Saskatoon psychic stymied by police skepticism

So smart was I to decide to follow CBC Saskatchewan on Twitter. Otherwise I might have missed this story completely:

Saskatchewan police charged with investigating unsolved cases are reluctant to appeal for psychic intervention when leads run dry, according to a Saskatoon psychic.

Barb Powell, a psychic medium, said she rarely is approached by local police to help in ongoing cold case investigations, but does get criminal case work from some southern U.S. states.

Because our people don’t want to rely on hocus pocus mumbo jumbo to solve cold cases? Proving DNA evidence is a big enough gamble without relying on some psychic to point southish and then see someone wearing green. On Rider Day, that might be everyone.

Powell told CBC News she feels her work is only one investigative tool available to help cases along, not to solve them.

“You know, I’d like to think that some of the information that comes through to me obviously helps or at least gives a detective, or police … just that extra nudge if you will, to put two and two together and hopefully come up with a full picture,” Powell said.

Sgt. Brent Shannon, a cold case investigator for the Regina Police Service, acknowledged that in some historical cases any information is considered important.

Information coming from non-traditional means such as psychics is often not specific enough to be useful to police, Shannon said.

There’s a great Torchwood episode (if you haven’t seen that yet, what’s wrong with you?) called Ghost Machine where this alien device gives anyone who holds it a look at some event in the past, but more than that – an emotional connection to that past person. Gwen sees a little boy lost in the streets during the Blitz and out of curiosity hunts him down to see how accurate the device was. In one word: very. Owen, meanwhile, witnesses a young woman get murdered back in the ’60s somewhere. He’s ripped to shreds over what he’s seen, because the killer wound up getting away. Now he knows who did it, but what can he do with that information, call the cops and explain how it “came to me in a vision” or try and deal with it himself? In typical Torchwood fashion, nothing ever seems to go according to plan, of course.

But back to our psychic. Even people who physically witness events will give varying responses. Memory is incredibly flawed and no matter how vividly people feel they’ll recall some event, every recollection will be clouded by time, by media reports, by nonsensical shreds of detail that likely match no other witness account of the same event. Even two people standing side by side will latch onto and recall different things, and none of it might be actually useful. Given what the police have experienced when it comes to dealing with witness testimony, why would they give any credence to something a psychic comes up with?

One example would be the investigation into the still-unsolved disappearance of five-year-old Tamra Keepness, who went missing from her Regina home in 2004.

Shannon said many aboriginal elders came forward to police with dreams and visions in the hope of helping investigators find her.

Shannon said while the efforts were well-intentioned, the information provided was too vague.

There’s a tendency to over-report. I’m sure they were swamped with calls of suspicious vehicles and people and whateverall. And I’m sure they have to check all of it, no matter how unlikely, and wind up ruling 99% of it out.

Families of cold case subjects seem more willing to take a chance on alternative methods of investigation like those offered by Powell.

I suspect this is because people want hope more than they want truth.

Another Torchwood moment from a different episode, Adrift, where a boy is whisked off a bridge by an unknown mysterious event, just as he’s within waving distance from home. Gwen still has friends in the police department and one of these fellows has the sorry job of telling this poor mother that her son is still missing, so many months later. Gwen can’t let it sit once it becomes obvious this woman’s not the only one missing a loved one and eventually finds out that this rift in Cardiff not only drops aliens off, but sucks locals in. Only a few ever get back to Earth and those that do are permanently traumatized. Gwen still feels it’s vital to inform Mom that her son is one of these poor unfortunates (“closure” and all that) and the mother winds up traumatized and depressed over that. That desperate hope that he was alive and happy somewhere was better than the reality, by far.

Powell said a few families in Saskatchewan have contacted her for help, but she said she’s learned the work is so draining that she’s become cautious about what cases she takes on.

“There are some families that do come to me and I just have to say, ‘I can’t help you because the emotions are so, so strong,’ ” Powell said.

“Which is why I would rather work more so with police or detectives because they too … are not necessarily emotionally attached to the situation,” she said.

Interesting to note she turns people down, though. I wonder if psychic style folks down south would do the same. Shows she has some standards, at least. Won’t take complete advantage over the miserable. I’ll give her credit for that, if nothing else.

I still think psychics are a load of hooey, but if people want to give this woman money to buy a chance in the hope lottery, who am I to stop them?