One of the news magazine shows (I believe it was Dateline) ran a segment this weekend on the murder of Andrew Kissel and his brother.  Andrew was involved in a huge, complex real estate fraud scheme (several actually) and they interviewed the attorney who discovered what was going on.  I was impressed!

[For more on Andrew Kissel, see Questions Surround Developer's Mysterious Death; Loan Fraud Leads to Federal and Civil Charges; Wife of Developer who Died Mysteriously Named Executor]

She apparently noticed that 'one of the letters' in the signature on a release of one of Kissel's multi-million dollar mortgages looked an awful lot like the same letter in his signature.  She pulled some other releases by the same bank and compared the same person's signature to the one which raised her suspicions. 

That was a very nice job.  I really was impressed to see that some people still do more than print a list of deeds and mortgages... they actually still do 'examine' documents!

I wonder how many abstractors still do that detailed of a search?  Can't be many as the searches have to be done so rapidly and for such little compensation.  I have to say that not many searchers would have caught that - attorneys still do searches the "right way" and I'm sure they are fairly compensated for it.  They have too much at stake to risk taking shortcuts.  Maybe a lesson we should all learn a little something from; doing a thorough, detailed search can't be rushed and it doesn't come cheap.

Best,
Robert A. Franco
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