Court TV's "Haunting Evidence" TV Show Review

“Haunting Evidence” on Court TV

Review by Pat Dunn

When it comes to paranormal reality programming, American television leaves haunted castles and séance parlor tricks to the British, and turn to psychic solvers of crimes (the more violent, the better), as evidenced by the rash of reality shows featuring psychics-turned-detectives currently airing on U.S. cable channels: “Psychic Investigators” on the W Network, “Sensing Murder” on The Discovery Channel, “Psychic Detectives” and “Haunting Evidence” on Court TV.

“Haunting Evidence” borrows many tricks from Hollywood, including a dramatically-lit title sequence featuring a trio of investigators striking poses, and dramatic re-creations of the crimes the team is investigating. The team members are Carla Baron, a psychic profiler, John J. Oliver, a medium, and Patrick Burns, a paranormal investigator.

In the first episode, “Mystery on the Appalachian Trail”, the trio travels to Shenandoah National Park to attempt to gather new evidence in the cold-case double homicide of two women who were murdered on a camping trip. First, though, we are shown Burns being guided around the crime scenes by a police representative, while the case is recapped for the viewers. Next we see Burns arriving with Baron and Oliver, who, we are informed by a narrator, “have never been to the Park and know nothing about the case.” (Somehow I would have preferred more than just the program’s word on this.)

The trio splits up, with Burns and Baron heading off to discover which trail the victims had taken. Baron manages with remarkably little effort to choose the trail that soon leads Burns to the (snow-hidden) marker he had been previously shown by his guide, marking the campsite of the victims, Laura Winnans and Julie Williams.

Rejoining Oliver, the two psychics begin to share their impressions of the victims and their attacker. The image of Bible pages turning suggests the killer was a religious fanatic, and this was a hate crime. Oliver correctly “hits” on two details he was not told about the case: that the women had a Golden Retriever dog with them, and that one victim was bound with duct tape. (Okay, now wait a second. These are not new clues, given that the police knew them, and so does the audience, thanks to the re-creation scenes during the recap. So why mention them? Just to prove Oliver’s abilities? Couldn’t they have been lucky guesses, based on the number of people who take their dogs camping with them, and the popularity of duct tape among rapist-murderers?) Baron, not to be outdone, “hits” on the fact that Julie was found near water (a small stream).

Burns sets up four video-cameras at the former campsite of the victims and retreats back to the crew’s staging area at the road, leaving Baron and Oliver alone to try contacting the victims’ spirits. At one point, Burns, watching the monitors, notes a light anomaly streaking behind Baron as she is speaking to one of the victims. He interrupts Baron, who seems more irritated than alarmed, and asks the program’s cameraman if his light meter is on. Receiving a negative reply, Burns shrugs and says, well, he doesn’t know what that was, but it was weird. (Uh, right, thanks, Patrick).

The rest of the episode alternates between the psychics’ impressions and re-creations of the unknown man stalking Julie after having already murdered Laura. There is a summary of the “new information” the pair have offered, but strangely, no agreement between them as to the killer’s identity. Baron believes it was a man who was one of the police’s prime suspects, but who could not be tied to the crime by forensic evidence. Oliver believes it was someone else, perhaps questioned by the police, but not really one of the major suspects. (A name, guys, that’s what they’re really after here, you know.)

“Hidden Truth”, the fourth episode, involved the team being called in by the family of a young man found lying dead next to his wrecked car. He was posed, as if someone had been at the scene, and indeed, the medical examiner had already revised his initial cause of death from “accidental” to “undetermined” before the team arrived to tackle the case.

Baron visits the young man’s home, while Oliver (dressed dramatically in all black, this time, and wearing sunglasses most of the time), is lucky enough to be able to check out the remains of the victim’s car. The two piece together a theory that the victim was frightened of someone, had been chased by them, and ultimately beaten to death. There are fewer “hits” this time, possibly because of less forensic evidence, but the narrator continues to assure us that there’s no possible way either psychic could know what they’re telling us. (Well, since they’re mostly talking about emotions and feelings, that is probably true.) Burns’s contribution to the investigation is the observation that it’s odd the dogs across the road from the crew’s shoot did not begin barking until Baron was addressing the victim’s spirit. (I’d like to see Jason from “Ghost Hunters” give this guy one of his famous glares for being such a gullible “paranormal investigator”.)

If psychic detective shows thrill you, give this flashy entry a try, but really, folks, don’t believe everything you see on TV. And USA’s “Psych” about a guy with a photographic memory faking being a psychic detective is a much better use of an hour.

Joe Power - An Evening With

Joe Power - An Evening With

By Lester

Joe Power (aka Joe Bolster, Joe Bolster-Power)

I have been aware of this person, who is seeking fame and fortune, for a while and have viewed his website www.joe-power.com. He has been involved in the Spiritual/Psychic world for some five years. From his web site and indeed posters/leaflets advertising his shows, which have been heavily distributed around the North West at least, it is clear that he has a very high opinion of himself and his apparent self proclaimed psychic abilities.

On his web site he claims, no doubt using his unique psychic abilities, about future show dates and says, “This Show is currently Touring Theatres across the UK and so far has had an incredible response. All performances have been sell outs and people have had to be turned away who were not fortunate enough to get a ticket in time.” This is a complete lie, as I personally know of several shows that were very poorly attended not only recently but also going back months. The only one which was sold out, that I know of, was on 4th August on the Isle of Man. The theatre held 200 and the ticket office told me they had not had a clairvoyant before.

I have seen him work on “Your Destiny” which is available on Sky 178. This program to me was complete and utter nonsense designed to attract those most gullible/desperate for “readings” and at £1.50 per minute. The information Joe (and the other “mediums”) gave to the various questions viewers texted in was either just plain common sense or unsubstantiated comments/statements with no verifiable feedback to confirm any accuracy whatsoever. The presenter continually drones on and pushes for viewers to ring in and speak to their “top psychics” for a reading. In other words this is just a money making machine which thrives on those most vulnerable.

One of the “highlights” that Joe likes to use to give him credibility is the work he has done with the police in helping to solve high profile murder cases. In particular he cites the disappearance and subsequent murder of Lynsey Quy of Southport.

You can see newspaper articles (virtually all the same) on his web site. He mentions going into Southport police station and providing useful information. If this is true then where is there any independent evidence to support this published on his web site. Why cannot he get a letter from the police, on this case and any other that he claims he has been involved in, addressed to him and thanking him for the “useful and valuable new information” that he apparently supplied? He could put such a letter on his web site which would give him credibility and silence his doubters. Without this we just have his “word” that he helped in this way. So until such time that he can prove he actually provided good and new information we are left with no alternative but to entirely question this unqualified aspect of his self-publicity. As such his major stake to fame is completely and totally flawed and should therefore be ignored.

The press do however confirm that a Psychic was asked to help in the murder of Lynsey Quy and this was Uri Geller who told police that he felt that she was near water. Well as Southport is on the coast and Lynsey came from Southport is it not a fair bet that she would be found fairly locally (statistically most victims are). For more information type in “Lynsey Quy murder Southport UK” into “Ask Jeeves” or similar search engine.



Evening of Clairvoyance – Southport Floral Hall 18th August 2005 

This was my opportunity to see Joe live. I had read the article about Joe in the local paper (Southport Visiter 15th July) and therefore was looking forward to some accurate and detailed information about those who had passed to Spirit and would make their return. Particularly as Joe had told the reporter “I make sure I’ve got lots of details before saying anything. I’m not going to say I’m getting a Peter, John, or Mark…, I’ll say that I’m getting someone who, say, was the youngest of four children, he had two brothers and a sister, he died of lung cancer at the age of 56”. This would be in sharp contrast to most mediums who throw out very general names and information hoping that someone will speak up and claim it.

I still maintain that if someone from the world of spirit wants to make contact with me in a theatre through a medium then the medium, if they are really tuned into spirit, will come directly to me as the spirit person can tell the medium exactly where I am sitting. Any medium who fails to make contact with the recipient directly can justly be accused of “fishing” the audience and leaves themselves open to various accusations of psychic inadequacy.

The evening started with some 15 minutes of Roberta Lee who is a local drag act and was designed to “liven up” the audience. It had very mixed success.

Then Joe Power was introduced. The stage was set out with a large screen and there was a camera at the side which would home in onto the person Joe would speak to. Two girls with roving mikes were there to go to the recipients so that we could all hear the responses. Joe then started and threw out some very general information and names hoping that someone would claim it. After a little while several people put there hand up and Joe tried to whittle down between them.

He asked questions of them, frequently said someone was passed when they were still alive but did have a few “woolly and loose” hits. Several recipients seemed a bit unsure about what Joe was talking about. This pattern was repeated throughout the whole evening and he gave 10 messages in total. His “performance” was in sharp contrast to his publicity in the paper and on his web site and he came nowhere near to fulfilling his own self-proclaimed abilities. What I witnessed and what was written was as different as chalk and cheese. Very disappointing but unfortunately not a surprise to me. The venue was about three quarters full.

I have and do see exactly the same quality of mediumship in Spiritualist churches for many years. The difference is that churches don’t charge £12 for a ticket (its either a free-will offering or £3-5). In addition you are much more likely to receive a message in a church because the congregations are typically upto 100 people.

Would I see Joe again? Definitely NOT. The whole evening was a complete let down for me and I felt totally misled by his exaggerated publicity. He deserves to fail because he is not being honest in what he does.

The local papers are now full of adverts (this week there are three) publicizing various “Clairvoyant” evenings with different mediums. They make great claims such as:-

“The Worlds most Evidential Medium”

“Britains Most Gifted Medium”

“The North West’s latest acclaimed”

“The UK’s next phenomena” etc etc.

It is now very clear that the general public are getting very wise to these wholly unsubstantiated and grossly exaggerated claims which are not matched by the mediums demonstration. As a result attendances are falling dramatically and rightly so. Its time these “mediums” stopped trying to rip off the public and got a proper honest job.

Interview With The Independent Investigations Group - The IIG

Interview With The Independent Investigations Group

The following interview was originally conducted on the 17th December 2004

Independent Investigations Group

The IIG made a year long thorough investigation into the claims of self proclaimed Psychic Detective Carla Baron.

After the initial shockwaves of this devestaing investigation into Carla Baron had died down, some important questions needed to be answered.

The IIG were more than happy to answer all the questions aimed at them, and the whole IIG team spent a good amount of time answering in full.

So i would like to thank everyone at The IIG for the following interview.

---

[BadPsychics] For those who are unaware of your group, can you please give us a history lesson on how your group came together, how it was formed and how many members there are?

[Independent Investigations Group] The IIG began at the Center for Inquiry-West in January of 2000 in order to provide skeptically minded people the chance to be involved in hands-on investigations of paranormal and other claims. 

This all-volunteer group of about 30 members is chaired by CFI-West Executive Director James Underdown and guided by a Steering Committee of 6 members. The membership includes film and television professionals, an archeologist, a proofreader, medical doctors, psychologists, and a judge, among others.


Carla Baron is a well-known respected American Psychic, recently you did a full expose of all her claims regarding her involvement of police enquiries, and she likes to call herself the Psychic Detective. What was the catalyst that made you decide to begin this very long investigation into her claims?

We'd hardly call her "respected." The only people who give her publicity are television producers who know they can make a buck off of the fantastic story of a woman who solves crimes with superpowers. Now that's actually a really cool story, but not when you try and present it as the truth. 

We don't think these people respect anyone.
As for why Carla was selected for an investigation, well, when you do investigations, you need to find some person or organization that makes specific claims. Carla was one of three psychics we encountered during a routine attendance of a seminar. 

The other two psychics offered generic motivational speaking type stuff, weasel words, and uninspired affirmations. In other words, vague, vague, vague. Baron on the other hand claimed to have solved specific police cases. So that made her a good candidate for further investigation.

At first, we just looked these cases up on the Internet, and found that Baron herself had planted about 90% of the material that was out there. Eventually, we contacted the police investigators in these cases, and that was a real eye-opener. 

The cops responses ranged from, "We are required to listen to anyone who calls with information," to an anonymous officer who responded to our request for confirmation of Carla's assistance with a simple "bullsh*t!" Only two, out of the many, officers had anything somewhat positive to say about Baron, but could not offer details when pressed.

So the catalyst was really the fact that Baron had given us so much to investigate. When psychics makes specific claims, they give themselves the rope to hang themselves.


The report of the investigation has now been online for over 5 weeks, have you received any notification of legal proceedings from Ms. Baron's Lawyers, and if not do you expect any to be forthcoming?

She has not contacted the IIG directly. On an Internet message board she wrote that we were

"lucky there isn't a lawsuit for the libelous statements made, and harassment charges with the victims' families and law enforcement involved in my cases..."

and later wrote that we had been

"delt [sic] with."

She also criticized us, because many of the people we contacted were people she never worked with. That was the whole point of our investigation. She did not work with the official investigators on most of these cases, and therefore just how "involved" could she really have been?

That's the closest thing to an official response, and we aren't even 100% sure that Baron is responsible for this message.

However one member of the IIG actually received a reply from Baron on another message board. In her reply she basically refused to comment on the facts reported in the IIG investigative report of her claims.

When you confront these people with the truth, they really do just crumble.


Ms. Baron has claimed to be found innocent of all your claims by an independent investigation, I cannot find any evidence of this do you have any idea what this independent investigation is about, and if it even exists?

We have no idea what she's talking about. She can send us a copy of this "investigation," and if it's legit, we'll remove our report, and issue a full apology.

Or Baron can contact us for a test of her powers, and if she can demonstrate them to us under controlled conditions, we'll give her $10,000. That will settle the issue once and for all.


As well as this investigation, members of the IIG have also attended seminars by Ms. Baron and had "psychic" readings from her, in your opinion and the opinion of the IIG members read, does Ms. Baron have any Psychic ability whatsoever?

Well, if by December 6th, Jim Underdown's bosses steal the company profits (they're a non-profit, by the way), and Jim, who is the Executive Director of CFI-West, is working in sports broadcasting, we'll be convinced. These were just two of her "predictions" when she gave Jim a "reading" at one of her seminars.

She did nothing spectacular in any of her readings. As noted in our report, the lead investigator was told that he would get a new job at which he would produce a service or a product, and a Steering Committee member was told his (non-existent) screenplay was going to be huge. Not once did she say, "wait a minute, you guys are skeptics here to expose me! Well your plan has failed."


How long did it take to put together your report of Ms. Baron and how many people were involved?

Collecting data took five months, writing the report took another three months. Remember, we all have real jobs, and we're doing this in our spare time. There are about thirty members in the IIG, and everyone did something. The CFI-West staff was also extremely helpful.


Has Ms. Baron actually answered or replied to any of the claims of the cases reported in your investigation?

She has our e-mail address, phone number, and street address. She has yet to contact the IIG directly about our investigation.


You did an investigation into James Van Praagh, the results of which appeared on the Penn & Teller: Bullsh*t! programme, how did this come about?

When Beyond with James Van Praagh began taping in Hollywood, California (down the street from CFI-West and the IIG) we decided to go check it out. Several members went to different tapings. None of us were called on for a reading, but we were able to smuggle in audio recorders and smuggle out a copy of the extensive clearance/non-disclosure form required of audience members to sign. 

We then videotaped the broadcasts of the show and compared the broadcast version with the audio recordings of the actual taping. We went in looking for signs of deception and were surprised to discover that his readings were just not very good. There were huge sections of poor guesses edited out, and we found that it took 5 hours of taping to come up with two 30-minute episodes. We saw the same story when we looked into the taping of John Edward's Crossing Over in New York.


Van Praagh has been caught out a few times cheating. What is it about him do you think that makes his followers ignore blatant proof of deception, and believe he really is psychic?

We don't know about these specific instances that you mention, but the power of self-deception is always amazing.

Losing a loved one makes many people vulnerable to those who claim to be able to communicate with the dead. The intense desire to believe something often overwhelms one's ability to distinguish fact from fiction. It's sad, really, how exploitative the mediums are.


Your group offers $10,000 for any proof of paranormal ability. You have had a few people try to win the money, has anyone ever gotten close to winning? And do you personally think that any psychic ability will ever be proven?

You either have the power, or you do not. There really isn't such a thing as "coming close." If anyone walks out with our check for $10,000, you can be assured that we just saw something amazing. Will psychic ability ever be proven? Doubtful, but believe it or not, we're open-minded, otherwise we wouldn't even bother testing.

We're all of the perspective that the world operates on natural laws. Most supernatural claims seem to be misinterpretation of natural events, bad memory or perception, or deliberate deception. So far, these explanations have sufficed for everything we've seen. It'll be one hell of a surprise the day that changes.

Your group have shown Psychics to be frauds, dowsers to be nonsense, and psychokinesis claims to be rubbish, yet we still hear of all these claims that the CIA and KGB used remote viewers and psychics all the time, we still hear claims that even though officially closed down, these projects still go on secretly. Surely you must believe there is something in all of this, after all can so many believers really be so wrong or deluded?

The government programs looking into remote viewing and psychic ability have been a bust. They found no one who could provide any useful information after years of trying and millions of dollars spent. When put to rigorous scientific testing, psychics and remote viewers fail 100% of the time. Anyone who says otherwise should step forward and claim well over a million dollars in reward money. Don't hold your breath.

Claims are extremely unimpressive to us, and everyone should be skeptical. We demand proof. "Wrong" and "deluded" are unnecessarily antagonistic. They have no proof, so they do not deserve credibility.

I would like to finish with basic Word Association; in a few words can you say what comes to mind.

1. Carla Baron
All talk, no walk.

2. James Van Praagh
Exploits the bereaved for a buck.

3. John Edward
Exploits more of the bereaved for more bucks.

4. Uri Geller
Hack magician makes more moolah as a "psychic."

5. Derek Acorah
Until we googled him, we did not know that Mr. Acorah was "Britain's finest professional Spirit Medium..." We are sorry to say this but his "extensive international... coverage..." hadn't reached us yet. He is welcome to fly out to sunny California and try out for our $10,000 Paranormal Challenge.

6. Colin Fry
We discovered on Mr. Fry's web site that "Colin Fry is an international Spiritualist, Medium and Healer." Although we had not heard of Mr. Fry, we were delighted to learn that "Colin donates to charity." He is also welcome to fly out to sunny California and try out for our $10,000 Paranormal Challenge.

7. Orbs
We assume you are asking about photographic orbs. If so, they are not supernatural in nature, only photographic. These are well-documented photographic artifacts, not goblins.

8. Ghosts
Dream on. They usually show up at night.

9. Psychic Detectives
There has been no legitimate evidence of any psychic abilities to date and therefore there are no legitimate psychic detectives. There is not one solid case of a psychic detective using their powers to solve a crime for the police.

10. Cold Reading
The process by which someone gathers information while appearing to get the info from a supernatural source. It's as old as the desire to see into the future.

Derek Acorah - A Personal Experience Sent In By John Towers - 28/7/04

DEREK UPTO HIS OLD TRICKS AGAIN?

Basically myself and my wife were Most Haunted Fans....although we were sceptical of Derek we nevertheless were open minded.

My wife's father died of cancer about 18 months ago and things have been happening in the house ... doors opening , lights being turned on at night but the most startling thing was while my wife was painting some radiators, with aerosol spray in the bedroom she ran out of spray. So I dashed out and told her to wear a mask which unfortunately was up in the loft from where I'd done some loft boarding. She decided not too out of laziness ... about an hour later I returned and she was in a state.

Apparently there was a crash in the hallway and when she checked the loft hatch it had opened itself and the ladder had been pulled down ... but no one else was in the house and you have to twist the lock with a pole and then actually pull the ladder down with the pole...
We saw that as a sign from her deceased father...

Anyway we found out Derek was coming to Oxford and bought tickets ......and then I made the mistake of e-mailing Derek's website telling him exactly what had gone on in our house ....so he had my name , my wife name and some specific incidents to call upon.

However I did not tell him the name of wifes father or my wife's maiden name. We thought he might want to come round as he was in Oxford and check out if we were imagining things or indeed if there was genuinley any activity, but he never contacted us... Instead we got an automated response from his website saying he can't reply to individual requests due to workload, etc, etc.

The night of the show came and the second person he called out was me....so initially I was quite suprised.

Then he said he had a Mr Towers with him....( my father is still alive and I didn't know my gradfather so I was curious as to who it could be ) ..so I asked him and he couldn't get it ...but then he said is my wife with me.....told me her name was dee and then said he had her father with him.

Then he used word for word the exact same information I had sent his website weeks before ......by now we had rumbled him so we asked the name of this chap and his surname ...what he looked like etc and he couldn't ...then he went off on a tangent...

The next day I e-mailed him again and told him what we thought ..we were furious at being used to fill his pockets...instead we got an email from his wife Gwen denying that he uses e-mails and that he never actually gets to see them anyway because she deletes them.

She said I should send the e-mail in to her again and she would compare it to the tape of the show ( apparently they record every nights show ) .....also that if I thought Derek was a fake that she would arrange a private reading to convince us, so we did that but we never heard anything after that.

Im afraid Derek is a fraud in our eyes from personal experience and he should be exposed ...he's earning a lot of money from telling lies and ripping people off.

Derek Acorah - A Personal Experience Sent In By John Towers - 28/7/04

Tony Stockwell Exposed - Location: I'm Famous and Frightened 2 - LivingTV

Location: I'm Famous and Frightened 2 - LivingTV
Date: 16th July 2004

On the first day of this Live celebrity investigation of Aberdeen's Fyvie Castle, Celebrity Mockney Medium Tony Stockwell conducted a Table Tipping demonstration.

The usual rountine took place, all the celebs had their fingertips on the table, at first nothing happened so celebrity medium Tony Stockwell put his hands on the table.

As soon as he did the table started rocking, at this point celeb believer Daniella Westbrook left the table and stood back to watch. Everytime the table started rocking Tony Stockwell moved back, as soon as he did the rocking of the table diminished.

Later on, after the main show had gone off air, there was an extra live show, celeb believer Jeff Brazier stated that he believed that Tony Stockwell was pushing the table, Daniella Westbrook also admitted that something dodgy was happening although she did not accuse Tony Stockwell.
A bit later on in the night Jeff Brazier made this comment.

"He was definately blaggin' it, and if he blags that, who's to say he doesnt blag it all"
To sum up, two people who took part believed something dodgy was going on, one even stated he was sure that Tony Stockwell was rocking the table.
Again keep in mind Jeff Brazier is a self confessed believer of the paranormal and a fan of Tony Stockwell.

So was this an instance of psychic fraud?
I will as always let you make your own mind up.