SusanofO
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Joined: 12/19/2005 Status: offline
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Here is a website article about a woman psychic who has helped police solve criminal cases. By Maggi Newhouse TRIBUNE-REVIEW Monday, July 25, 2005 The elderly man had been missing for weeks. Neither the local nor state police had any clues. Search dogs and helicopters turned up nothing. And the grieving family was demanding answers. Monroeville police detective Will Greenaway couldn't figure out what happened to Sylvester Tonet, who disappeared while walking home during a snowstorm in 1988. So when the family asked him to work with a psychic, he begrudgingly agreed. "You do it to satisfy the family," said Greenaway, 66 and now retired from the department. "It's a grieving family, so anything you can do. I just went along with it." After 32 years of work as a psychic, Nancy Myer said she's grown accustomed to the skepticism that surrounds her and her profession. story continues below The Latrobe, Westmoreland County woman said she's assisted police on more than 550 cases. "I really don't worry too much about convincing someone, because a lot of people who are prejudiced, it doesn't matter what you say -- it won't change their minds," said Myer, 60. "I just try to do my job to the best of my ability and I feel like the work will speak for me. And it has." The use of psychics in police investigations is nothing new. But with the success of television shows like NBC's "Medium," and USA's "The Dead Zone," and the use of psychics in several high profile cases, psychics are garnering more attention. More attention could lead to more acceptance of the paranormal -- and that has Joe Nickell concerned. "With this kind of mumbo jumbo, where will it end?" said Nickell, an author and senior research fellow with the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal in Amherst, N.Y. "If you have police seeking clairvoyance -- something science cannot verify, will we start using astrology to pick jurors? When will the ignorance and superstition stop? It ought to stop." Police looking for missing Centre County District Attorney Ray Gricar admitted last month to consulting with a psychic. And family members of Natalee Holloway, an Alabama teenager who disappeared in Aruba six weeks ago, say they've consulted psychics. Greenaway said he was skeptical when Myer first began her work on the Tonet case, recently profiled on Court TV's "Psychic Detectives," but was soon impressed with her professionalism. To begin her work, Myer said she requests the name of the victim, copies of photos taken at a crime scene and a recent photo of the victim. "That will tell me what state of mind the victim was in, whether they actually knew the assailant," she said. "I can actually get into their memory banks that way." Her goal is not to solve cases, but to give the cases a better focus. "My goal is to provide new information that they can use to get the case moving in the right direction," she said. "That's my goal, because I believe that is a more realistic goal." In Tonet's case, Myer began drawing maps of the area around the man's home and pinpointed a location where police would find his body. One month after Tonet disappeared, she and Greenaway attempted to reach the body, but cold weather conditions prevented the two from reaching the site. The next day, Greenaway returned to location with search crews and they found the Tonet's body in the place where Myer had described. "I never believed in that stuff before, I don't know if I still do, but what she did -- her assistance in that case -- was really something," Greenaway said. Myer said she often hears comments like Greenaway's. "I've dealt with some very, very skeptical police officers who ended up saying, 'I still don't believe in this, but you've got it,'" she said. "I just focus on doing my job. I know the prejudice isn't going to change, but if it's ever going to change, it will be because of an accumulating body of a job well done." Nickell said he's still waiting to see evidence of any psychic's success. "Let them come forward right now and find Natalee Holloway. Where were they when we needed them to find Chandra Levy? The world was begging for information on her for months and months," he said. "Where are these psychics when they are really needed? Where are their successes? There aren't any." (Note: Well, there have been - like this one, and many like it - it's just that people who aren't going to believe in it, can't get past their skepticism about it, IMO) - Susan
< Message edited by SusanofO -- 9/10/2007 3:31:02 AM >
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"Hope is the thing with feathers, That perches in the soul, And sings the tune without the words, And never stops at all". - Emily Dickinson
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