Homeless Woman Located Under Bridge

This true story takes us from Jerusalem to a bridge in the Southwest.

One day we received a call at Sherlock Investigations from Jerusalem. An Israeli woman said that her daughter had gone to the United States two years earlier, and she had not heard from her in over a year. The last time that she had heard from her she was staying in Massachusetts with friends.

The woman had contact information for a couple of her daughter's friends. We called them. One of them said that about year earlier he got email from the woman that said that she was going to Arizona to consult with an astrologer.

For the next two weeks, we called every astrolger we could locate in Arizona. Finally, we hit pay dirt. A woman in Tucson remembered our target. She remembered her for several reasons. First, she fit the physical description. Second, she had an Israeli accent. And third, our target had a obsessive compulsive disorder that caused her to frequently wash her hands... and before sitting down with the astrologer, our target made the astrologer wash her hands. She apparently had other mental problems which caused her to lose touch with her family and friends.

The astrolger told us that she thought our target was still in the area. We relayed this to our client in Jerusalem and she immediately flew to New York.

One of our female investigators went to Arizona with our client. After checking into a Tucson hotel and renting a car, they set out armed with photos of the target. Their first stop was a college campus library, because we thought she might be using the reference books there because we knew that she had an interest in certain subjects.

Sure enough, several people in the library recognized the photos. One of them mentioned a market that she had seen her shopping in. They went there, and a clerk remembered her from several visits. He said that she was homeless, and thought she lived under a bridge.

By that time, it was dark, and they were afraid to go under a local bridge where homeless people lived. However, they learned about a group that fed sandwiches out of a van to homeless people.

The next night, the two found and staked-out the van. In less than an hour, our client's daughter showed up. They followed her from there to an Internet cafe. Our investigator followed her in and approached her. She said, "Your mother loves you very much. She's outside if you'd like to see her."

The daughter started crying, as did our investigator. Shortly, the mother and daughter were reunited. Today, she is getting the support and help she needs.