David Marshburn, a bounty hunter operating out of Fayetteville, North Carolina, recently sat down with CBS news to give a brief account of a day in the life of a bounty hunter. Over the years, Marshburn has captured 1,498 fugitives, with only two having ever escaped, With such an outstanding record, his experience is valuable, not just to other hunters, but to everyday people hoping to better understand what it is that bounty hunters do.
Marshburn got into the bounty hunting business to help out his wife. She works as a bail bondswoman, and he started out hunting down fugitives for her. Marshburn felt he had a knack for the work and quickly found himself hunting fugitives hiding in cabinets, refrigerators, and even inside of folded sofa beds.
However, for Marshburn and other hunters like him, the most difficult part of hunting fugitives might not be the fugitives themselves. Instead, it is confusions over the laws regarding bounty hunters and what they are and are not allowed to do that cause the most problems.
When someone receives bail from a bail bondsman, they waive many of their standard rights. A bounty hunter is allowed to enter a residence if he believes it is where a bounty is located, use force to arrest them, and extradite them without going through traditional proceedings. However, even this varies from state to state with some states outright banning the practice of bounty hunting.
On more than one occasion, Marshburn claims to have been arrested after a fugitive reported that Marshburn used force to capture them or because Marshburn entered their property without a warrant. While these are well within a bounty hunter’s rights when pursuing a bounty in most states, confusion over what they can and cannot do has had Marshburn sitting in a cell on more than one occasion.
However, Marshburn hopefully won’t have to worry about having the police called on him while working his current case. In 2012, Army Specialist Kelli Bordeaux disappeared from a bar in Fayetteville. The 23-year-old woman was never seen again. Marshburn thought his tracking expertise could be put to good use finding Bordeaux and is working hard to pick up her trail. While he has not found anything conclusive just yet, the experience he has gained chasing fugitives will be put to good use solving this three year old mystery.