Caption: Gail Switzer: "I liked staying clean, staying out of the ghetto and the cockroaches."Private eye might wear eye makeupBy PATRICIA MONTEMURRIFree Press Staff WriterFor Gail Switzer, the business of chasing bad guys is booming.Industrial espionage, sex crimes, syndicate drug rings, and bitter divorce cases keep the Detroit area's only registered female private eye busy.As one of eight Michigan women who head private detective agencies, Ms. Switzer has interrogated professional hit men, syndicate dope dealers, and corporate criminals.Eight years ago, she was a newly married Detroit police woman assigned to pose as a decoy prostitute. She refused the assignment, was fired and in 1973 was reinstated after three years of arbitration.Ms. Switzer quit the force the moment she was reinstated, and stay says she left because "I liked staying clean, staying out of the ghetto and the cockroaches."The transition from police woman to private eye came easy. She worked for two detective agencies after quitting the police force. The petite, 5-foot-2 brunette also learned how to operate a lie detector machine before opening her own agency, Investigators Inc., in 1975.HER SOUTHFIELD office is certainly clean, but the work still can be dirty. Seven other detectives work for her, all of them former police officers.
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