If many criminal records and such are public.... where can I find them for free? EVERYWHERE I search wants my money. I want to know if the other woman has any sort of record. I have gone straight to her hometown county's website, and it somehow always directs me off to some other paying site. SUPER frustrating.... help.

I'm not an expert but you can try looking it up by the General District Court for the county/city and the offenders name. I've done this and it has never cost me anything. It may not be extensive but it's a place to start.

Grace

Well it is cheaper than hiring a PI. I would PHYSICALLY go into that county's courthouse and bring $ with you. It's not alot, but if they have records on her, then you can pay for them to be printed off which is not expensive. But if you want them to be admissable in court, you pay a bit more, and have them certified with a seal or stamp showing these are the legal court verified copies of her case.

Trust me they're public. Before I went to court the last time, I walked into the county court clerk's office in my hometown, with about $40 bucks and got the certified (with the raised stamp on them) docs of what my xwh had been indicted on, and walked out with them in hand and handed them to my lawyer.

If she has spent the night in jail, that record will not be there, unless there has been a HEARING AND A SENTENCING. That would be there. If there is an indictment against them, then that would be there too. I found out my xwh's then ow did drugs b/c her name came up in her roommate's trial for illegal drugs. I hired the PI and they linked alot of things up that I could not have done myself. They found the roommate, found her record, found where she had been arrested (their apartment, her and ow used to live together). So I subpoenae'd the ow's ex room mate to show that ow would be unfit to have around my child (she was pregnant with my xh's baby). It also had alot of influence on the outcome of me getting more custody than my xwh who was made of money at the time.

That's prob the cheapest way to do it. But sometimes getting police docs are different. That would require a PI to do. Please ask your friends and family if they could.

If you know the names and relatives of the ow's family members (like who she lived with before your wh) that is helpful too. Find out if whoever she lived with has a record.

Sometimes the most valuable information can come in subtle ways. The room mate ended up being the best weapon against the ow.

You look for the type of following: bankruptcy (shows ow is glomming onto your wh for $), past divorces and maybe adultery or spousal abuse, violent behavior, dui, drug use, thefts, even disturbing the peace, anything negative you can find which paints her as problematic and why she shouldn't be around the kids.

If her mom or dad or friend or whoever she lived with has say judgements against them for say drugs, theft, violent behavior, spousal abuse, you can find out if she was in the home during that time and did she participate in that. Then you'd supoena the person who witnessed it (usually the one with the criminal record). Then they say in court that skankyho ow, was in the house when I did this or that.

Mehr,

If you have health ins, you can get the kids to their pediatrician or get a referral from the pediatrician to go take them to a child psych.

you need to get them in (AND DO NOT TELL A SOUL) too see that child psych now, before any court document is filed, to show that your wh having the affair is damaging and has a damaging effect on the children.

You show that YOUR WH AND THE OW (important you bring her into this)are emotionally abusing your kids by exposing them to this immoral affair. It causes all types of behavioral problems, or potential problems too. My son suddenly started wetting his bed during this time. I told the psych that. They noted that. I told the psych that he would cry cry and on and on for his dad, and the psych also said my child was depressed. Then I mentioned to the psych that the ow lied to the child and told them she was their babysitter but my son saw him kiss her in front of him and heard her say bad things about mommy.

That made the psych write a report (which was admissable) saying that the WH and the OW were damaging to my child, causing the bed wetting and depression due to their causing serious emotional damage to my child because of the immoral affair being carried on in front of the child while my xwh was still married to me.

Plus YOU taking in the child shows MOM in a good light. That is something I say do and do not hesitate on.

If that county's records are not available online for free (most are), then go to the courthouse and search their records. Most counties have a computer for searching, even if the records are not available online. If you are asked why you want them all you have to say is they are related to a civil matter. 95% of the time you won't be asked anything about who you are or why you want the info.

Before you do that though, Google "district clerk of _____ county and look for a link to online records. Do the search to get case info. Once you have case numbers, you can then request copies of the records you want. Some jurisdictions are now making the actual records available online for free. It's going to take them awhile to catch up with all the files, but a lot of courts are working on this.

Again, if the records or searches aren't free, just go in person to the courthouse. Warning, active criminal case records generally aren't available. Once the case is adjudicated, then they become available.