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Description:
This photo shows how police often bring in psychic detectives to help bring new information to dead-end cases, or for the last hope to solve the case.
Red Flags, Reason for belief:
Confirmation bias can connect to this because it can be interpreted that psychics solve cases for police when all they really do is just give more information towards the case.
Limitations/flaws (mistakes, fake evidence, assumptions, bias, emotions):
A limitation that can connect to this image is the assumption that bringing in a psychic detective will be able to help give information but in some cases that is not true due to the fact that they may not "feel" anything in order to help.

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Description:
A photo showing that psychic readings were closed off and abandoned.
Red Flag, Reason for belief:
Red Hearings could be connected to this image because of the fact that a lot of psychic readings are usually money grabs and are just "fake psychics" giving off a bunch of random information that the client may want to hear, but not actually telling them the truth.
Limitations/flaws (mistakes, fake evidence, assumptions, bias, emotions):
Psychic readings could give off a lot of fake evidence to their clients.

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Description:
An image showing a psychic detective holding a women's hand trying to use his gifts to gather some sort of information to give the lady.
Red Flag, Reason for belief:
Mystical energy can connect to this image because you can see the psychic detective holding the woman's hands in order to gain information through the powers of the unknown.
Limitations/flaws (mistakes, fake evidence, assumptions, bias, emotions):
A limitation that can be connected to this is emotions, the detective can easily see how the woman is feeling can could tell her something that she may want to hear instead of telling her what she needs to hear.

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Description:
This website talks about multiple cases in which psychic detectives believed they helped to solve a murder case.
Red Flags, Reason for belief:
The unexplained connects to this website because there is a lot of information that could connect to some of the cases but there are no confirmed explanations.
Limitations/flaws (mistakes, fake evidence, assumptions, bias, emotions):
There could be some assumptions made in a couple of the cases because there is not any proof that they solved the case.

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Psychics often claim they help police solve crimes, help locate missing people and catch killers with their clairvoyant abilities. Here are just a few psychic detectives who believe they've helped solve a mystery.
UK: Dennis McKenzie and the murder of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman

In August 2002, 10 year olds, Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman went missing from a family barbecue in Soham.

Desperate for answers, Holly's family contacted a psychic - Dennis McKenzie.

'I am really sorry, but both girls are dead,' he told them, believing they'd been murdered.

He went on to describe a woman with a 'shrew-like face' with brown hair and a man in his 30s - both with Northern accents.

He also told the family the girls had been transported in an old red car and wrapped in something like carpet or bubble wrap. He even described the view from the killer's house.

Soon the girls bodies were found and a man and woman matching McKenzie's descriptions were arrested.

Ian Huntley claimed the girls had died at his home by accident. The view from the Huntely's home matched McKenzie's description.

He was eventually found guilty of murder and his girlfriend Maxine Carr was convicted of conspiring to pervert the course of justice.

Holly's family have since praised McKenzie for his help in solving what happened to the girls.

Australia: Debbie Malone and the murder of Maria Scott

In 2003, the badly decomposed body of Maria Scott, a 27-year-old prostitute, was found dumped on a farm.

She'd been stabbed five times. Mark Brown, a farm worker who'd met Maria in rehab, was police's main suspect.

But their investigation came to a halt when they discovered he'd moved to another area and committed suicide, before they had a chance to interrogate him.

Four years later, an investigator decided to seek help from Debbie Malone - a well-known psychic.

She lead police to a cabin where she believed Maria had been killed. She even located the exact knife used in the murder which was found lodged in a drainpipe.

She also told investigators she felt the murderer walk through her as she entered the cabin - something that could only happen if he was a ghost.

This fitted their theory that Brown had killed Maria before committing suicide.

Australia: Phillpe Durant and the murder of Paula Brown

In 1996 a popular hairdresser, Paula Brown, 30, from Sydney Australia, went missing after a night out with friends.

Her fiancé was desperate to find out what'd happened to her. So he enlisted the help of psychic Phillipe Durant.

Durant used a lock of Paula's hair, a plumb line and a grid map to pinpoint where he believed police should focus their search.

Later her body was discovered by a passing truck driver. It was less than two kilometers from the spot where Durant had pointed out.

Police later acknowledged the accuracy in Durant's information.

USA: Etta Smith and the murder of Melanie Uribe

When nurse, Melanie Uribe, 31, missed two days of work in 1980, her friends and family were concerned.

Her disappearance was reported but searches failed to turn up anything.

Clairvoyant, Etta Smith, was sure police weren't looking in the correct places. She believed Melanie's body was in a bush, in a rural area of Los Angeles.

She relayed her visions to police then decided to investigate herself. She went searching for Melanie with her children and niece and found Melanie's dead body in the exact location of her psychic vision.

Doubting her story, police arrested Smith on suspicion of murder. However, she was released four days later and never charged.

Later, the real murderer was caught and convicted.

USA: Pascarella Downey and the murder of Penney Serra

In 1971 Penney Serra, 21, was brutally murdered in Connecticut.

A detective at the time decided to ask psychic Pasacarella Downey for help in solving the murder.

Downey claimed the murderer had the smell of oil and had worn a mechanic's uniform. She also claimed to see the letter 'E' on a nametag.

She predicted the killer wouldn't be caught immediately but that 'blood can tell.'

Sure enough, 26 years later Edward Grant was convicted of the murder thanks to DNA testing and fingerprint matches.

He was also a mechanic at the time of the murder proving Downey's predictions to be spookily accurate.

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Psychic detectives claim to have helped catch killers - do you believe them?

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Psychics often claim they help police solve crimes, help locate missing people and catch killers with their clairvoyant abilities. Here are just a few psychic detectives who believe they've helped solve a mystery. In August 2002, 10 year olds, Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman went missing from a family barbecue in Soham.

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Description:
This website shows an interview with a psychic detective who helps solve murders about why he does what he does.
Red Flag, Reason for belief:
Emotional Connection can connect to this because the psychic detective explains that he helps to solve murders to help give the families information to help move on and get the answers they need.
Limitations/flaws (mistakes, fake evidence, assumptions, bias, emotions):
A limitation is that this psychic detective only uses his powers to help certain cases.

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Source images: Shutterstock / Wikipedia Commons | Art by Noel Ransome

I get why people become psychics, honestly. Most of them just want to help gullible people part with their money via saying exactly what they want to hear. You're feeling lonely? I sense a new love interest in your future. Grieving a lost loved one? I can hear your mom coming through and [rubs temples] she wants you to know everything is OK.

But that kind of motivation doesn't easily fit Troy Griffin, who applies his "intuitive medium" talents to murder investigations. He claims he's been hired by several police departments to shake out new clues on dead-end cases, and has regularly made media appearances for the visions he gets when handling photos of victims or crime scenes.

You could argue this is an even more dubious use of psychic abilities, but it also comes with a hell of a lot more ways to be exposed for making shit up. With this risk in mind, we caught up with Griffin on the phone from Colorado to ask why he wants to solve cold murder cases.

VICE: Do you call yourself a "psychic"?
Troy Griffin: I prefer intuitive medium and psychic investigator. The reason I say intuitive first is because I'm not a big fan of the word psychic and the reputation it has. It gets used by a lot of flakes. I don't do storefront tarot card readings, I don't have a crystal ball. These are people's real lives, so I don't let divination tools direct me.

When did you start applying your skills to solving crimes?
I learned about my gift at the age of 12, but when I saw things that were going to happen, I always chalked it up to deja vu. Over the next 30 years I didn't investigate my intuition too much-when I received a book that taught me about gifts I actually threw it away. Then in my 40s I was at a friend's gift shop, and I was introduced to a woman there. She looked at me and asked if I was psychic, and I don't know why because I never admitted it, but it just came out that I was. She said I'm working on a case for a family with a police department. She gave a name and location, and said tell me what you see. I told her what I saw, that it wasn't a missing person, she was hit with a pipe. I went through all that completely stunned with myself, I didn't know where it came from, it just came naturally. About three to four weeks later found I was 98 to 99 percent accurate on the case. After some soul searching I thought, is this real? Is this my calling? And in conversation with my wife it came to me that these opportunities were opened to me for a reason-maybe this was my calling. Now I do probably 30 cases a year, some of them can just be a matter of everything coming to me in a day, some take much longer.

You say that you've worked with actual police detectives.
I do work with some police departments. With police I should be the last resort when they have no clues. I first started working with families who want me to work with the detective. The police are the ones who solve crimes, I do not. I can give new clues, direction and guidance, then all that stuff goes to the police department.

Are police open about working with you? Can I call them up and ask for a review?
Police departments won't verify I work with them. Here's the reason why. I said the same to Nightline: just like in journalism, if i give up source, then I'll probably never work with them again. At a lot of police departments it's ego driven-can you imagine if it's publicized this that this department uses a psychic? They'll get a lot of backlash, which happened before on another case. They say the police department doesn't know how to do their job if they're talking to a psychic. I have a detective that doesn't necessarily believe in what I do.

How do you usually get started on a case?
So I get contacted by families all around the world. Ninety percent of my cases come through the family. How I choose is I have remote viewing, I have to connect through the victim's eyes. They shows me pictures, tell me what happened, and I just have to go to the last known location and my intuition guides me from there. If I don't connect, then I go no further. I don't want to give false hope. I'm there to be honest.

Police detectives hit the streets, interview people, gather evidence. What's your process like?
I'll just look at a picture of the victim, of the last location-things like that trigger me. When I travel I get the strongest visions. When I travel I'll start to viscerally get a lot of anxiety and sweat, and have a hard time breathing. That tells me I'm feeling something and have to figure out what I'm feeling. I'll give an example out of Sunbury, Pennsylvania, police contacted me on a case that was 28 years old (Editor's note: VICE contacted Sunbury police, who declined an interview for this story). The new chief has been there a couple years, he got a lead potential victim being buried in concrete in a foundation wall. He got a warrant, and thought he saw a tooth in the concrete. They tore out the foundation wall, to see if they were on the right track. I said tell me about the woodchipper, he said they believe she was cut up, put into a woodchipper, mixed in with concrete with sawdust. So what I did after that-it doesn't always come instantly-but over the next couple weeks I remember saying tell me about jewelry. The suspect is an ex-detective in the town who was fired for embezzlement and pawning stolen jewelry. I found a suspect that lives in the same town and went to the same high school. He owns a construction company and went to jail for pawning stolen jewelry. My job was to give this new suspect's name. Here's somebody else that's connected. Interview them.

If you're giving suspect names, surely you must worry about getting the wrong guy?
I do worry about that, I won't give it unless I'm pretty confident with myself. It's also up to the police department to interview them and investigate that, I'm just giving them a name. The thing about me is that I have to sleep with myself at night. I won't say anything until I have enough to say this is somebody to look into.

Why do you get involved in murders? Why not help people in other ways?
I think I was drawn to it because of that meeting at the gift shop. It intrigued me, and I get bored very easily. I only want to work on things that are meaningful. A lot of the other cases, they're just not meaningful to me. For example I'll get calls saying my daughter took off with her boyfriend, can you find her, she's 22. Well, whatever. I have to do something I can make a difference and connect with. Other stuff is not me. I do medium readings for closure, for helping people move forward. These families been through so much.

You seem to have a lot of media following you around...
Usually because the families tip the media or it just gets leaked out I'm coming. In Ohio I was working on a case and was swarmed by media, which was unfortunate. On one side it's also good because it brings the case back into the public eye, and sometimes people do call in with more information. There are pros and there are cons.

The media has helped in different ways. In the Kelsie Shelling case, the Pueblo police had the file for four years. This is a 21-year-old girl who was eight weeks pregnant, went down to show her boyfriend the ultrasound and never returned. Her mother lives four hours away and would drive there to search for her body. She asked to transfer to Colorado bureau of investigations, but as with most bureaus, it has to be referred by the police department. I wrote a note to police chief. When my interview with ABC came out on television, a week later the case was transferred.

I went down to Pueblo with her mother, she took me to his grandmother's house, I was in the backyard and I just felt strongly there was something there, I knew she had been in the basement there at some time. As we went down the street and there was this ditch, I had a vision there. I was looking through sewer drains, I just felt they were there. After I got the case switched to the Colorado bureau, they tore up that grandma's backyard and found evidence. They also dug into the ditch.

What do you say to haters who are skeptical and don't think you should meddle in investigations?
For people who don't think I should be meddling, what it comes down to, is I come with good intentions and feel like I'm making a difference. I've never been to a [psychic] development class, I don't go to seances, that's too dark for me. I'm not going to give any false hope, I'm just telling what comes to or through me. My job is to help moving forward find closure. In a murder situation that family will never find closure, but if I can come in and even help one person start to move forward, I would do do it.

This interview has been edited for clarity and style.
Follow Sarah on Twitter.

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We Asked a 'Psychic Detective' Why He Tries to Solve Murders

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Source images: Shutterstock / Wikipedia Commons | Art by Noel Ransome I get why people become psychics, honestly. Most of them just want to help gullible people part with their money via saying exactly what they want to hear. You're feeling lonely? I sense a new love interest in your future.

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Description:
This is a website explaining three different psychic detectives and their cases. Each case explains how the psychic detective helped to solve a case using their abilities.
Red Flag, Reason for Belief:
Agenticity can connect to the second case because it talks about how the psychic was called a "little witch" because she knew when a family member died at the moment of their death.
Limitations/flaws (mistakes, fake evidence, assumptions, bias, emotions):
Some of the officers felt very skeptic about psychic detectives and about how they worked and wasn't sure they were actually going to work.

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Noreen Renier is a well known psychic detective working over 380 unsolved cases with city, county and state Law Enforcement Agencies in 38 states and 6 foreign countries.

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Description:
In this video, it shows a murder case with no clues or evidence in which to solve the case. Until an officer is given an article on a psychic detective who helps to bring new light to a case. Skeptical and cautious, the officer looks into the psychic and is shocked by her work.
Red Flags, Reason for belief:
Mystical energy can be connected to this video in the sense that the psychic detective was able to touch the backs of photos of suspects and was able to pinpoint 3 specific men with just touching the photo.
Limitations/flaws (mistakes, fake evidence,
assumptions, bias, emotions):
A limitation from this video would be that yes the psychic detective does not necessarily give the officers "fake evidence" she cannot give them hard evidence making her assumptions worrisome.

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Description:
This video tells the story of a psychic detective who starts to get random visions and she is not sure what they are about until she gets a call from an officer who seeks her help in solving a case and then all the pieces become connected.
Red Flags, Reason for belief:
The unexplained can connect to this video because it is unknown how the psychic detective started to get visions of "said case" without hearing of it beforehand.
Limitations/flaws (mistakes, fake evidence, assumptions, bias, emotions):
A limitation of this video is that the psychic detective did not go forward to tell anyone about what she was seeing and waited until someone came to her to say anything.

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Description:
This is a video of a psychic detective in action. It is about a teenager who was abducted and how a psychic detective helped gain information about it. It shows the psychic and how she touches the picture of the missing man and his shoe and how she can see a place where he could be and how he was for sure abducted.

Red Flag, Reason for belief:
The unexplained connects to this video because it is unclear how the psychic was able to touch a picture of the teenager and his shoe and pick up images of where he was taken and how he was abducted.
Limitations/flaws (mistakes, fake evidence, assumptions, bias, emotions):
Some of the limitations of this video are that the psychic was not able to give specifics on where he was just hints of where he was.

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Faith Dyck