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| Good Morning America - Psychic Who Said Amanda Berry Was Dead Silent After Berry Is Found Alive (ABC News) |
By COLLEEN CURRY | Good Morning America
Psychic Sylvia Browne, who has made a career of televised psychic readings, told
Louwanna Miller on a 2004 episode of the show that her daughter was dead, causing Miller to break down in tears on the show's set.
"She's not alive, honey," Browne told Miller on the show, according to the
Cleveland Plain Dealer newspaper. "Your daughter's not the kind who wouldn't call."
Miller told the newspaper that she believed "98 percent" in what Browne told her. Miller died a year later from heart failure.
On Monday, Berry was found alive after she broke free from a home in
Cleveland where she says she has been kept for the past decade.
Browne did not return phone calls seeking comment today by ABC News.
The Montel Williams show, through syndicator CBS, also did not return
calls for comment. The show no longer airs new episodes.
It's not the first time that Browne, and other psychics, have come under fire for their involvement in law enforcement cases.
In 2003,
Browne incorrectly told the parents
of missing teen Shawn Hornbeck that their son was dead, and his body
could be found somewhere near "two jagged boulders," according to her
premonition.
Nearly four years later, Hornbeck was found alive, and Browne was
widely criticized in the media for causing the Hornbecks additional
grief.
A website called "Stop Sylvia Browne," dedicated to cataloguing Browne's purported failures at prediction, sprang up in 2006.
Last year, Dwayne Baker told ABC News that after his son went missing
in 2007, he was flooded with calls from psychics offering potential
leads into the whereabouts of Travis Baker.
"It's very hard,' Dwayne Baker said. "I went through everything. My
son was missing for two years, two months and 12 days. "Psychics called
me. I even received a DVD in the mail that a guy claimed he could talk
to the dead and this was Travis' voice, with no return address. I don't
understand why people would want to do that."
"The psychics…" said Baker, 45, before pausing to let out a long
sigh. "I hate to say how many of those called me and said they knew
where Travis was. My mother and wife went to one and paid them $100."
Travis Baker's remains were located in 2009.
Brad Garret, a former special agent with the FBI and ABC News
consultant said that alleged tips from psychics rarely help solve a
case.
"As far as finding a victim, finding remains, finding evidence or in
any way helping to solve the case, it's never been my experience," he
said. "So, it's really a disservice to victims."
"We've never had a psychic lead that turns out to be correct," said
Lt. Dave Parker, of the Anchorage, Alaska, police department, after
18-year-old Samantha Koenig went missing in February, 2012.
Today, Brown faced backlash on social media for her incorrect
prediction about Amanda Berry. It is unclear whether she has helped to
solve a crime with her psychic predictions.
"Psychics make me sick. Here's an example: Sylvia Browne told Amanda
Berry's Mum (now dead) her daughter was dead," wrote Twitter user Chris
McBriarty.
http://gma.yahoo.com/psychic-said-amanda-berry-dead-silent-berry-found-212849667--abc-news-topstories.html
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