Do Ghost Hunters Really Find Ghosts?

Some claim to have seen the ghost of madam Mattie Silks at her former brothel, now a restaurant-bar in downtown Denver.

It’s that time of year when leaves turn golden, the air gets nippy, and ghosts and goblins make their Halloween appearances. During October, several older hotels here in Colorado have been hosting ghost-hunting parties and spooky tours. Silly fun...or are these hotels truly haunted?

I Think My House Is Haunted, Can You Help Me?

Over the years a few people have called our agency, asking if we could investigate ghosts they believe are haunting their homes. We’ll decline, explaining that we are not paranormal investigators, and we try to steer them to paranormal investigation sources that sincerely want to help people and not take advantage of their fears.

What Is a Paranormal Investigator?

Most paranormal investigators are people who are certified in parapsychology or who have studied paranormal investigations. Their goal is to help people in need, and often paranormal investigators do not accept money for their services (although they may accept donations for travel, lodging and expenses). Some paranormal investigators make money through writing books, conducting “ghost tours,” giving workshops, or even starring in TV reality shows about ghost hunters.

Tips for Hiring a Paranormal Investigator

The National and International ParaHaunt Paranormal Family Network offers referrals to paranormal investigators throughout the U.S.and the world. However, keep in mind that although these paranormal organizations meet ParaHaunt’s professional standards, ParaHaunt does not endorse any of the groups. Link: http://miparahaunt.tripod.com/id82.html.

Before you retain a paranormal organization or a paranormal investigator, here’s some ideas for checking their backgrounds:

• Contract the Better Business Bureau

• Research the organization/person on the internet for news stories and client referrals

• Review the organization or person’s website and contact any former clients for recommendations

• Hire a private investigator to double-check the paranormal investigator’s background (especially if you’re inviting this person into your home).

Photograph of floating spirit & spirit "orb" by William Hope, early 1900s

Ghost Hunting at Three Colorado Haunted Hotels

I’ve visited the Stanley Hotel and taken its ghost several times. The “Stanley” is known for its Room #217, where Stephen King first began writing The Shining, later made into the movie starring Jack Nicholson.

My Digital Photos Caught “Orbs”

I took photos during these ghost tours with my digital camera, and others in the group (including the tour guide) would tell me I had captured orbs, which supposedly indicated the presence of spirits. The Paranormal Encyclopedia says that “both skeptics, and many ghost hunters, agree that photographic orbs are most often, if not always, caused by natural elements such as dust, pollen, or water vapor.” I don’t know what caused the orbs, but if I’d seen, oh, a spectral figure hovering in the photo…well, then I’d believe I’d captured evidence of a ghost.

Claims of Ghosts, But When I Visited…

I’ve visited other reported haunted hotels and buildings around Denver, Colorado, starting with the Brown Palace Hotel, which locals simply call the “Brown,” built in 1892.

Brown Palace Hotel, Denver Colorado, 1898

The Brown Palace Hotel

We’ve been on this ghost tour twice. One tour guide told us fantastic stories about ghosts and ghouls who haunt the hotel, from a long-dead string quartet that still practices their music to a ghost-like train conductor who walks through walls.

Another tour guide had a first-hand encounter with a spirit. She told us how late one night she saw a “black mass” of vapor swirl up to the ceiling and disappear. She looked so frightened while talking about it, we believed her. That or she’s a really good actress.

House of Mirrors

A while back, I was writing a novel that featured a ghost character who'd lived during the late nineteenth-century silver-boom days of Colorado. During this era, there was a famous madam, Mattie Silks, whom people claim still haunts her old living quarters in Denver (which was called the House of Mirrors).

Mattie Silks, Denver madam, 1845-1929

One spring afternoon, I visited the House of Mirrors, which had morphed into a bar/restaurant. The business was closed, but a friendly bartender let me in to walk around and look at spots where the madam’s ghost had been seen and heard (several people claimed to have also heard her whispering on a certain staircase). Did I see or hear any ghostly goings-on?

No, but the bartender had…

He claimed there had been plenty of spooky goings-on in the old building. He said sometimes late at night, when he's alone cleaning up, the elevator will suddenly start working…its doors will open…and no one is inside. And then there was the night when an entire shelf of bottles and glasses suddenly crashed to the floor.

And then there was the night he heard whispering and giggling on the stairs. He cautiously approached the staircase, and the voices stopped. No one was there.

I got goosebumps listening to his stories. He invited me to come back after the place closes one night, and to bring my co-investigator, and we were welcome to document any unexplained noises, sounds, etc.

Y’know, I think I’ll leave that one to a certified paranormal investigator…

All rights reserved by Colleen Collins. Any use of the content requires specific, written authority from the author.

A Thanksgiving Jail Visit, An Innocent Man, And Digging for Evidence on 800 Acres

The rancher lived on 800+ acres in the middle of nowhere

Every Thanksgiving, I remember my husband (and PI partner) visiting a rancher in jail where he'd been sitting since October on two charges of attempted murder. My husband sat with the rancher, who wept as he'd never been away from his family on a holiday. 

I can't even imagine how that rancher felt sitting in jail all those weeks, facing a possible 48-year prison sentence if he were to be found guilty of attempted murder. A man who had never even had a speeding ticket in his entire life.  

That case was one of the most difficult, challenging, and ultimately rewarding cases my husband and I ever worked as private investigators.  

Below is the story, which I also wrote about in How to Write a Dick: A Guide for Writing Fictional Sleuths from a Couple of Real-Life Sleuths. We worked hard to solve this case, although I often doubted we could. To prove the rancher’s innocence, we needed to find 4 bullet slugs on 800 acres of ranch land. Would’ve been easier to find a needle in a haystack.

We Got the Call one Freezing Winter Morning...

From an attorney-client who specializes in high-profile criminal cases. A rancher was in jail on first-degree attempted murder charges. Two people claimed he'd shot at them, tried to kill them. Rancher claimed the opposite—they had threatened his life. He could either die or fight back. He fired warning shots, 4 of 'em in rapid succession, to scare them off his 800+-acre ranch.

Problem with being in the middle of nowhere is that there were no witnesses, except the two people who claimed they were victims. Oh, and a dog named Gus.

You Two Are My Hail Mary Pass

Our attorney-client said, “You two are my Hail Mary Pass in this case. Try to find those slugs.” The sheriff's office had done a cursory check for the slugs, didn't find them, and had closed the case. The rancher, who'd never had so much as a speeding ticket, was now facing two counts of attempted first-degree murder (a mandatory/minimum sentence of 24 years each) and a $300,000 bail.

Could We Find 4 Bullet Slugs on 800 Acres of Ranch Land?

With metal detectors, possibly. Especially after we learned the sheriff's office hadn't attempted to use metal detectors—in fact, they didn't even own one. We rented several metal detectors, did a quick study with a former crime scene analyst who educated us on how to use and calibrate the instruments. Our goal: Checking for slugs that were slightly below the surface, not buried deep into the earth.

Next, we visited a gun expert and discussed the type of gun the rancher had used, the bullets, and their calculated trajectory. With his help, we analyzed that the bullets had traveled approximately a half-mile, and the slugs were probably a half-inch to an inch below the sandy, dense soil of that region.

There were buffalo on the ranch…did I mention I’m a city girl?

Setting Up the Crime Scene

The last thing we wanted to do was to inadvertently search the same area the other had already searched—the work was going to be tedious and meticulous, and we needed to handle the task as efficiently as possible.

Therefore, after selecting a likely area (based on where the rancher had said he'd pointed his gun), a half-mile away from where the incident took place, we set up grids wherein each of us would be carefully working the ground with his/her metal detector. We kicked off our search, hunched over our metal detectors, slowly moving them, inch by inch, over the cold dirt.

Our Metal Detectors Started Pinging!

At first we were thrilled, excitedly yelling to each other, pointing at the spot the detector indicated! Then we'd search for the slug…and find a rusted nail…or a rusted bed spring...and onetime, an antiquated hammer. Heading back home that first day, the rancher's mother, who was taking care of her grandchildren while her son was in jail, informed us that part of the ranch had been, decades back, a junkyard dump.

Wonderful. We were going to get a lot of false positives before this search was over.

A Monster of a Dog Named Gus

A 135-pound Rottweiler joined the search

That first day had another built-in challenge for one of us (me): a monster of a dog named Gus. The rancher's mother said she thought he was 135 pounds, give or take. I'd say give. Lots of give. He was the biggest, baddest-looking, muscled hunk of Rottweiler I'd ever seen in my life. As luck would have it, Gus decided he liked me.

But after seeing that Gus's best pal on that vast, seemingly endless ranch, was a little barn cat...I realized his big and bad was dog-skin deep. Gus had the heart of Thumper the Rabbit. He also was the only witness to the incident, and he seemed intent on helping us—staying nearby, sniffing the ground—as we searched and searched, hour after hour, day after day.

Did I Ever Want to Give Up? Yes.

I'd be lying if I said no. There were times out there on the high plains with the brittle-cold winter winds pummeling us, burs working their way up through the soles of our shoes, our bodies aching from hours of being bent over...that I'd look out at hundreds of acres of barren land and think, "At what point do we admit this is an impossible task?”

Then I'd think about that rancher sitting alone in the jail on Thanksgiving, the first time he'd been without his family on a holiday, for a crime I didn't believe he'd committed. I had to keep looking…

We Found the First Slug

The moment we found that first slug—I'll never forget it. There it was, a half-inch below the soil, in the region we'd expected to find it. We whooped and hollered like a couple of down-on-their-luck miners who'd just struck gold! Which, when you think of it, was kinda the truth.

The First Slug

Then we found the second slug...

Second slug

And then we found the third...and the fourth. Their placement proved the rancher had fired in self-defense.

A Joyful Christmas Eve

On Christmas Eve, the D.A. reduced the charges, and the rancher was released on a reduced bail. He might have missed Thanksgiving with his family, but he was home for Christmas.

Gus was very happy about that.

Private Investigators And Crime Scene Investigations, Part II

Updated April 10, 2018

Welcome to the second part of "Private Investigations and Crime Scene Investigations," based on a series of classes my husband and I taught for Kiss of Death, the mystery-suspense arm of the Romance Writers of America. It's also timely as this past week we returned to investigate a crime scene for an attempted homicide charge that involved multiple vehicles. The incident occurred several months ago, yet we found physical evidence (pieces of broken parts that matched the vehicles involved) in an area not mentioned in the police report. 

As explained in the first class, PIs typically investigate crime scenes after law enforcement/others have finished their investigations and re-opened the area, returning it to everyday use.

Now, let's kick off class II with the question...

After Police Have Completed a Crime Scene Investigation, What Might a PI Do?

A PI might be called on to visit, photograph and document a crime scene after the police have processed the crime scene. During this visit, the PI might look for evidence not found/collected by the police in their work-up. Your fictional PI could easily be at the scene to look for “things not done” by the police, which is a fruitful area for defense lawyers in criminal cases to exploit when critiquing the government’s case in trial.

Tire marks (image in public domain, attribution Robert Kroft)

In one of our experiences, we re-visited the scene of an attempted vehicular assault at least a month after it occurred (btw, this is a different case from the one mentioned above). What evidence did we gather weeks after the event? For starters, the tire marks were still clearly seen on the pavement -- we photographed these marks for the attorney. We also measured the area where a complex set of vehicular maneuvers were alleged to have occurred. Additionally, we videotaped the pattern of vehicular travel at the exact speeds alleged by the police.

When Police Don’t Want to Process a Crime Scene, What Might a PI Be Asked to Do?

There are many instances where the police don’t perform testing or otherwise process an entire crime scene because to do so doesn’t help their side of the case. To be fair, the police may feel that they’ve gathered enough evidence (by perhaps taking witness statements).

In such scenarios, criminal defendants often complain because the police didn’t perform a certain test or search an area. It is an old axiom of criminal law that the police have no duty to gather evidence helpful to an accused. This often results in criminal defense attorneys retaining a PI to perform crime scene testing so as to gather the evidence omitted by the police.

Following up with an example, our agency was once retained to find slugs from bullets fired as warning shots in the general direction of, but not directly at, a couple who claimed they were the victims of attempted first-degree murder (which requires a substantial step toward a deliberate and premeditated homicidal act). If found guilty, our client faced a possible 48-year prison sentence.

According to the accused (our client), the bullets would be located on a portion of his 886-acre ranch where it would have been impossible for him to aim at the “victims” and have the slugs land. As the sheriff's office had done a cursory, on-foot search of the ranch land for these four .357 slugs, we decided to do a more in-depth search, using metal detectors. By the way, the sheriff’s office did not own a metal detector.

Meanwhile, our client was being held in a local jail in lieu of $300,000 bail.

Using our client’s characterization of the trajectory of the bullets and factoring in the nature of the load, we were able to map out a possible area approximately a half-mile from where the incident occurred. Braving cold winds, an unusually large amount of scrap metal in the ground (which kept setting off the metal detectors), and burrs that came up through the soles of our shoes, we burned approximately 24 man hours before locating the four slugs.

The first slug we found

When we found that first slug, we whooped and hollered like a couple of miners who'd just hit gold. Our client's mother, who was staying at the ranch to watch over her grandkids, heard our yells and came running across the fields to us, crying as she knew our happy yells could only mean one thing: We had found the evidence that proved her son was innocent.

After the slugs were found, we carefully photographed the site. The slugs were then shipped in evidence bags to the police, where ballistic experts matched the slugs to the firearm seized from our client on the night he was arrested.

In this example, because of the evidence obtained by PIs (several months after law enforcement had finished processing the crime scene) the D.A. reduced the charges and our client was released (on Christmas Eve, after spending over three months in jail). You can imagine how meaningful that Christmas was for his family.

Postscript: A few months later, the rancher called, said he'd like to do something special for us. He visited our home and checked our roof, water heater and fence, looking for something to repair. There wasn't anything that needing fixing, but the visit was a heartwarming reunion. Soon after, he sold his ranch and moved back to his hometown in another state so he and his kids could be near the rest of their family.

This wraps up class 2.

In the next class we cover the basics of homicide investigations, from key tasks covered by law enforcement, to an overview on estimating time of death, to how a PI might be called upon to aid in a homicide investigation. We also describe a case when a criminal defense lawyer retained us to investigate a former homicide scene, and what we learned.

All rights reserved by Colleen Collins. Any use of this content requires specific, written authority.

Book Giveaway! HOW DO PRIVATE EYES DO THAT?

Curious how real-life PIs dig for dirt, chase cheaters, roll on surveillance? Here's your chance to learn that and more!

I'm giving away 15 copies of HOW DO PRIVATE EYES DO THAT? To enter for a chance to win, click on the below link. Contest ends August 23, 2016. Good luck!

https://giveaway.amazon.com/p/f7362a34c546de01

“A must-have for any writer serious about crafting authentic private eyes. Collins knows her stuff.”

— Lori Wilde, New York Times & USA Today bestselling author

Real-Life Nicks & Noras: What It's Like to Be Married Sleuths

My article about being a real-world Nora Charles (the wife-sleuth in Nick & Nora) is live at mystery writer Marilyn Meredith's blog.

Below is an excerpt with a link to the full article at the end. At the end of the article, I offer additional resources about real-life married PI teams, as well as a link to Pursuit Magazine, a free online magazine for professional private investigators that is managed by a real-life husband-and-wife team—handy info for writers crafting sleuth tales and characters!

Nicks & Noras in the Real World: The Thin and the Thick of It

by Colleen Collins

Shaun and Colleen: Husband-and-Wife PI Team (image is copyrighted)

Most of you know about Nick and Nora Charles, the husband and wife private detective team in Dashiell Hammett’s The Thin Man. William Powell and Myrna Loy played Nick and Nora in the 1934 movie of the same name, the first in the popular six-film series. While wise-cracking, canoodling, and imbibing martinis, they also managed to solve a murder or two.

1934 The Thin Man poster (in public domain)

Before my husband returned to being a criminal lawyer, we worked together for over a decade as a real-life private eye team. Even today we sometimes still work cases together for his law practice.

As much as I like to think we held our own in the Nick-and-Nora wise-cracking department, only one of us drank martinis, and we never solved a murder, although we investigated and solved a few attempted murder cases. However, just as Nick and Nora had their terrier Asta, we worked cases with our Rottweiler Aretha, who has sat on innumerable surveillances, helped serve legal papers, and once climbed part way up a mountain where we investigated the scene of a “ski” crime.

HOLLYWOOD VS. REAL-LIFE: GLITZ VS. GRUNGE

Hollywood movies often show the sparkling highlights of a case, whereas the day-to-day digging for evidence can be a grind, sometimes with no viable clues surfacing for weeks at a time. And the film version of surveillances is fiction at its finest—it’s rare that a sleuth-mobile can follow a subject’s vehicle for hours on end. Yours truly has been a PI since 2003, and only once did I successfully follow a subject’s vehicle for hours...and I credit that singular success to the subject not being the brightest mental-bulb on the planet.

Pros and Cons of Being a Married PI Team

For the most part, both my husband and I found sleuthing together to be fun. We had our tense moments, but we enjoy each other’s company and like to make each other laugh, plus there’s nothing like the thrill of cracking a case.

DIFFERING WORK STYLES: THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE ARE YOU CRAZY?

My husband and I fit the “opposites who attract” category. He’s a big-picture person, I focus on the details. He can wing it on little data, I like to be overly prepared. Our strengths can work amazingly well together; other times, we can drive each other more than a little nuts.

Here’s one example of how our traits mesh well...

Click here to read entire article

This article is copyrighted by Colleen Collins—if you wish to re-post or use elsewhere, please contact the author. Also, do not copy, distribute, or otherwise use any images noted as copyrighted or licensed. Images in the public domain are free to use.

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Book Cover How Do Private Eyes Do That? by Colleen Collins (image is copyrighted)

June 2016 release: How Do Private Eyes Do That? (2nd edition)

"If you're looking for the lowdown on private investigations, this is it."

~Bill Crider, author of the Truman Smith mystery series

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Free Private Investigation Articles: Copyright-Free Image Sites to Investigating Crime Scenes

At my "sister site" Guns, Gams & Gumshoes, we (being my former PI-partner & current criminal lawyer husband & yours truly) have been blogging about private investigations since 2009. At the end of each year, we tally up readers' top 10 favorite articles. For 2015, the articles ranged from conducting trash hits to the history of private eyes to investigating crime scenes. Handy information for crime fiction writers, fans of legal films and books, armchair legal eagles, and those curious about the world of real-life PIs.

The Thin Man movie trailer with William Powell & Myrna Loy (image is in public domain)

From Guns, Gams & Gumshoes: Readers' Favorite Investigation Articles in 2015

Starting with #10...

10. Private Detective Couples in Fiction and Real Life

9. No Cease and Desist Letters: Four Copyright-Free Image Sites

8. Private Eye Writers of America 2015 Shamus Award Finalists

James Garner (R) as Jim Rockford in The Rockford Files (image is in public domain)

7. Realistically Portrayed Private Eye Characters in Books and Film

6. History of the P.I. from Vidocq to Pinkerton

5. International Women's Day: Honoring Female Investigators

4. When Is a Private Investigator's Evidence Admissible in Court?

3. Free Social Media Search Engines

Figure Behind Crime Scene Tape (image licensed by Colleen Collins)

2. How to Conduct a Trash Hit: A Private Investigator's Dumpster Secrets

1. Investigating Crime Scenes: Police vs. Private Investigators

Have a great week, Colleen

All rights reserved by Colleen Collins. Any use of the content requires specific, written authority. Please do not copy or distribute any images noted as copyrighted or licensed. However, any images noted as being in the public domain are yours to freely use.

#WritingTips: Five Ways to Track a Story Villain

The family wanted to know the identity of a mysterious female visitor (Image licensed by Colleen Collins)

Many writers craft bad guys, or gals, in stories. In a romantic suspense story, it’s the villain. In a mainstream, maybe there’s a loathsome character that adds sinister story twists. Even in a sweet romance, there might be a vile person who darkens a few plot points. 

What if your sleuth-character must track this villain but there’s only one clue, such as the color of hair? Besides being a writer, I’m also a private investigator who once solved a case on such a scant clue.

Or what if the sole clue is a license plate number, and you’d love for your sleuth to not use the clichéd “I have an inside source” at the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV)? Although I can legally request records from the DMV, I’ve researched license plates through free, public means that I’ll share in this article, too.

First, let’s look at how my PI partner and I uncovered the identity of a “mysterious blonde.”

Tip #1: Loose Lips Sink Ships…and Tattle on Neighbors, Too

It started with a phone call by a distraught granddaughter whose elderly grandfather had recently died. Known for his frugal ways, he’d surprised her months earlier when he shared his savings account statement that showed a quarter of a million dollars. More recently, he hinted about a much younger, blonde girlfriend, but didn’t give her name. After his death, the family checked his savings account and were stunned to find a zero balance.

As he had made no major purchases or paid any extraordinary expenses, the family was concerned about possible foul play. They hired my PI partner and I to discover the identity of this mysterious blonde.

After searching his home, and finding no photos, letters, even a jotted-down phone number, we decided to interview his neighbors.

A neighbor said she'd seen this mysterious blonde show up the day after he died (image licensed by Colleen Collins)

After six neighbors said they had never seen a blond woman at his residence, we wondered if the girlfriend story was real. But we struck gold with the seventh neighbor, a middle-aged man who had seen a tall, thirty-something blonde visit him several times a week. Said she drove a vintage sports car that she parked on the far side of his house, out of view from most of the neighborhood. He didn’t recall the license plate number.

We knocked on a few more doors, eventually finding another neighbor, an older woman, who said the blonde showed up the day after he died, entered his home with a key, and exited with several boxes of items. We reported these sightings to the family, who immediately changed all the locks on the house and garage.

The elderly man hadn’t owned a car in years, and no one had seen the two of them drive off in her vintage car. Nor had they ever been seen together during daylight hours, which made us wonder if they maybe walked to one of the nearby bars or neighborhood restaurants in the evenings.

We walked to every bar and restaurant in the vicinity, showing bartenders, managers and waiters a photo of the elderly man, asking if they had ever seen him and a younger blond woman. Finally, a bartender said he clearly remembered the two of them, and that they had drinks and dinner there at least once a week. He knew her first name, which was unique, and that she once mentioned having driven up from Castle Rock, a nearby city.

Lucky for us she had an unusual first name because searching for a “Mary” or “Jane” would have resulted in dozens of prospects. After running her first name, age range and Castle Rock in a database, we learned she had a criminal record for – guess what? – embezzlement. We forwarded this information to the man’s family, with the suggestion they contact a probate attorney immediately.

Tips 2 through 5 apply to license plate numbers, from readability to ways your character might discover the driver’s ID and more without resorting to the “inside friend at the DMV” stock phrase.

Tip #2: Can Your Character Really Read that License Plate?

I recently read a story where the sleuth miraculously read a license plate on a dark street as the car zipped past him, while he was tumbling to the ground. Hmm. Although most autos have lighted rear license plates, that might not be helpful to someone who’s off-balance and falling. Also, what if the car was coming toward him as he fell? Nineteen U.S. states do not require a plate on the front of the car, which you can check here: How Many States Require Front License Plates.

Tip #3: Ditch the Mysterious Friend Inside the DMV

I’ve read many stories where the sleuth has a mysterious friend inside the DMV who secretly forwards license plate registrations and other drivers’ documents. Not only is that ploy cliché, it shreds believability. In the real world, if a DMV employee is caught illegally forwarding/selling people’s personal driving information, that employee could lose his/her job and be slapped with some serious criminal charges.

Instead, your sleuth can creatively check a license plate number via tip #4 or #5.

Tip #4 Conduct a Reverse Number Search

A quick reverse search on Google can mine considerable information (image is in public domain) 

A reverse search is taking a piece of information, such as a license plate number, entering it into a search engine, and seeing what associated information pops up. Google--being the largest, most comprehensive search engine in the world--is fantastic for such reverse searches. Just type the number in the Google browser, press Return, and Google lists the websites, blogs and other online entities where that license plate number appears. Check each for what information, such as a name, is associated to that plate number.

Once my PI partner and I solved a case by running a reverse license plate number check on Google. Turned out the numbers and letters were an amateur radio holder’s call sign, which we further researched and learned the person’s name, address, job, and more.

#5 Run a Reverse Image Search

Maybe your character has a photo of the vehicle that shows only part of the license plate. The sleuth can plug the photo into a reverse image search to see where else that photo might appear on the Internet—maybe it shows up in a personal blog, social medium or even a Craigslist ad that gives the seller’s name and email address!

Google offers a comprehensive image search (go to Google.com, select “Images” in the top right corner, click the camera icon and follow the instructions). Another free reverse image search is TinEye.

Hopefully some of these tips will help your characters track those villains!

All rights reserved by Colleen Collins. Any use of the content (including images owned by Colleen Collins) requires specific, written authority. Please do not copy/distribute any images noted as copyrighted or licensed. Images noted as in the public domain are copyright-free and yours to steal.

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