Local private investigator Richard Brennan laughs when prospective clients compare him to Sam Spade or Magnurn P.I.

"It's not like on TV, where you have to kill three people at a certain time every night," he says. "Law enforcement has worked itself into a science."

Brennan, like many of the other detectives of State College, says his work is not as glamorous as it is on television or in the movies.

"The private detective business is not like it is on TV at all," Richard Payton of Payton Investigations said. "I do 50 percent of my work by phone."

The type of jobs they do vary greatly, but private investigators usually take three main types of investigations: criminal, civil and personal.

Brennan said the criminal investigations involve finding information to be used in court. He said he often works for the county public defender's office gathering information to be used in defense cases.

Police usually investigate and gather information for prosecuting attorneys, but defense attorneys must hire private investigators, he said.

Since most detectives are former police officers, conflicts of interest can occur. Payton cited one case where he knew his client was guilty. Payton's work helped the man get a lighter sentence and he later felt some regret.

"Usually I only take a case like that if there is some doubt to the person's guilt," he said.

Getting information from witnesses can vary in difficulty depending on the nature of the case, said Earl Warren of Warren Investigations. "You might get resistance from witnesses because of a fear of their involvement," he said.

If there was an accident in which the person involved was abusing drugs, friends of the individual might be reluctant to talk about it for fear of self incrimination, Warren said, citing an example.

People might also withhold information out of sympathy for the person being investigated. Warren said he had trouble interviewing witnesses on one of his biggest cases -- Cathy Olswfski's murder of Tony Fabri in 1981.

"Everybody liked her," Warren said. "She was a young girl that everybody thought was mistreated by this individual. Although she killed him, there was a lot of sympathy for her."

The detectives also investigate for corporations in suspected cases of fraud and embezzlement.

Brennan, whose business is associated with Surveillance International -- a larger agency based in Hanover -- said he has access to a drug-finding dog. The dog is sometimes used to search factories and companies for illegal drugs employees might be using.

Civil cases include insurance claims, divorce hearings and custody battles.

The private investigators are often hired by insurance companies to review accident scenes, theft and fire cases. Brennan said he reviews accidents to try to determine who is at fault and examines theft and fire claims to make certain they are valid.

Warren said one of the larger cases he has worked on was an insurance investigation of a train wreck in Lima, Ohio. He is currently at work looking into a boating accident that killed two people on Raystown Lake near Huntingdon.

Brennan said divorce and custody cases require background examinations of people, and searching for information that could possibly be used against them in court.

"Most of the time I do husband and wife investigations through attorneys," Payton said, because he does not like to deal with them directly.

Personal investigations include locating missing persons, finding lost friends and sometimes following a suspected lover or spouse that might be unfaithful.

Brennan said one of the things he likes most about his work is reuniting lost acquaintances or relatives. "That's one of the best parts of the job -- finding lost friends," he said.

The detectives interviewed do most of their work in Pennsylvania, although it does sometimes take them to far away places.

However, modern technology minimizes the amount of traveling the detectives do. Payton subscribes to a national computer system that allows him to get information such as license numbers, addresses, and social security data on anyone in the U.S.