Psychic Detective - Prominent Cases

Prominent Cases

The media plays an important role in making it appear that psychics have solved the case of the missing person. Headlines make sensational claims, but when the details are known the media's statements do not always hold up. As in the case of the Long Island serial killer, the psychic said the body would be found in a shallow grave, near water and a sign with a G in it would be nearby. Despite the vagueness of this claim (the body was not in a shallow grave, water is everywhere in Long Island, and no sign with a G was nearby) the New York Post stated that the "Psychic Nailed it!" "More surprising than the psychic's failure is the fact that this information was described as an amazing success on over 70,000 websites without anyone realizing that she was completely wrong."

Many prominent police cases, often involving missing persons, have received the attention of alleged psychics. Following the disappearance of Elizabeth Smart on June 5, 2002, the police received as many 9,000 tips from self-proclaimed psychics (and others crediting visions and dreams as their source). Responding to these tips took "many police hours," according to Salt Lake City Police Chief Lieutenant Chris Burbank. Yet, Elizabeth Smart's father, Ed Smart, concluded that: "the family didn’t get any valuable information from psychics." Smart was located by observant witnesses who recognized her abductor from a police photograph. No psychic was ever credited with finding Elizabeth Smart.

When Washington D.C. intern Chandra Levy went missing on May 1, 2001, psychics from around the world provided tips suggesting that her body would be found in places such as the basement of a Smithsonian storage building, in the Potomac river, and buried in the Nevada desert among many other possible locations. Each tip led nowhere. A little more than a year after her disappearance, Levy's body was accidentally discovered by a man walking his dog in a remote section of Rock Creek Park.

The case of Shawn Hornbeck received the attention of psychics after the eleven-year-old went missing on October 6, 2002. Most notably, self-proclaimed psychic Sylvia Browne appeared on The Montel Williams Show and provided the parents of Shawn Hornbeck a detailed description of the abductor and where Hornbeck could be found. Browne responded "No" when asked if he was still alive. When Hornbeck was found alive more than four years later, few of the details given by Browne were correct. Shawn Hornbeck's father, Craig Akers, has stated that Browne's declaration was "one of the hardest things that we've ever had to hear," and that her misinformation diverted investigators wasting precious police time.

A body was located in the US by Psychic Annete Martin. Dennis Prado, a retired US paratrooper, had gone missing from his apartment, and Police had been unable to locate his whereabouts. With no further leads, the chief investigating officer, Fernando Realyvasquez, a sergeant with the Pacifica (California) Police, contacted psychic detective Annette Martin. Prado had lived near a large forest, some 2000 square miles. Martin was given a map, she circled a small spot on the map, about the size of two city blocks. She said that Prado had struggled for breath, had died and his body would be there within the indicated area. She described the path he took, and where the body would be found. Although the area had been searched, a search and rescue officer found the body covered with dirt with a sniffer dog at the location, as Martin had indicated. While the body had deteriorated, there was no evidence that he had been attacked and it thought likely he had died of natural causes, as she also indicated.

In Sydney Australia in 1996, a Belgian born Sydney psychic, Phillipe Durant was approached by the fiance of missing Paula Brown to help locate her. Durante told police the location of the body of Brown. She was found less than two Kilometres of the spot he had indicated in Port Botany, by a truck driver who came across the body. "Even though the body was discovered purely by chance, the speculation by a clairvoyant appears to have been uncannily accurate," a police spokeswoman conceded. Durant had used a plumb bob and a grid map, combined with some hair from the victim.

In 2001, the body of Thomas Braun was located by Perth based Aboriginal clairvoyant Leanna Adams in Western Australia. Police had initially been unable to find the body. The family of Braun had been told to contact Adams, an Aboriginal psychic who lived in Perth. The Braun Family had requested police to do a search based on Adams’ directions but they had not assisted. Adams went to Alice Springs in the Northern Territory, and took the family members directly to Braun’s remains, a spot high on a ridge west of the town, some 20 kilometres out. The remains were not immediately identifiable. Police later confirmed the remains to be his using DNA testing.

In August, 2010, Aboriginal Elder Cheryl Carroll-Lagerwey claimed to have seen the location of a missing child, Kiesha Abrahams, in her dream. The missing child's disappearance was being investigated by police. She took them to a location where a dead body was found, however it was of an adult woman and not the body of the child.