martin: [00:35:18] Well, this reporter, he, he said, well, okay, that’s great. And I believe you now, I trust what you’re saying. I thank you for all your good what’s the answer.
Do you have a solution to this problem? I said, sure. It’s pretty simple. Get two cell phones and have one cell phone that you give out with just your telephone. You don’t text on it. You just answer that phone and the other one that you got, all your family pictures on, um, then you keep that one separate.
You never give out that number. Now, my guess is, I don’t know you guys well, but I spent a couple hours that Chris and Craig don’t have any problems with this regard. Uh, but you’d be shocked how many cases we get. Where the 15 year old girl decides that she wants to take her top off and show her boyfriend in Chicago.
Um, you know how mature she is and the boyfriend in Chicago she’s never met. And that turns out to be a bad guy. Who’s incense texts to her and says, give me $600, or you’re going to see yourself on the internet. That’s something we deal with all the time. Right.
Chris Gazdik: [00:36:20] Just, just to speak to that. I mean, I’ve, I’ve had clients that are absolutely dealing with the issues of that.
I mean, so what this little subset here, the subheadline here is, is the social media effect with teens and kids and such, um, you know, predatory realities. I mean, the kids are just so used to, you know, doing tumbler and Twitter and Snapchat and, you know, tick. Talk and, and, you know, bumblebee and all these sites are amazing and they’re just kind of innocent, you know, popping off, having fun on social media and then they get a picture kind of shot out somewhere.
And then the end up getting bribed and, and caught into a whole ring of, of reality where they were just kind of talking to their boyfriend. They, I thought, um, I’ve seen that in my office, in the little small town that I operate out
Thomas Martin: [00:37:08] of. And if you take, if you go down the road a little bit, it’s corporations will hire us.
And they’ll say, we want you to do a background on Mary Lou. And so we’ll do a background on her. She’s up, one of ten to people for a job. So she looks on paper. She looks pretty good, but they’ll also want us to do a social media deep dive. We’ll find out. Yeah. Yeah. And we have staff that does that. And not the stuff that you see on Facebook or Instagram or Twitter.
I’m talking about deep dive within the rules and regulations of all the things that we have to operate on. And so this girl went down on spring break when she was 20, took her top off and was drinking tequila. Well on its surface, it’s not the end of the world. You know, they say, well, some CEOs might want to have that girl in their office.
She just seems fun enough. But the reality is, is the HR people will automatically so understand what you’re doing at 17, 18 to 20. We’ll look at your employment at 23 or 24. Cause then they will automatically knock you out. Based on that picture.
Chris Gazdik: [00:38:12] I think you clipped out a little bit, the guy, you said the legality of, of what?
Thomas Martin: [00:38:17] Well, most people, when they go on. Instagram Twitter, Facebook, you can see stuff. Well, we have the ability may see a little bit more under the rules and regulations of the private investigator act and everything else. We can’t violate Facebook’s policy, but we can certainly see more of that. But most of the time, we don’t even need to do quote, deep dive.
We can find pictures of you through your cell phone, whatever, if that’s what we are aiming to do, or just in regular social. Sure. Have you in an inappropriate behavior will knock you out of the box when you’re applying for a job after college. Cause if you’ve got 10 people, all the same qualities and all the same, everything from Charlotte to New York to Miami, well, how are you going to get rid of these people?
Well, if you saw somebody that had inappropriate behavior, the HR department, the blends that we’re dealing with across the country will knock you right out.
Chris Gazdik: [00:39:10] Right. And am I hearing you correctly from personal pictures on your cell phone and whatnot?
Thomas Martin: [00:39:17] Well, most of the times they take a picture on the cell phone and they put it on the internet.
Chris Gazdik: [00:39:21] Yeah, well, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Right on
their timeline and their face or their, what do you call it?
Thomas Martin: [00:39:27] We can’t take it off their phone. Cause that would be evasion of their privacy. But yeah. From their phone and put it on the internet. That’s open game. Fair game. Yeah. It’s totally open. Yeah, we can go after that.
Chris Gazdik: [00:39:40] Yeah.
Thomas Martin: [00:39:41] It’s not really a fair, but that’s the reality of what people in the world are doing
Chris Gazdik: [00:39:46] and they’re, and the kids don’t understand. I mean, you know, if you’re 25 and younger ish, I mean, Craig, I don’t know how you and I. I mean, I make some Facebook posts and different stuff like that. I would imagine you would have Tom a tougher time with somebody who’s 52 and doing a social media deep dive on them than somebody who’s 24.
Is that, would you say that’s a fair statement.
Thomas Martin: [00:40:09] That is a fair statement. Yeah. Most of the time, you know, once you reach a certain maturity level after 30 or 35, you stopped posting those, those pictures,
Chris Gazdik: [00:40:18] uh, you have a brain that works, right. Uh, let me see, where do we want to go next? Let, let’s look at your, your vast experience because I think that, uh, your website, people will get some really help with the divorce questions and all, I was really kind of wanting to tap your brain with.
With, you know, the dynamics of divorce that you see from a PR from a professional PIs perspective?
Thomas Martin: [00:40:43] Well, I think most of our divorce cases originate from our merits or seeing most people in the, and I don’t take any umbrage when they tell me this, that most people like a private investigator has a trench coat, a fedora, and a pipe on a corner.
Ain’t gone. Nope. It represents about six or 7% of our business. Okay. But it’s an event they’re important part of our business for the clients. So when a man or, a woman comes to us and says, we want you to follow our mate, we catch the people 97% of the time. So when the, and 80% of our clients are women.
So when the women hire us and we can, man, the w w the women will go to people like yourselves and tell them a third of the time, I want to get counseling a third of the time. Um, I want to get divorced. And a third of the time, I don’t know what to do. When we catch the wife, the men come to us and it’s 99.9% divorce.
Right? So now divorce is a very complex situation. There’s 155. As I said, the questions they can go. But let me tell your listeners and anybody’s listening. Uh, the most important thing you can do in a divorce. It’s not a PI, it’s not your forensic accountant. It’s it’s it’s. All the things that you’ve heard about the single most important thing you can do is the attorney that you select that attorney will have a direct effect on the rest of your life.
And that’s the changes and the decisions that you have, you have to make. So you can have the PI and the greatest amount of documents and asked et cetera. But if your attorney is not in the top one 10th of 1% in the family law court, anywhere in the country, you’re probably going to get your butt handed to you.
Especially if you’re a woman.
Chris Gazdik: [00:42:36] Yeah. I’ve seen that in therapy experiences with people. I’ll tell you another thing that I’ve seen. I’m curious if you refer much to our a as a whole service called divorce mediation.
Thomas Martin: [00:42:47] I’m not a big fan of it.
Chris Gazdik: [00:42:49] You’re not,
Thomas Martin: [00:42:49] I’m not a big fan of the worst fact. I’m, I’m totally against it. In fact,I don’t have, have written and talked and lectured about it because I go back to my seminary days, mediation, you can’t serve two masters and no mediation.
I don’t care how much experience they got. I’ll great. The are can, can, can serve two people in a divorce and I’ve seen it a thousand times. Well, all they’re going to do it was just like a small claims court. The mediator. Talented as he, or she may be. It’s going to give a little bit to one side and a little bit to the other side, and I’m not saying they’re not fair.
I’m just seeing the equity in dividing up, the assets. Uh, I don’t, I have never seen it be as equitable as when, uh, an on a judge can decide and divide up the pie. If you’re not represented hundred percent by somebody, you know, what’s the advantage of mediation. There’s no saving of money. All you’re doing is given your husband or your wife… an advantage.
Chris Gazdik: [00:43:49] Hmmm. Okay. So you’re saying that it’s impossible to really be sort of fair and impartial because you’re really kind of trying to take both sides of the equation and mediate it. But, but you’re, you’re really not able to kinda cut it down through the process.
Thomas Martin: [00:44:04] Well, I wouldn’t say fair if you’re, if you’re of a pots and pans case, and the only asset in the marriage is the pots and the pans and you can get the pots and he gets the pans.
And the only other thing is the dog. Yeah. Well, okay. Mediation’s great. But when you’re talking about anything where you have a house. A corporation assets, uh, and you’ve been married five, 10, 15 years there, there there’s nobody who can be fair. And, and one of the things I know personally, I have been appointed by the court as what they call an PI referee, where the two people will sit down and we will then go through the whole list of their assets.
And we try to divide it up equally, who gets the Laker tickets. Who gets the cottage in the, in the mountains. And it’s very, very difficult. I’ve been there. It’s very difficult to be fair to both sides. And if I, I see no I’ve asked, I’ve asked the mediators, give me one advantage of having a mediator versus my clients, both sides, having an attorney and they can Jabber all they want.
They can jibber Jabber about money and the timber. Well, I’m fair on this and no, you can’t. It never, it never works out. And, um, that’s that’s, I I’ve yet to see it. And I’ve done maybe 29, 30,000 divorce cases over the years. So.
Chris Gazdik: [00:45:24] Yeah, that’s fascinating. I really appreciate that because I think people are really, you know, I’ve kind of thought, Tom, that, um, goodness man, uh, the mental health breakdown potential for somebody is I’m going to say like most likely or most severe when they’re kind of going through that timeframe.
It is a very delicate time. It is a very difficult time. I mean, I would venture to say Tom that when you’re, when you’re kind of handing that. That picture, that image that you found that somebody hired you to kind of find the truth out. That is, that is when their, their gut checked the hardest in their life.
Thomas Martin: [00:46:00] Well, I mean, I’ve had women in my office, actually. I showed them the video type. They throw up
Chris Gazdik: [00:46:05] literally,
Thomas Martin: [00:46:06] you know, and the guys are just, the guys don’t have the DNA gene to have forgiveness. So they’re going to get divorced. Sometimes a guy will walk in or office. I’m going to try to save the marriage for the kids and we go.
what. It’s not going to last. You can go all the therapy you want. At the end of the day, you’re going to get a divorce and they do. And then, then like most PIs that sounds a little self serving, most PIs say, okay, we’re done. I found you the evidence now we’re done. But when you have kids and all this other trauma, especially during a affair, it might affect four adults and six kids, right?
Yeah. You, you really, the single most important thing, as I said is to get that attorney and. Just an example in orange County where we’re based. There’s 2000 family law attorneys. Now, how many do you think we fully recommend? In fact, we only recommend a small amount. In fact, if you, you don’t have one of 16 attorneys that we recommend in orange County, we won’t take your money.
Okay. And we could probably use extra cases, but we’re not going to take your money. Cause we don’t take our work product and give it to a knucklehead attorney who doesn’t know what to do with it. Doesn’t know what to do with the asset searches or the backgrounds with the information that we’ve found.
So it’s not only from Archer critical to get an attorney, but it’s really critical to, um, to, to get a one that’s in the top. 1% and you can find a lot of the guidance in that book. That’s online for free the investigator confidential, which your listeners can go to and there’ll be some helpful tips on how to pick the attorney.
Chris Gazdik: [00:47:38] Yeah. I think people are really vulnerable at that point. And that’s why I’ve spent one to spend a little bit of extra time on the divorce component because people are really confused. I mean, you know, and how do I go about through this? How do I begin the process? I really appreciate your, your, what is it?
190,007 questions to ask, you know, because people are really like, I don’t know what to do. I don’t know where it’s starting to turn. I don’t know. What’s what’s my first step. And you, and you throw into that on the topic of domestic violence. Which we’ve covered on this show. We’ve got a victory life house, a lady who shared her story of domestic violence.
That it’s a whole nother level of, of, of like terror in. How do I start this? So that’s an awesome resource.
Thomas Martin: [00:48:22] Well, I could tell you what not to do, which most people do. Be it in your area or anywhere the United States, they call up their best friend. Do you know any good divorce attorneys or they call up uncle Willie, do you know any good divorce attorneys?
You know, and it’s, and it’s really pretty simple. The best tip I can give you is go down to the family law center in your area. And talk to the, the, the, the, the marshals or the law enforcement people there go to the clerks of the court, or go to the, the administrators in the actual court rooms and say, if you were getting a divorce, who would you pick?
Who are the heavy hitters here, or find a good private investigator in the area who’s done these cases and say, Hey, who do you not want to see with your wife and divorce court? And ever who they named. That’s the person you want to get and maybe get two or three reps.
Please don’t take advice from your cousin or your aunt or your friend or the Starbucks guy, please. I mean, it’s life changing. I mean, it’s a lie.
Chris Gazdik: [00:49:23] It really is. It really is. So you clipped out again, you said, uh, you know, get to get a two or three references and, and, and kind of get a good information that way.
Thomas Martin: [00:49:34] Exactly. If the, if, if what you want to do is if you hear the same name, if you keep coming up with Craig graves, Craig Graves, Craig Graves keeps coming up. You might want to talk to Craig about being a divorce attorney and it’s those people in the courthouses. They will love to share that information with you
Chris Gazdik: [00:49:50] What got you into private investigation, kind of in the first place.
Cause you know, when we cover these different topics, you know, cults and missing persons and finding people and investigating. For proceedings of divorce and whatnot, like what, what, what, what’s your real interest in, in, in, I think helping people through that those times.
Thomas Martin: [00:50:10] Well, if you flash back to 1981, when I was on the fast track to become in some circles, the number two guy in the DEA, which would be called the deputy, it had been a, it was a pretty devastating time and I sat around after I.
Got the retirement papers. It was agreed by my doctors in the DEA that I, you know, I had to retire. So I sat around for a couple of weeks feeling sorry for myself until my wife and kids decided that they wanted to eat, go to school and buy clothes. So I interesting the, the government, a lot of people don’t know this has to retrain you.
So that you make the same amount of money. You can either become a therapist, you can become an airline pilot, you can become whatever. So what does Tom Martin do? I mean, I don’t have much talent other than being an investigator. Uh, so I told the government, if you let me become a private investigator, I will sign a waiver that you don’t have to.
If I fail, don’t worry about it. And that ended up being a pretty big motivational thing to make sure my business succeeded because there’s nothing to fall back on. Sure. Yeah. And so, and so what do I do? I mean, they wanted me to go back my doctorate and whatever, and they wanted me to go to become a lawyer.
They wanted, they had all these things and I go, no, I just want to be an investigator and do what I know best. So when I started at 81, there were very few private investigators, maybe a thousand today. In 2020 there’s hundred thousand private investigators in the country. So I had no real role. I didn’t have a business plan on anything, but if, if you just hang in there and know that eventually you’re going to get a case, uh, it was the best choice I ever made.
And I mean, I still have fire belly and every day, man, I didn’t know. You know, when you get up in the morning, whether you’re going to go to court, uh, whether you’re going to be on a podcast, whether you’re going to be on a surveillance, you know, you going to incorporate for studio one Tom product. It’s a great career so far.
Fantastic.
Chris Gazdik: [00:52:11] Great. Craig his mic zipped out again? Just a little bit, but I think he told us he has add, is that what you heard him say?
Thomas Martin: [00:52:17] Roger That, makes sure you get that.
Chris Gazdik: [00:52:20] Alright. We’ll highlight that with the, this is an add show. I missed the boat. What did I do is screwed up.
Thomas Martin: [00:52:26] Make sure you put it out to them in big letters so they know.
Yeah. Right.
Craig Graves: [00:52:31] Hey Tom, we talked about retirement one time on the show and. You know, it’s fairly a new concept in the grand scheme of history. Um, you seem to love what you do, man. Do you ever see yourself retiring from this?
Thomas Martin: [00:52:42] I really don’t. Um, as I’ve often told people, you know, I, I, I, I, I don’t play golf very well.
My wife, certainly after 50 years of marriage, or there will be an Uber doesn’t want me at home. And, and I’m, I’m very blessed. I still get the pick of whatever cases I want. If I want to do a murder case, I do. If I want to do a corporate case, I do, I do a civil case. I do. And it’s, it’s, it’s still gratifying.
I mean, I still like to win in, in our business. It’s never gray. It’s you either find the assets or you don’t either catch the guy cheating or you don’t either get the guy off the court or you don’t. So most of the private investigators, there’s some great investigators in the country, but they have no business sense.
They, and that’s why they fail. There’s, there’s so many investigators that I couldn’t shine their shoes, but unfortunately they don’t know how to run a business. And that’s, that’s unfortunate. So of the a hundred thousand, I’m not quite sure how many are making a living at it, but every day is different.
Every day is exciting and, and, uh, you can pick and choose what you want to do. That’s a blessing.
Chris Gazdik: [00:53:48] What is one of your, what was one of your scariest moments?
Thomas Martin: [00:53:51] As a PI.
Chris Gazdik: [00:53:52] Yeah.
Thomas Martin: [00:53:53] Uh, well, no, actually as a PI, DEA what ever.
I was actually taken hostage as the DEA undercover agent and I was an undercover, uh, buying cocaine up in Malibu and I was taken hostage for four hours.
Wow. Yeah, that was a wow, for sure. And, uh, I, it was a. They didn’t teach me what to do in the school that I went to prior to beginning sworn in as an agent. Yeah, it was, it was right. And the guy who took me hostage, this is a little embarrassing. Maybe you’ll cut this out wheelchair.
Chris Gazdik: [00:54:25] Aghhh, he was in a wheelchair.
Thomas Martin: [00:54:29] Yeah. I just saw what I had to talk to inspection about. Okay. So a guy took you hostage. He’s in a wheelchair. I go, Oh my God. Well, he had a couple of months and he also had a Doberman there. And I actually became friends with the Doberman after about an hour because they allowed me to go get a glass of water.
And when I got the water out of the focet I looked in the refrigerator and just like fallen for manna from heaven, it was Oscar Meyer bologna pack. So I fed that to that doberman, man, and we became buddies. Yeah.
Craig Graves: [00:55:00] What were the circumstances? Did they realize you were an agent Tom or did they take, I probably, yeah.
Thomas Martin: [00:55:06] That’s I mean, that’s the common thread that nobody likes to admit it. I, you know, I didn’t have a nice beard, like you have, my, my beard is, although it’s red, it’s very scraggly. My hair was long. I mean, I look like a puke. I mean, let’s admit what I was at. Yeah. And maybe I didn’t have the bast gift of gab.
And, um, the ironic part is why I was there for so long is the surveillance. There was like 10 other agents outside, right? And the wire that I had on apparently, didn’t work but there were also four girls outside, four girls naked by the pool. So I’ve always told my fellow comrades that I stood up. So you guys are watching the girls and not worried about me too much.
Chris Gazdik: [00:55:44] Really tapping your chest, like, hey, hey….
Thomas Martin: [00:55:50] so finally in that happened to pay off because the guy said, well, you can’t be a narc. He said, he says, I think he wanted me to say, you’re too stupid to be a narc and nobody’s come to get you. So he the cocaine. Wow. They ended up getting the cocaine and walking out of there and then the, and they ended up coming in and arrested him.
So those four hours were like 40 days. I can tell you that.
Craig Graves: [00:56:14] I’m sure. I’m sure.
Chris Gazdik: [00:56:15] I can’t imagine. I can’t imagine. Well, listen, Craig, where are we at? And what are you thinking in here? And we need to taxi in here and again here and get out of here. What what’s a what’s going on in Craig graves’ mind.
Craig Graves: [00:56:25] Yeah, we covered a lot of topics.
I don’t have anything there. Anything specific I could, I could talk to Tom all day. I think if we had the time.
Chris Gazdik: [00:56:31] We. We didn’t, we didn’t get to get to the opioid epidemic. We didn’t get to get to the coronavirus epidemic. We didn’t get to get to the drug enforcement and the borders, man. We had a lot of topics Tom.
Thomas Martin: [00:56:40] Well, maybe another time of where they come back.
I look, let’s do it.
Chris Gazdik: [00:56:44] Absolutely. That’d be awesome
Craig Graves: [00:56:45] be, it’d be awesome.
Chris Gazdik: [00:56:46] What would you say that, uh, throughout your travels and, and time with it with government and world travel and, uh, you know, in way of summing this up, I kinda preface part one. Or did I say it today or this, this episode? I’m sure the Greed is the root of all evils.
You know, how would you summarize dealing with people and dealing with that issue to get into a better place so that you manage that greed internally and change your behavior, whether it’s divorcing or whether it’s having affairs or, you know, in your, in your, in your investigative travels? How can we do a better job with that?
Thomas Martin: [00:57:24] That’s a good question. I spent a, I went to 60 foreign countries as an agent that I had done another 60. So we’re up to about 120 plus countries. And one thing, no matter where I’ve gone on the planet, I always come home and it’s, it sounds great to travel around and do all that sort of thing. And I think for me, what I would tell your listeners is that when you travel.
Keep in mind, not everybody is going to be as gracious or benevolent as you want them to be. And a lot of people in a lot of countries and I mean, some not so nice countries. Their whole life revolves around getting that money out of you. Whether it’d be through the, the airlines, through the travel, through, through the food that you’re going to buy, whatever the so many people that have a game.
And I don’t think I’m jaded. About it. Cause it happens almost everywhere in every country. So just be a little more street smart, um, be protective of yourself and your belongings. Um, because you know, I’ve had it happen to me. They will try to rip you off in a lot of places. So it’s not that they don’t do it here in the U S but I think, and not to paint a picture terrible of the other countries, but they all got some kind of game and they don’t say money’s the root of all evil for nothing.
So just be damn careful.
Chris Gazdik: [00:58:44] Absolutely. Well, Craig, do you have anything to wrap up on and I’m going to do her or our hand or a distance clap.
Craig Graves: [00:58:50] No I just Appreciate Tom’s Time. It’s been two great conversations and, uh, man, I hope, I hope there’s a third. I do at some point.
Chris Gazdik: [00:58:59] So, so when, when people were doing personal Sharing, Tom, I kind of started a little bit of a tradition of, of a, you know, a lot of times we’re sitting at the table and I like to do a high five with him because it is hard to share.
Sometimes he’s different. The things in the situations that, that you’re in and the emotional experience you have. So we’re going to do a, we’re going to do a high five across the, across the entire nation. If you will, in three seconds, we’re gonna to clap signify and a high five. This is, this is really appreciative.
And, and I think that the point of reason why we do the show is to, is to really help people and to be, and I, and I believe in being genuine and being direct with people in our, in our experiences, uh, you know, really help people with that. So I just very much appreciate you. You being willing to do that with our audience?
Thomas Martin: [00:59:38] Well, I appreciate all the good stuff you get out there. I think it’s great. Especially about the human trafficking we did in the first show. It’s going to be great.
Chris Gazdik: [00:59:44] So on the count of three, we’re going to clap three, two, one.
Thomas Martin: [00:59:50] Oh, clap. See, I work for the government. You got to explain it a little better than that.
Chris Gazdik: [00:59:57] Alright man.
Thomas Martin: [00:59:59] After green week. Thank you. Stay safe and healthy. You guys.
Chris Gazdik: [01:00:02] All right,
Thomas Martin: [01:00:04] bye.
Chris Gazdik: [01:00:06] Greg take us out of here and we’re going to go get something to dinner. Sounds
Craig Graves: [01:00:09] good. You can find out more about our show and throughatherapistseye.Com. We’ve got an entry for every show. You can find this on just about every podcast platform or you can listen right there on the website.
Chris Gazdik: [01:00:21] Alright, stay safe. And we’ll see you guys next week.