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Teleka Patrick Case: Private Investigator Looking into ‘Interesting’ Tip, More

Posted at 7:02 PM, Jan 10, 2014
and last updated 2014-01-11 16:46:15-05

**THE COMPLETE UNEDITED INTERVIEW OF THE INVESTIGATOR’S INTERVIEW CAN BE SEEN HERE**

BATTLE CREEK, Mich. — Jim Carlin, a private investigator and former police officer, said he received a new, ‘interesting’ tip regarding Teleka Patrick’s disappearance. That tip came in on Thursday.

Also, FOX 17 found an online dating profile of Teleka Patrick. It was apparently made while Patrick was living in California.

Carlin, who’s based out of Battle Creek, sat down with FOX 17.

Teleka Patrick’s family hired him 8 days ago to help find her. She’s been missing since December 5th. Carlin said he received several tips this week. Most of them were bogus, he said. However, one of them is said to be ‘interesting’ and is being followed up on.

FOX 17 asked Carlin to expound on the new tip. He said, “Not at this time. I just want to let the sheriff’s department handle that.”

“I believe she is alive,” Carlin stated at one point during the interview.

“If she realized that she needed some help and maybe checked herself into a hospital, that would be something that could be done under HIPAA and the Mental Illness Statute of Protection and Privacy. She could check in under her own name or ‘Janet Jones’, and the hospital would be precluded from releasing any information,” he explained.

Indiana State Police said Patrick’s car was found abandoned along I-94 in Portage, Indiana. That’s more than 100 miles away from Kalamazoo.

“I don’t think she’s along that road,” Carlin said.

Since then, attention has turned from YouTube videos FOX 17 revealed to alleged tweets. The tweets raised more questions about the mental state of the psychiatrist in training. Those are posts her family finds irrelevant in their loved one’s disappearance.

FOX 17 asked Carlin how much does Dr. Patrick’s alleged online footprint factor into this search? He replied, “We don’t know if she wrote [the tweets]. I’ve seen the YouTube, again it is perplexing, we don’t know. Until we can get those answers from her or if the Kalamazoo Sheriff is able to spend hours and hours analyzing each of this, each of these pieces, then maybe there’ll be something else that might be able to come up.”

Carlen said analyzing the online material is a “low priority” for him right now. FOX 17 questioned him about the personal protection order that Pastor Marvin Sapp filed against Patrick in September 2013, specifically what communication Carlen has had with Sapp.

“I’d rather not comment on that. I have not personally spoken to him. It is my intention to try to. He’s probably not going to talk to me,” Carlen said of the situation surrounding the PPO.

“I do find it interesting that there doesn’t seem to be a big record in Grand Rapids of, if you were being stalked, did you call 911? Or ask a police officer to respond? There’s a lot of questions there that also bothers me,” Carlen explained.

**THE COMPLETE UNEDITED INTERVIEW OF THE INVESTIGATOR’S INTERVIEW CAN BE SEEN HERE**

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