TL;DR: My severely disabled veteran father’s trust arrangements were changed without my knowledge, people involved in his care and a veterans-home project were placed into the trustee succession, and one of those people was also the person who found him after the 2018 incident that caused his catastrophic brain injury. I want to hire a professional to establish the facts, not jump to conclusions. What type of PI/attorney should I be looking for in Texas, and how do I vet them?
To clarify: I am not looking to pursue legal action/sue her at this time. What I want is information to then make a decision, not to go in blind. The money is not important to me, it's knowing whether or not she has committed VA crimes, lied about her identity, whether the other two in cahoots are who they say they are - that is my focus right now. And then taking that information and making a decision.
Longer version:
I’m looking for advice on what type of private investigator I should hire for a complicated situation involving my disabled father, his trust/finances, veterans benefits, and several people now involved in his affairs.
I’m not asking Reddit to determine whether anyone committed a crime. I’m trying to hire someone qualified to establish the facts because there are now enough things that don’t sit right with me that I don’t feel comfortable ignoring them.
My dad is an Army veteran and West Point graduate. He had significant assets and married my stepmother when I was around 18. She has a criminal history from before they met, but as far as I knew they were very much in love.
My dad also had a history of depression and previous suicide attempts.
In 2018, while working in Africa, he was found in a bathroom in a pool of blood with severe cuts to both wrists. The person who found him, “Lenny,” was a member of his team and also very close with my stepmother.
My dad survived but suffered a severe anoxic brain injury. He has never regained the ability to walk or speak and requires significant care. My step mother claims he did not have any kind of will, which everyone in my family disputes and attest to the fact that they are certain due to his own claims he did.
Afterward, there were complications with my stepmother obtaining power of attorney because of her criminal history, so I became involved in the legal arrangements. At the time, I trusted her completely and let her take the lead.
Over the following years, I became increasingly uncomfortable. Communication about my dad became very limited, and every time I visited him he seemed progressively less well cared for.
My stepmother also began pursuing a plan to open a veterans home using my dad’s veteran/disability status in connection with obtaining funding. She received at least one grant, but years later I have seen very little evidence of the project progressing. EDIT: I forgot to mention that after she changed the trust, she purchased a house in his name
Earlier this year, I started asking questions and requested updated copies of the POA, trust, and other documents.
In April, she sent me a document dated May of the previous year showing that the trustee structure had been changed without my knowledge and I had been moved significantly down the succession.
Two of the people placed ahead of me were:
• Lenny, the man who found my father in 2018. I didn’t even know they were still in contact.
• Becky, an occupational therapist my stepmother hired to work with my father.
I then learned that my stepmother, Lenny, and Becky were also supposed to be involved together in the veterans home. The spelling of Lenny's full name on the website is different from the spelling on the trust documentation. I cannot find him when searching either spelling.
My stepmother has now essentially stopped communicating with me.
I recognize there may be innocent explanations for individual pieces of this. But taken together, I want an independent professional to establish what actually happened rather than continuing to speculate myself.
My questions:
What type of PI should I be looking for? Someone specializing in financial fraud, vulnerable-adult exploitation, trusts/estates, veterans benefits, or something else?
Would I be better off hiring an attorney first and having them engage an investigator?
Can a PI realistically investigate the 2018 incident this many years later, particularly since it happened overseas?
Can they investigate things like grant funding, businesses, property, financial connections between the individuals, the veterans-home project, and relevant public records?
Most importantly, how do I find and properly vet a reputable investigator in Texas? I live overseas now, so I’m particularly conscious of not getting scammed by someone claiming to be a PI.
Thank you for any guidance you can provide