Palisadian PI

The Frost Family’s Multi-Generational Pursuit

By MATTHEW MEYER | Reporter

For Greg Frost, private investigation is all in the family.

When he was still a young boy, Greg would pile in the car with his mother and younger brother to follow his father, Marvin, on a case.

It was the best way to spend time as a family. “As long as I consciously knew him,” the Palisadian explained, his father was an investigator—and a “workaholic” to boot.

So Greg “grew up on the streets of Southern California,” waiting patiently in the family car on surveillance or as his father interviewed someone in businesses and homes anywhere from Azusa or Van Nuys to the familiar stomping ground of Westside LA.

“When I was little … I learned the make and model of every car,” Greg recalled. Sometimes he’d even tag along to take in the damage of an auto accident.

It was unconventional “family time,” to say the least. But Greg wasn’t turned away by the early exposure. “I was always kind of leaning in,” he told the Palisadian-Post.

So when he was 10, he started filing papers for his father.

“Then in high school, he approached me and said, ‘If I buy you a car, would you be willing to work after school?’” Greg told the Post. So there he was, a Palisades High School student with a brand new, 1979 Mercury Capri and a to-do list that included serving subpoenas and court checks downtown.

Greg continued the work after he graduated in 1980, taking on an increasingly significant role in his father’s company as he attended Santa Monica College and then UCLA.

Marvin Frost had built quite a name for himself by then. He had worked for the law firm of celebrated American attorney Melvin Belli, assisting in cases as high profile as Frank Sinatra Jr.’s kidnapping, and investigated workers compensation claims for massive operations, including Security Pacific National Bank and Anheuser Busch.

His son was having his share of adventures, too.

With an occasional grin that belied the incident’s true danger, Greg recalled serving a wealthy man on his sprawling ranch in Santa Paula. Just 21 years old, Greg pulled up in his father’s brand new Mercedes with a friend in the passenger seat.

A scantily clad woman greeted the junior Frost at her front door and told him, “just a minute.”

“About a minute later, there’s a shotgun blast behind us.”

The drunken ranch owner was standing behind them—not feeling particularly receptive to court documents. Greg and his friend tried to get in their car and go, but the Mercedes’ diesel engine needed time to start.

“Well, he didn’t like that,” Greg told the Post with a chuckle.

The ranch owner banged on the car window until Greg rolled it down a crack—far enough for his aggressor to place the gun barrel just inches from his temple.

“Are you mad enough to still give me what you came up here for?” the owner asked.

“Yeah, if you want it,” Greg replied, still clutching the papers in a sweaty hand.

That earned him some more damage to dad’s car, as the ranch owner smashed the butt of the gun against its fender and then crashed the barrel through the driver-side window.

The engine finally fired and Greg screeched away, with one last shotgun blast over the top of the car to send them off.

It took a police escort to finally serve the man.

In the decades of work he’s done since, Greg said he’s encountered his share of angry people, but that it rarely has to turn into an altercation. He doesn’t carry a weapon, and he’s learned to use a calm, disarming demeanor while being as absolutely transparent and honest as the job can allow. Greg considers treating people fairly both an effective mode of operation and a point of personal pride.

He developed that affable style in his apprenticeship under Marvin. The two worked full-time alongside one another for years, and around the time Greg married Felicia, a friend-turned-sweetheart from his Pali High days, she joined the business as well.

Marvin retired in 1996 and has since passed away, but Felicia and Greg have kept the family operation alive and well.

Today, they form a formidable duo. Greg is unabashedly old school, scrawling all his notes by hand, hitting the streets to conduct face-to-face interviews and see things for himself.

Felicia is a whiz online—a role that “just developed” naturally from her early days in the office. As technology improved, she became more and more vital to the operation, first conducting simple background checks, later developing the skills to locate people with nothing more than a first name or even a moniker.

“As more things became available online, I just grew into it,” she told the Post. “I’m constantly learning new stuff and new ways to find information.”

From their headquarters, just down Sunset Boulevard from Paul Revere Charter Middle School, they juggle anywhere from 15 to 20 cases at one time, handling insurance companies, law firms and criminal work.

The time they’ve spent on criminal appeals cases has been particularly rewarding. The couple has worked tirelessly to prove the innocence of a man named Curtis Love, who was convicted for aiding and abetting a robbery that he swears he was only a witness to. He was sentenced to 25 years to life due to a previous criminal record.

The Frosts have exhaustively reviewed the case and are convinced of Love’s innocence. Their efforts, paired with those of many others, have finally helped Love earn parole for March 2018.

“It gives meaning to everything [we’re] doing,” Felicia said of the relationship they’ve fostered with him during incarceration.

The Frost’s youngest son, Alex, has now begun to work alongside his parents and has applied to train with LAPD. His older brother, Kevin, works for a mobile app in Santa Monica.

“Family time” took on at least a slightly more conventional meaning for this generation of the Frost family—Greg was an assistant scoutmaster (a post he continues to fill today) while the two boys earned their Eagle Scout rankings.

With both sons now grown, the Frosts are in no rush to leave Pacific Palisades, where they live happily in their Marquez Knolls home.

And they’re in no rush to leave a business that’s become synonymous with family.

“I’ve always thought about wanting to retire to Hawaii and then realize, if I ever did that, I’d get ‘rock fever’ so fast,” Greg told the Post. “I like traveling all over Southern California … I think I’d miss that.”

Unsurprising from a man who was raised on the Southland’s streets.

So at least for the foreseeable future, the Frosts are on the case.