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Are there
any dead bodies in there? Photograph: Dimitri Vervitsiotis |
When
the phone rang at the sheriff's office in Liberty county, Texas, on
Tuesday7 June, the call triggered a story that would captivate
America's news networks and cause ripples of interest across the
world. But it's not every day that the police get a tip-off about 30
dismembered bodies, including children.
After several hours the police called off the search. "There's no
crime scene," announced Liberty county judge Craig McNair on live
television
(pictured).
Instead, the police's attention was now focused on arresting the
psychic who had twice called in with the revelation.
Much
of the debate since has focused on whether the police should have
acted on unsolicited "evidence" offered by a psychic. Surely they
should only act on "hard" evidence? But the officers involved have
said that because there was the possibility of harm to children,
they were duty-bound to investigate.
The
story poses a question that has long hung over the police: do they
ever use psychics to assist them? The routine answer has always been
"no" and there seems to be little evidence that they do. But, as
this week's case shows, the police are routinely contacted by
psychics offering leads, especially during high-profile cases, and
sometimes act on the information.
In 2007, for example,
Portuguese police said they were following up on leads offered by
local psychics in the hunt for Madeleine McCann and had two dossiers
of apparent visions and sightings of Madeleine. "We can't put these
messages in the bin," said chief inspector Olegario Sousa. "We must
check them all in case it might be from the kidnapper." Similarly,
the police received tip-offs from psychics during the hunts for
Peter Sutcliffe and Ian Huntley.
In
2006, a group called UK Sceptics formally asked every police force
if they had ever used a psychic. All the replies were a predictable
"no" ? except one. The Metropolitan Police admitted that in one case
in 1965 a psychic had "played a major part". A 37-year-old haulage
operator called Thomas "Ginger" Marks had mysteriously disappeared
and Freddie Foreman, a gangster who worked for the Krays, was
acquitted of the murder in 1975. But in 2000 he admitted the killing
and that Marks's body had been thrown in the sea.
The
psychic's involvement is still unclear, but the Met say the case
records are stored at the national archives in Kew. All that we
know, beyond Foreman's confession, is that no body was ever found
and the case is still officially "unsolved".
