Bizarre Mysteries: Psychics Who Solve Crimes

Skeptical? Think all this ESP stuff is sci-fi nonsense? I am about to make you rethink your slant on psychics who work with law enforcement!

There are things in this life that are shrouded in mystery. Things that defy explanation and push our ‘rational thinking’ to the limits. Stuff like ‘Why would God create gnats?’ ‘Does anyone really listen to Justin Bieber anymore?’ ‘Why don’t cereal companies use Ziploc packaging?’

But perhaps one of the greatest mysteries involves the psychic mind. I’ve heard and read about hundreds of instances where psychics called into police investigations were uncannily accurate in their predictions or the ‘unknown to the public’ information they shared. Don’t get me wrong…for every legit seer out there, I’d wager there are a hundred or more charlatans. People who pray on the weak, the grief-stricken, simply to make a buck.

I’m looking at you, Sylvia Browne👀

Disgusting humans, the lot of them.

But what of the true psychics? The ones who ‘see’ a crime, a body, a child lost in a forest? They do exist. There are too many stories, too many examples shared by law enforcement, to believe it a fluke. In this month’s episode of ‘Holy crap, that’s freaky!’ (also known as Bizarre Mysteries) we will explore several cases where there remains little doubt that something, some higher power or innate ability, accomplished what no one else could—the successful resolution of a police investigation.

First up, we travel to a place near and dear to most of my family and friends…New Jersey. The murders of Amie Hoffman and Dierdre O’Brien, two young and beautiful woman whose murders had us all double-checking our doors and coming home before dark. I actually remember this case well, mostly because the victims were close to my age, and I was a year into a marriage with a police officer who worked in Morris County.

In 1982, then 18-year-old Amie Hoffman left her job in a large Jersey mall but never made it beyond the parking lot. Her car was found the next day, in the same place she’d parked it the day before, but Amie was no where to be found. After police came up with no leads, they brought in a psychic from the area, a woman named Nancy Weber.

Nancy had worked other cases with success and, with nothing to lose, police decided to give her a shot. She not only came up with the killer’s first name (James) but also knew he was of Polish descent, and his last name had a hard ‘K’ in it. Additionally, she mentioned he had lived in and done time for murder in Florida and currently worked in a garage. Lo and behold, murderer James Koedatich , a mechanic who had done time in Florida for second degree murder, was arrested. Shortly after killing Amie and dumping her body in a reservoir, he stabbed Deidre O’Brien to death in a rest area in Warren County.

Nancy Weber had a starring role in yet another NJ homicide, this one in Belvidere, NJ, a town close to my former home. In 1987, a nurse named Elizabeth Cornish was beaten to death in her bedroom with a hammer. The Cornish family brought in Nancy to help give authorities a starting point. High on the suspect list was Cornish’s boyfriend, as well as a man who lived in the apartment above her.

When taken to the apartment, Nancy was adamant that Elizabeth’s killer was not her boyfriend, but the man who lived above her. She gave a location of the murder weapon, a physical description of the perpetrator, as well as his initials, J.R. As it turned out, that man, John Reese, had both an alibi and had passed a polygraph, virtually eliminating him from the suspect list.

***Important to note here that his alibi correlated with the coroner’s time of death.

But Nancy would have none of it. She insisted Reese was not only the killer, but the coroner was off on the time of death by four hours. Insistent, the medical examiner’s office finally agreed to revisit the time and death, and eventually amended it.

To four hours earlier.

Reese’s alibi fell apart and he confessed to the murder. Yay, Nancy! You stick to your guns, girlfriend!

In another Jersey mystery, thirty-year old John DeMars boarded a train in the evening to his home in Nutley. When the train stopped, however, DeMars was nowhere to be found. After several attempts to locate him by authorities, they brought in psychic Dorothy Allison, a woman who, some say, helped to solve a number of missing person cases. Her detractors called her a fraud. Be that as it may, in the case of John DeMars, Ms. Allison seemed to be spot-on.

At their wits end searching for John, Dorothy told them she saw him falling from the train into water below and subsequently drowning. Although she could not pinpoint where this happened, she could tell them it was an area where she saw a bow and arrow. She also said she saw the numbers 2,2,2. Police couldn’t figure out what all this info meant.

Then, two months later, on February 22nd, (2,2,2) his body showed up in shallow water. Right next an arrow belonging to a man who was bow hunting with his son. Police theorized that DeMars, having fallen asleep, was disoriented during an unscheduled stop and stepped off the train to the icy water below.

For decades, police and lay people alike have employed psychics for various reasons. Take the case of Penny Serra of New Haven, Connecticut. In 1973, the 21-year-old was found on the floor of a parking garage, dead. She’d been stabbed over 20 times. In an era before forensic technology would advance enough to change investigative techniques, police hit a dead end in the search for her killer.

Enter “time walker’ (admittedly a term I’d never heard of) Mary Pascarella Downey. A time walker is a psychic who connects to spirits through the past and collects clues from them. Which kind of sounds like what a ‘regular’ medium does, quite frankly. Maybe it’s similar to a garbage collector who says he is in ‘waste management’, or a bounty hunter who calls himself a ‘recovery specialist’. (No shade on our much needed waste management crew or Dog the Bounty Hunter wannabe’s!)

Anyway, back to it. So Downey told authorities a few things that, at the time, left them scratching their heads. She said the killer would not be caught for almost 30 years and that he was a mechanic. She saw blue coveralls, smelled gasoline, and saw a grease-stained hand. She also had a flash of an embroidered nametag on the coveralls. The name started with the letter ‘E’.

Lastly, she gave an ominous four word warning… “Only blood can tell.” Yikes😳

Decades went by. Finally, using DNA analysis available in 1997, an arrest was made—using blood collected at the scene. Because, ‘only blood can tell’. In 2002, mechanic Edward Grant was convicted of the murder of Penny Serra.

Shazam!

Meanwhile, our friends across the pond have had successes of their own. Well-known psychic Dennis McKenzie of Cambridgeshire, England, found himself involved in the case of a Limerick, Ireland resident in 2006. When seventeen year old Richard Kelley went missing, his mother contacted Dennis for help. Unfortunately, all McKenzie picked up on were terrible images of Richard’s body. He saw a slab of concrete nearby, a bridge and two words….Bodyke and Brigid.

Richard’s skeletonized and dismembered body was found a year later, in a lake named Lough Brigid, near Bodyke, County Clare. He had a chunk of concrete tied to each of his legs.

Freakish.

That wraps it up for this month’s “the more you know” episode! Hope you enjoyed it!

Do you know of a crazy case, instance, or have you witnessed, any psychic abilities? If you have come across something you think we should explore further, drop me a note at Quinnnoll@gmail.com or leave a comment on this blog. Maybe we can do a follow-up special regarding a bunch of different psychic phenomena!

Until next time, keep your eyes open, your head on a swivel, and a psychic’s phone number in your pocket!

Later, gators

—Q