Cases where Psychic's Information finds a body or makes an arrest

Over the years I've heard and read many times from Skeptics that, "there isn't a single case in all of recorded human history where a Psychic's Information has led to the discovery of a body or an arrest in a murder". Really now?

Etta Smith Case:

http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/criminal_mind/forensics/psychics/8.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHqTE8oGFRM - Etta Smith case, Part 1. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUgyEVM9BVk - Etta Smith case, Part 2.

"In 1980, Etta Smith, a shipping clerk in Los Angeles, heard an announcement on the radio about a house-to-house search for Melanie Uribe, a missing woman from her neighborhood, as documented in A&E's film and Larsen's Psychic Sleuths. Smith had an impression that the woman was not inside a building but outside in a certain area, and though she'd never before had such an overwhelming sense of something, it seemed so vivid that she reported it to the police. "It was like someone was talking to me," she said. She felt that the nurse had been hit in the head and dumped in a canyon, which she showed to a detective on a map. She said there was a dirt path going to her. When he seemed not to take her seriously, she decided to go have a look on her own.

As Etta drove through the target area in Lopez Canyon, she had a feeling of "urgency." Spotting some tire tracks in the dirt, she felt them and sensed the trauma that had taken place there. "It was like a thermometer going up." She got back into her car and drove, but her daughter told her to stop because she'd seen something. What she had spotted were a pair of white nurse's shoes.

Smith knew who was there. She drove away and spotted a policeman. She waved him to a stop and told him about the body. He told her to go home. She did, but then two detectives came to bring her in for questioning. She agreed to take a lie detector test, and the police later said that she'd been judged "deceptive," so she was treated as a suspect, strip-searched, and put into a cell for three days. They planted an undercover cop in the cell with her to try to find out why she had come forward and whether her information had come from neighborhood gossip, as suspected. The cop reported that her motive was money.

Then three men confessed and Etta was released. She filed a wrongful arrest suit, asking $750,000 in damages. The jury awarded her $24,000.

She says she never had another such vision, or if she did, she was smart to not report it."

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,963923,00.html

"For Etta Louise Smith, the nightmare began shortly before Christmas 1980, when she claims to have had a vision of something white, covered by brush. A Lockheed aerospace worker in Burbank, Calif., Smith does not consider herself a psychic. Yet after she heard radio reports about Nurse Melanie Uribe, 31, who had vanished on her way to work, Smith was convinced she knew where the body could be found. She took her information to the police, who put her off.

Smith then organized a search with two of her young children and a 20-year- old niece. In remote Lopez Canyon, 18 miles north of Los Angeles, her daughter spotted a white heap that turned out to be Uribe -- robbed, raped and beaten to death. Smith told police of her discovery and was arrested for the murder.

While she was held in jail for four days, the killers -- three men with prior arrest records -- turned up. Smith, 39, filed a suit for false arrest. Last week Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Joel Rudof ruled that despite Smith's detailed account of the murder of a woman she never knew or saw, police did not have probable cause to lock her up."

She and the Detective were interviewed on Larry King Live in 2004:

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0404/29/lkl.00.html

"SMITH: Right. On Wednesday, while I was at work, I was listening to the news off and on during the day. And around 3:00, I heard the police say that they were doing a house to house search for her after locating her vehicle. And as soon as that thought registered, instantly my mind said, she's not in a house. As soon as that thought passed, it was as if I saw a movie. I could visually see where she was. I didn't know the name of the street, but I knew how to get there. And I couldn't shake this. I couldn't it to leave me.

GRACE: When I you say you saw, what did you see?

SMITH: I saw a canyon road. I saw where the road curved. I saw a dirt path going to a white object, and a hill behind it very, very clearly.

GRACE: An so officer, Detective Ryan, what did you do when this woman, you've never seen her before, comes up with this vision?

RYAN: I invited Etta to step into the squad room, where we have large wall maps of the area of our division and asked her to indicate as best she could the area she felt this canyon was in and the roads that led to it. And as she did so, I took several photographs depicting both her and her pointing to the location in case it did turn out that she was possibly involved.

GRACE: So you were cynical, weren't you?

RYAN: Yes, I was.

GRACE: When you come back, we are going to hear the rest of the story. At this juncture, a 31-year-old nurse, Melanie Uribe, never missed work, as reliable as a Timex wrist watch, goes missing. All that is found is her burned out car, and suddenly, a psychic comes on the scene. Stay with us.

So Detective Ryan, we left off where she was pointing on a map where she thought, after seeing a vision of a canyon, this missing nurse was. What did you do then?

RYAN: The area she was indicating is a very remote sector of the San Fernando Valley, Lopez Canyon. I then instructed her to be back at the station the following morning at 7:00 a.m., and we would have a helicopter from air support divisino there to take there up into this area and search with her help and assistance.

GRACE: The following morning, did she show up?

RYAN: No, she didn't.

GRACE: What happened, Etta? Why were you a no show?

SMITH: Well, as I was leaving the police station, Mr. Ryan had told me they had not checked that area yet, and I told him I had a feeling I would. Something inside of me said they might not check in time. I didn't know if the victim was dead or alive. I just felt so strongly she was there, that if somebody needed to get to her, they needed to get to her right away, and I couldn't let it rest because it wouldn't leave me alone. I kept seeing it over and over and over again. So I proceeded to go to the canyon.

GRACE: So you get in your car, and drive to this remote area, all on your own.

SMITH: Right, with some family members.

GRACE: You know, Etta, this is such an incredible story to me. You get in your car. You drive out to this remote canyon, and tell us what happened.

SMITH: Well, in driving up the canyon, I had instructed everybody with me to please be on the alert for anything white showing through shrubbery. We cruised the canyon very slowly, got to the top, didn't see anything but I could feel trauma.

And at the top when all of us got back in the vehicle, I said we may not have seen anything, but I feel her. I very much feel her. She's in this canyon, and I said we're going back down the canyon. If we don't find anything, we're leaving here, because I feel it.

GRACE: So you go back down the canyon and?

SMITH: Got halfway down, I noticed tire marks in an embankment on the left side of the road. I also noticed tire marks in dirt on the right side of the road. Instinctively, something told me to stop. I got out of my van. I looked to see if someone possibly could have turned around in the middle of this narrow canyon road, and I put my fingers into the impressions in the dirt, and as soon as they touched the dirt, it was almost electrifying, I could just feel all kinds of trauma.

In leaving that side, I went to the other side of the road laid my fingers in the impressions and the same thing happened. And I knew, I knew this was the vehicle. I knew that these tire impressions were involved with this victim.

GRACE: So what, in the end, Etta, did you find?

SMITH: We ended up finding the victim exactly as I had said, off on the right-hand side of the road with a dirt path leading to her, white showing through shrubbery with a hill behind her.

GRACE: Detective Ryan, this woman, Etta Smith, a psychic, found a dead body before the police could, and in return, they arrest her, detective. How was the case finally solved?

RYAN: Well, it was very complicated. That touches on the perimeter of the story. Basically, because she had found it, and nobody else was able to or come up with any clues, naturally, all involved in the investigation had felt that she had to know the perpetrators and, or, band of participant in order to go to that location so specifically.

I believe that it was not luck. I believe that she had a feeling for the location. There hadn't been anything in the newspapers indicating the clues that we had or the suspects we might be looking for. And basically the case was going absolutely nowhere at that point. So her finding the body just really tended to point fingers...

GRACE: At that point, it did make her a legitimate suspect, but in the end, as it turns out, three guys had been overheard bragging that they had kidnapped and tortured and killed a nurse. And they were turned in, and confessed, and were found guilty and the end of the story, I guess, Etta is something you didn't predict. You sued the police department and won for false arrest.

SMITH: Right. It took six years to do, but I felt forced to do it. I had to clear my name. I did not want any cloud of suspicion hanging over me, plus I had a high level clearance with the Department of Defense, and I needed my day in court."

What do the Skeptics have to say regarding this case?

The only skeptical information I've come across regarding this case is the conspiratorial accusation that Etta Smith must have had an unknown informant who must have overheard the three suspects boasting about the murder and the location of the body in town, and told Etta about it.

However, there are several problems with this:

One, while all sources mention that the three suspects did indeed boast of the murder in town to some people they knew (Etta never knew and never met the suspects, even according to them), which led to their downfall, none of the sources state or even suggest that they revealed the location of the body to anyone, only that they boasted about the murder itself. You'd think that those who turned them in for boasting about the murder would have also mentioned to the police that they revealed the location of the body to them, even if just to help clear Etta, who was jailed at the time on suspicion.

Two, there is ZERO actual evidence that there was such an informant at all who secretly supplied information to Etta, it's all purely conspiratorial speculation on the skeptics' part. You'd think the theoretical informant would have come forward after all this time to say, "I overheard the information from the suspects! I supplied it to Etta Smith!" Especially since she and the lead Detective have been on TV Programs like Larry King and Sightings to talk about what happened. Perfect opportunity for the theoretical informant to step forward and take the limelight. But no such luck.

Detective Lee Ryan, the lead Detective on the case, who witnessed it all go down, believes she's for real, for what it's worth.

The Jackie Poole Case:

(Thanks to Michael Prescott for pointing this case out to me)

"Murderer Anthony Ruark was fingered from beyond the grave by the avenging spirit of his victim Jackie Poole. Jackie's ghost gave stunned police the name of her killer in a macabre late-night interview conducted through a clairvoyant. Hardened sceptical detectives were so convinced by medium Christine Holohan that they arrested Ruark only to release him for lack of proof. But on Friday, 18 years on, evil Ruark, 40, was jailed for life at the Old Bailey after the world of forensic science finally caught up with her deadly accurate psychic evidence. The clincher was fragments of skin found under barmaid Jackie's nails matching Ruark's DNA profile. "

"P.C. Tony Batters and Detective Constable Andy Smith interviewed Christine Holohan who was claiming to have been contacted by the spirit of the murdered woman, Jacqueline Poole. After going into a trance both officers were surprised at the detailed information Holohan provided. She not only described the murder scene but seemed to know a great deal of personal information about the victim. For example she mentioned her divorce, that she was suffering from depression and that she had just been given a prescription by her doctor. She also knew her maiden name (Hunt). But that’s not all. She gave a detailed description of the killer and with ‘automatic writing’ wrote down the name “Pokie” which we now know to be the killer’s nickname. In relation to the missing jewellery she wrote down “garden”. Batters states that out of around 130 points made by Holohan more than 120 have now been shown to be correct. The two officers found this quite remarkable but what apparently clinched it for them was an impromptu psychometric reading from Holohan to D.C. Andy Smith in which she told him quite personal information that she could not possibly have known prior to the meeting."

“…but the fact is that, without the help of the medium's statements, the police would not have retrieved the pullover or interviewed and taken statements from everyone with whom Ruark came into contact with that evening. Nor, according to Tony Batters, would they have checked and verified all Ruark's movements during previous fortnight.”

He then elaborates further;

“The pullover became vital as it was his only garment retained for forensics, and it showed numerous exchanges of blood and saliva from Jacqui Poole to him. This proved an act of violence, as opposed to the intimacy which he claimed in his defence at Court.”

http://www.100megsfree4.com/farshores/pghost27.htm

http://www.tonyyouens.com/ruislip_murder.htm

http://www.laois-nationalist.ie/news/story/index.aspx?trs=cweykfmhoj

Psychic John Catchings Case:

He told the detective that the man's body is located very close by (within a mile of the victim's home) near a run down house (and described all the junk stuff in the yard) behind the house in a river stream, trapped under debris, and that one of his shoes is sticking out of the debris with his ankle exposed, and that's how he will find him. He told the detective he must go to the site with two additional police officers, and he will find the body. The detective instead went alone, and found nothing. Then he went again, with two other police officers, and found the body exactly as he described it, behind the same old house as he described it.

Video testimony of the detective ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LDCGdmP2F0 - Psychic John Catchings Case, Part 1. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7XG9ghgtqs - Psychic John Catchings Case, Part 2

Other Case (Needs Identification):

There was another case mentioned on the old TV Series "Sightings" (I can't find an online video of it unfortunately) where a Psychic told a Detective that the missing little girl's body was on an old local farm, right next to a big tree, and that there were chickens clucking all around her body. The detective in the interview said he followed her clues, found an old local farm, saw a big tree, and found the little girl just a few feet from the big tree, with chickens clucking all around her body. The detective followed the Psychic's clues right to the little girl's body. It had the detective interviewed and everything regarding what happened. He was quite clear about what happened, and that it was the Psychic's clues that led him to her body.

Teresita Basa Case:

http://ghosts-hauntings.suite101.com/article.cfm/teresita_basas_ghost_named_her_killer

"On February 21, 1977 Chicago police officers found the body of Philippine born Teresita Basa lying on the floor of her apartment, stabbed to death and partially burned. She was a popular respiratory therapist at Edgewater Hospital. The initial suspect was her boyfriend, but after interviewing him, police realized he wasn’t her killer. Solving the case was dead-ended until Basa’s spirit named her killer.

Basa’s Ghost Contacts Mrs. Chua:

Four months after the crime, Chua, who also worked at the hospital, went into an altered state of consciousness, ASC, and spoke in Tagalong, a dialect of her native Philippine language. The voice said she was Basa and that co-worker Allan Showery murdered her because he stole her jewelry.

When Chua came out of her ASC, she remembered nothing. Her husband, Dr. Jose Chua, was baffled and frightened by the incident. During the next communication, Basa said that Showery had her jewelry and gave her pearl cocktail ring to his common-law wife. After the third incident, Jose contacted the police.

Police Investigation of Basa’s Murder:

The detectives handling the case, Joseph Stachula and Lee Epplen, were skeptical but wanted to follow up on all leads. The autopsy revealed Basa was a virgin. They asked Chua if Basa had been raped to test her. The answer was "no."

The Chuas told the men about Showery and the stolen jewelry. They searched Showery’s apartment and found Basa’s jewelry. When Showery was arrested and told about the evidence, he signed confessions admitting to murdering Basa and stealing her jewelry. The case was officially closed in August 1977."