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Lebowitz • •
Norm
,Lebowitz

S

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A private investigator reflects
on a career of sleuthing.

JULIE EDGAR STAFF WRITER

he was just a toddler
when her mom and dad
bitterly divorced. She
never saw her father
again.
But at the age of 35,
with the assistance of pri-
vate investigator Norman Lebowitz, she fi-
nally began an all-out search and found
her dad living on his farm in northern
Michigan. He, it turns out, had been look-
ing for her, too.
After initial contact by Lebowitz, she
enjoyed a long-awaited reunion with an ex-
tended family that, in addition to her dad, in-
cluded cousins, aunts and uncles. Her life has
started anew.
This is one of the more recent and more re-
warding cases Mr. Lebowitz, 70, has experi-
enced in his 40 years as a licensed private
detective. Of the nearly 1,100 private in-
vestigators in the state of Michigan,
Lebowitz is one of only a handful of
Jewish investigators. He knows of just
two others in the area. His clients tend
to be Jewish referrals from the commu-
nity.
Hunched behind thick-lensed, oversized glasses,
complete with flip-down sunshades for instant incog-
nito, Lebowitz dragged long and hard on his stub of
a cigarette and reminisced about some of his more
memorable cases.
"Much of the time, I found myself in a no-win sit-
uation," he said, "especially in divorce and surveil-
lance situations. If I found out something, I was the
bad guy. And if I found nothing, I was accused of not
doing my job."
These days, Lebowitz, a resident of Livonia, prefers
the "missing person" cases, especially locating bio-
logical parents.
He tracks down leads, runs names and birthdates
through a national computer registry and scans old
obituaries.
"Anyone can be found," he said. "There's no way to
get lost forever."
One touching story involved a woman from Boston
who was adopted 50 years ago and asked Lebowitz
to locate her birth parents who were from Detroit. He

remembers calling her and telling her he had bad
news and good news.
The bad news was that he found her parents, but
both were deceased. The great news was that she had
three brothers and a sister who never knew she ex-
isted and were anxious to meet her. All of the siblings
lived in Redford and they invited Lebowitz to the emo-
tional reunion at Metro Airport.
"It was a grand party," Lebowitz said.
Sometimes the outcome is not so predictable.
Lebowitz is working with a 33-year-old client who nev-
er knew his father. Unfortunately, when they initi-
ated the search, Lebowitz ran into dead-ends, because
the client's dad never paid his rent and was evicted
from several dwellings. Finally, he found some old di-
vorce records and traced him to a location in Michi-
gan.
Lebowitz advised the son that his dad's reputation
was sketchy. Not one to mince words, Lebowitz de-
scribed the father as "basically a bum." To this day,
the son, an affluent professional, has not contacted
his father.
One of Lebowitz's favorite stories centers around a
65-year-old widower who longed to locate his high
school sweetheart. Lebowitz found the happily mar-
ried grandmother in California and she agreed to meet
her old flame.
"Both of them were thrilled," said Lebowitz. "She
came to Southfield to see him and he has gone out
west to visit her. They talk about old times and have
a fast friendship."
Lebowitz began his career 50 years ago working for
a collection agency. It was there that he started look-
ing for "skips" and serving papers. After 10 years, he
started his own detective agency.
It's been a long haul in the super-sleuth business.
He's been attacked with a machete, he's carried a con-
cealed weapon and he's been witness to some pretty
unbelievable exploits, including those of the rock band
Led Zeppelin, which he was assigned to bodyguard.
But he's only had to pull his gun once and he's nev-
er had to shoot anyone.
"Those hot-shot PIs [private investigators] like you
see in the movies ... they don't last," said Lebowitz.
"You've got to stay cool and stay in the shadows. No
one should know who you are."
With that, Lebowitz flips down his shades, lights
up and searches out the next lead. 111