We recently connected with Danielle Burch and have shared our conversation below.

Danielle, appreciate you joining us today. Do you have a hero? What have you learned from them?

My hero is Private Investigator, Sheila Wysocki. Since I met her in 2018, she has inspired me to change my career path of 25 years to pursue my passion of investigating crimes. Sheila gave me an outlet to share my ideas and opinions on actual cases utilizing her “crowdsourcing” technique. This technique implements ideas from “citizen detectives” who have a knack for sleuthing and can channel those talents into actual crime solving. Sheila always believed in me and allowed me to express my thoughts and ideas alongside her and other seasoned investigators while coaching me along the way.

I have become not only a licensed private investigator but a better person because of it. I now see a different side of “true crime”. The part that is often over-looked. The victim. No one talks as much about the victim. We remember the names of the person who took the lives of those we fight for but there is a face, a family, a story behind every victim. We have to be their voice since they no longer have one.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

Since the age of 10 I have had an interest in true crime. There was a teen couple from my small hometown that went missing and were found murdered days later. The search for them fascinated me, the constant newspaper attention. The sounds of helicopters searching for them kept me awake at night. It was later discovered they were victims of a prolific serial killer named Edward Wayne Edwards. Since then I have been fascinated by the minds of perpetrators and why they kill. I attended CrimeCon in Nashville in 2018 and signed up for.a session named “The P.I. Experience” hosted by an amazing private investigator, Sheila Wysocki. She used one of her current working cases, Jonathan Crews’ case, to be the subject of the session. Prior to the conference, she assigned the attendees to work with her other investigators beforehand to familiarize us with the case including police reports, photos, and witness depositions. Sheila and I forged a friendship from then on and I began to volunteer my time to assist her on other cases. She became a mentor to me and I called myself her “middle aged intern!”. She taught me tricks of the trade and never made me feel my ideas were inadequate to more experienced investigators. In 2020 I quit my job in a profession I held for over twenty years and started working for Sheila full time. I currently am a licensed private investigator in two states. I never know what I “wanted to do with my life” until I met Sheila. To this I say, it’s never too late. And the old adage stands, “if you love what you do you never have to work a day in your life.”

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

My first time interviewing witnesses and doing surveillance was in Texas in the hot month of September. Three of us investigators spent several days interviewing witnesses on a case we had been working tirelessly on. There was one witness that other than their court testimony never spoke out in public. We needed this witness and would stop at nothing to try to get them! We surveilled them for a couple days and we were ready to go for it. Two of the more seasoned investigators went to their door and I stayed in the vehicle surveilling the interview. They agreed to speak with us and the primary investigator kept the car running since I was inside but had the key with her. Eventually the car shut off. The interview was going well, the witness was engaging and a rapport was developed making the interview last several hours. All the while I was in the hot vehicle with no air conditioning and sun beating through the windows. But I was NOT getting out of that car and disrupting the interview no matter how uncomfortable I was. This is investigating! It’s not pretty, it’s not always comfortable. But it is important. I was then gifted a window hammer and portable fan from the two investigators that interviewed the witness…you know, just in case.

We’d love to hear about how you keep in touch with clients.

One of my go-to phrases is, “crime has no time.” Meaning, we are available 24-7 because investigating is never a 9-5 job. We are available to our clients 24 hours a day. Every email is acknowledged, every text is answered, every phone call is picked up. We work for victims’ families. And that’s not always neat and pretty. Their favorite person, their loved one, died tragically. The least we can do is give them our attention when they need it. We have to be a voice for those that no longer have one.

Contact Info:

• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WithoutWarningPI
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/WITHOUTWARNINGBYSHEILAWYSOCKI
• Other: https://www.withoutwarningpodcast.com

Image Credits
Melanie Trevino (for the headshots)