More useless information from Browne: Kristine Kupka

Blurred Visions / Psychics' 'help' in missing-person cases often raises false hope
Melanie Lefkowitz. STAFF WRITER. Newsday. Long Island, N.Y.: Jun 29, 2003. pg. A.05

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Kathy Kupka, whose sister Kristine disappeared in 1998 after leaving her Brooklyn home with her former boyfriend, said she, too, was at first receptive to psychics' tips and visions. But following some unlikely leads left her more upset and as unenlightened as before, she said.

"At the very beginning, everything a psychic said I totally went on, because I was totally sure I was going to find her, I was sure it was going to work, and then I was totally mortified," said Kupka, of Brooklyn. She now thinks her sister, whose body was never found, was murdered. "Finally, I just had to give it up."

Many psychics, including Baron, say they have solved cases, but skeptics discount their visions as intentionally vague and say they have achieved no successes, only a handful of coincidences.

"Enough of them call in and enough of them make enough kinds of claims that are general enough - 'I see a body of water' or some trees, the woods, typical places where people get dumped - that they can claim hits or claim credibility," said Michael Shermer, publisher of Skeptic magazine. "When we've investigated these things and talked to police departments, we've been told they never ever once had any help. It never worked. There's not a single documented case where a psychic solved a case."

Even if they don't claim money when they try to help solve crimes or missing-persons cases, Shermer said, psychics typically get their time and money's worth in publicity, he said.
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Once, Kupka said, a psychic told her Kristine was in a bar in a New Jersey town with a "c" in its name and a crescent flag flying nearby. A well-known television psychic, Sylvia Browne, said a stranger had picked Kristine up in a van and driven her to Albuquerque. One man told her to go into some "crazy neighborhood," she said, and take 10 steps east and 20 steps west.

In each case, she found nothing.
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MYTH #7 — Do Psychics Have Psychic Powers That Solve Crimes?

Lots of people believe that psychics can use special powers to help police solve crimes or find missing people.

Kathy Kupka wanted to believe it. Her younger sister Kristine had been going out with a man Kathy didn't trust, and when Kristine didn't return home after getting in that man's car, Kathy suspected her sister had been killed.

In her desperation to find her sister, she put up a billboard offering a $25,000 reward.

So-called psychics started calling her. And she hired some of them, trying anything she could to find her sister. She even contacted one of America's most famous psychics, Sylvia Browne.

She thought Browne would be the one to help her. "I was super-hopeful. I was like, 'oh that's it. We're definitely going to find her. There's no doubt in my mind.'"

Kupka got on a TV show where Browne was demonstrating her ability to talk to the dead. Browne quickly said Kristine was communicating to Browne, and that Kristine was dead, in New Mexico.

Police checked out Browne's lead, and found nothing.

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[continued from ABC's 20/20]

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We wanted to talk to Browne. She agreed, and then backed out. She told us she's solved thousands of cases and never charges grieving families for her services. Several years ago, however, a magazine examined 35 cases Browne had been involved in. They couldn't find proof that she had solved any.

The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and the FBI also maintain that psychics have never helped solve a single missing person case.

We helped Kathy give it one more try. We asked Kathlyn Rhea, a famous psychic who police work with regularly and credit her with sometimes helping them.
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Mark Klaas , father of 12-year-old Polly, who was abducted and murdered in California, also went to psychics to try to find his daughter. None of them found his daughter's body.

But Kathlyn Rhea later went on a television tabloid program and said she was certain they had the right man because he looked the way she had thought. He was outraged and described psychics as predators who capitalized on families' grief.

Our search for Kathy's sister, following Rhea's instructions, proved fruitless. Rhea says animals must have eaten the body.

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Brill's Content has examined ten recent Montel Williams programs that highlighted Browne's work as a psychic detective (as opposed to her ideas about "the afterlife," for example), spanning 35 cases. In 21, the details were too vague to be verified. Of the remaining 14, law-enforcement officials or family members involved in the investigations say that Browne had played no useful role.

"These guys don't solve cases, and the media consistently gets it wrong," says Michael Corn, an investigative producer for "Inside Edition" who produced a story last May debunking psychic detectives. Moreover, the FBI and the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children maintain that to their knowledge, psychic detectives have never helped solve a single missing-person case.

"Zero. They go on TV and I see how things go and what they claim but no, zero," says FBI agent Chris Whitcomb. "They may be remarkable in other ways, but the FBI does not use them" ("Prophet Motive," Brill's Content, November 27, 2000).

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SOURCE: ABC News Transcripts
SHOW: 20 / 20 (10:00 PM ET) - ABC
DATE: March 22, 2004 Monday
LENGTH: 7483 words
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graphics: Myths, Lies and Downright Stupidity

JOHN STOSSEL: (Off Camera) Now, myth number seven, "psychics use powers to solve crimes." What if someone you love disappeared and police told you they didn't have a clue? Would you then turn to a psychic?

7 psychics use psychic powers to solve crimes

JOHN STOSSEL: (Voice Over) Kathy Kupka, of Brooklyn, New York, did. Her younger sister, Kristine, disappeared after getting into a boyfriend's car. Kathy suspected her sister had been killed.

KATHY KUPKA, SISTER DISAPPEARED: Kristine would never not come home. She would never not call. She just, you know, wasn't like that.

JOHN STOSSEL: (Voice Over) When police found no sign of her, Kathy was so devastated she put up this huge billboard offering a 25,000 reward.

KATHY KUPKA: I was a little out of my mind, you know, with desperation and all I wanted to do was find her.

JOHN STOSSEL: (Voice Over) So-called psychics started calling. They claim they can find all kinds of missing things. Did they sound confident?

KATHY KUPKA: Oh, yeah.

JOHN STOSSEL: (Off Camera) Like, "I know where your sister is"?

KATHY KUPKA: Yeah.

JOHN STOSSEL: (Voice Over) At one point, Kathy went to one of America's most famous psychics. Browne claims she can talk to the dead. They tell her where they are.

KATHY KUPKA: And you should see the e-mails and the calls and the notes I got, "contact Sylvia Browne, she'll help you."

JOHN STOSSEL: (Voice Over) So, Kathy managed to get on a TV show on a day when Browne was doing her stuff.

KATHY KUPKA: I was so super hopeful. I was like, oh, that's it, we're definitely going to find her.

SYLVIA BROWNE: She said you've seen this person.

JOHN STOSSEL: (Voice Over) On the show, Browne quickly said Kristine was dead in New Mexico and Kristine was communicating to Browne.

KATHY KUPKA: Does she see us?

SYLVIA BROWNE: Oh, sure. I mean, that's the only way I can get information.

JOHN STOSSEL: (Voice Over) Police checked out Browne's lead and found nothing.

KATHY KUPKA: It was so devastating. Desperation makes you do things that reasonable people don't do.

JOHN STOSSEL: (Voice Over) We asked Browne to talk us to about this. She agreed but then backed out. She told us she solved thousands of cases. But several years ago, a magazine examined 35 cases that Browne had been involved with. They couldn't find proof she'd solved any of them. At least Browne doesn't ask grieving families for money. Nor did the next psychic Kathy tried, Carl Petry. He took her to this hazardous waste facility where he said Kristine was inside this manhole.

CARL PETRY, PSYCHIC: When I got to the manhole cover, I turned to Kathy and I said, "your sister is inside here."

JOHN STOSSEL: (Voice Over) Kathy says police checked this lead out, too, and found nothing. Petry says the body must have washed away. We then asked Kathleen Rhea if she could find Kristine. Rhea's a famous psychic. She's invited on TV shows and some police officers say she's helped them find bodies. Police departments think the psychics help.

MICHAEL SHERMER: They simply are misremembering the hits and the misses. The psychics go to the police department, they give lots and lots of statements. "I see the body in a -body of woods, some water, a railroad track and so on." When the body is finally found they retrofit the statement to see how it fits with what actually happened. So, "oh, yeah, that psychic said something about a railroad track." Yeah, but the psychic also said something about 100 other things.

JOHN STOSSEL: (Voice Over) People like Rhea may help police because they have a good sense of people or deductive skills, but psychic vision? Rhea claims she finds missing people all the time.

JOHN STOSSEL: (Off Camera) How many bodies have you found?

KATHLEEN RHEA, PSYCHIC: Oh, sometimes it's three or four a week.

JOHN STOSSEL: (Voice Over) Rhea charges a fee. We persuaded her to discount it down to $1800. She then explained to Kathy and the private investigator Kathy hired, Kristine had been murdered.

KATHLEEN RHEA: I think it's strangulation, because I felt -go like that.

JOHN STOSSEL: (Voice Over) She was very confident that she knew where Kristine's body was.

KATHLEEN RHEA: And it's about 30 minutes or 30 miles from here.

JOHN STOSSEL: (Off Camera) But that could be anywhere.

KATHLEEN RHEA: Well, that's true. So, they have to draw a map around the 30 miles and start looking for the other details that go with it.

JOHN STOSSEL: (Voice Over) The other details included a road that branches off like a Y, something that looks like a country church, something with the letter S. We tried to follow her instructions but there were lots of Y's in the road and signs with S's.

JOHN STOSSEL: (Off Camera) So shouldn't you then go there with them and show them because this is all vague.

KATHLEEN RHEA: No, they need to draw a map and do the leg work. I've done my share, now they have to do their share. What do you want me do, the leg work?

KATHY KUPKA: You're desperate, you know, that's all I am, I'm desperate. My heart just fell. I was like, she doesn't know.

JOHN STOSSEL: (Voice Over) We never found a body.

MARK KLAAS, DAUGHTER WAS ABDUCTED: I called them the second wave of predators.

JOHN STOSSEL: (Voice Over) Ten years ago, Mark Klaas' 12-year-old daughter Polly was abducted and murdered in California. The Klaas family went to psychics to try to find Polly. Kathleen Rhea gave them a location where her body was supposed to be. And a TV show paid her more than $6,000 to talk about it. Police say her information was wrong.

MARK KLAAS: Maybe this is something she then added to her resume for the next sucker family that comes around with a missing kid.

JOHN STOSSEL: (Voice Over) Rhea also said this police sketch was not the murderer.

JOHN STOSSEL: (Off Camera) You said, the sketch is no good.

KATHLEEN RHEA: That's right.

JOHN STOSSEL: (Off Camera) But it was he.

KATHLEEN RHEA: Wasn't at all him.

JOHN STOSSEL: (Off Camera) But aren't these pictures pretty close?

KATHLEEN RHEA: If you think so.

MARK KLAAS: Kathleen Rhea went on a television tabloid program and took credit for the recovery of my child.

JOHN STOSSEL: (Voice Over) Police say the body was found through old-fashioned police work. Polly Klaas' father says he was outraged that you said you ...

KATHLEEN RHEA: That's because that's -yeah, that's her father. He's always been that way.

JOHN STOSSEL: (Off Camera) I'm skeptical of you because ...

KATHLEEN RHEA: Of course. It's only healthy to be skeptical, it's not healthy to be stupid.

JOHN STOSSEL: (Off Camera) I think somebody would be stupid to pay you to search for a body.

KATHLEEN RHEA: No, not really. Why should they?

JOHN STOSSEL: (Off Camera) I don't think you could really do this.

KATHLEEN RHEA: Well ...

JOHN STOSSEL: (Off Camera) "Oh, well," is little consolation to families of the missing. The FBI maintains psychics have never helped solve a single missing person case.
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PastBrowneFan said:

SB is heartless, self serving, egotistical, and if I believed in true Evil, the more I find out about her, the more I see her as Evil.

That entire house of cards must come down, fast.

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Counselings may be conducted over the phone, by mail, or in person. A counseling takes approximately one hour and costs $150.00.

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DETECTIVES USE PSYCHICS TO HELP SOLVE SOME OF THEIR MOST BAFFLING CASES IN PSYCHIC DETECTIVES

One-Hour Documentary Hosted by Andrea Thompson
Premieres February 27th at 10:00 PM ET/PT

Hollywood, CA - January 8, 2003
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Professional psychic Kay Rhea and Detective Tim McFadden from the Fresno Police Department are featured in the documentary. They have worked together for about twenty years on hundreds of cases.

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Brattus said:

"Also exactly what does it take to get fired from being a psychic?
I mean if I had a job that I showed up to everyday but never did anything, somebody at sometime would say something about it.

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Big Al said:

I see a new reality show, "Psychic Apprentice", say with Sylvia Browne as the hirer/firer.

SYLVIA: I'm going to assign you each to apply your powers to a solved disappearance case and test you on your accuracy.

***

SYLVIA: Right, Brett, how did you do?
BRETT: I got running water and a man named Dave or Darren or Dennis... some "D". He was a big Mexican-looking guy built like a bouncer. I saw strangulation and a shallow grave. I saw her near a crossroads.
SYLVIA:Amber, how about you?
AMBER (looking proud): I saw the missing girl, Jackie, was still alive. She'd eloped with a white 5'5" 140-pound accountant called Eric Ball and married him in a Catholic church in Sacramento, California.
SYLVIA looks at paper and frowns: There's no way you could have seen all that, Amber! I reckon you read up on the case on the Web!
AMBER: I couldn't have, Sylvia. The cameras were on me the whole time.
SYLVIA: Then you're just a lucky guesser. Brett?
BRETT (thinking quickly): The guy's name was Eric... "E" is just one letter on from "D". His surname was Ball. That must be where I got the "bouncer" image from. I sense now that Jackie felt strangulated by her home life, which is why she eloped. The crossroads was actually the cross on the church steeple. They must have had a font - that was the running water I saw. And of course, there must have been lots of graves around, some shallower than others.
SYLVIA: And the Mexican angle?
BRETT: Sacramento is a Spanish name. Mexicans speak Spanish. I thought that was pretty clear.
SYLVIA (Thinks): Wow, this kid's good! (Aloud): Brett, I grade your accuracy at 75%.
BRETT: I thought I was right on the money there, Sylvia!
SYLVIA: Sorry, Brett, you can't possibly get better than my mighty 87% accuracy rate. Nobody's perfect. Amber, you just got lucky. I give you an accuracy rating of zero - you're fired. Brett, you're hired.

Applause and credits.

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