Dark Pursuit: Amish Country

In 2017/2018 I was on the job to locate a missing mother who had abandoned her children and was being summoned to criminal court. She had allegedly taken refuge with some former Amish friends who had been banished by their Amish community. They were currently squatting in a large scrap yard with a barn on the edge of Amish territory in (Northwestern Maryland/South Western Pennsylvania) where they were rumored to be running a profitable meth lab. She had a history of drug abuse, so this was a good place to start. Unfortunately, I could not trespass on Amish land, and it’s citizens were unwilling to speak about some of “their own”, even the banished ones. So I went off-road and launched my drone. I had to fly low, then pop over some high hills to avoid detection. But I found them, the barn had many identifiable people milling about. I followed one’s pickup truck down the road which let me identify a small modular home she was squatting in. The drone returned to my location, almost at 0% battery. After that, it was a quick drive in the early morning where I surprised her with court papers, recording the process service on my body cam (not included in this video for legal reasons). I’m happy to say her kids are fine and she has been clean for 3 years now (I check on targets like this from time to time). This video shows some of the more unforgiving navigation I captured on the drone on its way to locate her and I hope captures the darkness and urgency of this “skip trace” operation.