Haunting evidence follow-up: TV psychic detectives fail again

In the September/October 2006 issue of SKEPTICAL INQUIRER, I reported on a Court TV "reality" show, Haunting Evidence. The series follows three investigators as they revisit real-life cold murder cases, hoping to succeed where police had failed. Carla Baron (touted as a "psychic profiler") is joined by New Age bookstore owner (and "highly esteemed medium") John J. Oliver, and Patrick Burns, founder of Ghost Hounds paranormal investigation network.

If the Haunting Evidence psychics can provide valid, reliable evidence that leads police to suspects and solves crimes, they should be used in every police department. But psychics' claims often don't live up to reality, and I promised a follow-up at the end of the first season to see how many cases the psychic team had solved.

In one high-profile episode, the group went to Athens, Georgia, to look into the unsolved 2001 murder of college student Tara Baker. The trio visited the Baker family, camera crew in tow, and asked them to relive their daughter's death. Oliver, the medium, stated that the police already have the DNA evidence they need to find Baker's murderer and that he will be caught. The team turned over a sketch of the murderer to the Athens police. That was over a year ago, yet Baker's murder remains unsolved, and according to the Baker family's Web site there is "still no progress toward solving Tara's murder."

A member of Tara Baker's family contacted me about the Haunting Evidence team's intrusion into their family tragedy and provided an interesting glimpse into the family's point of view. He stated, "'Psychic' investigators and the producers of such programs feed on the emotions of people in real tragedies.... The only reason we agreed to do the show was because the case is completely stalled and the initial investigations [were] so severely botched.... The worst thing about this experience is when people come up to me and commend my family for doing the show, telling me what a brilliant psychic Carla Baron is.... [T]hat woman was a real fruit loop." (The Baker family's comments about psychics and their reservations about participating in the show were of course edited out of the episode that aired.)

So Tara Baker's murder remains unsolved, and her family was less than impressed by the "psychics." But that's only one failure; how many of the eight other cases featured in the first season of Haunting Evidence did the team solve?

Not a single one. Zero.

In any other profession, a success rate of zero means you have utterly failed; you can't do whatever it is you claim to do, and you should admit it, pack it up, and go home. Yet despite their fully documented complete lack of success, the series was renewed for a second (and possibly third) season. I was hoping at the end of season one to see a follow-up episode in which the team would profile their many successes, congratulate themselves for helping families and solving crimes, and gloat about having shown up the skeptics. That show was never scheduled.

While almost all of the murderers remain at large, at least one of the cases has since been solved: that of slain New Mexico State University student Katie Sepich. Sepich was assaulted and killed in 2003, her body left in a dump in Las Cruces, New Mexico. Haunting Evidence asked, "With the case stalled and a sexual predator at large in a college town, can the team of paranormal investigators fill in the holes in the Sepich case?" Patrick Burns mentioned the Sepich case as a success in a September 20, 2007, post on his Web site: "I am often asked will there ever be follow-up episodes for any resolutions in these cases? There already has been! The Katie Sepich case from season one has been resolved.... You will be amazed by the details and accuracy that John J. Oliver hit on for this one!" Burns certainly makes it sound like the Haunting Evidence team solved the case and brought the killer to justice.

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However, according to District Attorney Susana Martinez, the case was solved by science, not psychics. Gabriel Avila, a convicted felon serving time for unrelated crimes, confessed to killing Sepich after police matched his DNA to a sample found on Sepich's body. In reports of the arrest, there was no mention of any useful information provided by Oliver, Burns, or Baron--certainly nothing that led police to Avila or solved the case--and it's remarkable that Burns would suggest his team deserves credit for an arrest brought about by police work and DNA analysis.

On its Web site, Court TV recently polled its viewers, asking, "Two seasons of Haunting Evidence are now complete. Do you feel the show has contributed to help solve the featured cases?" Incredibly, two-thirds of the respondents (62 percent) voted "Yes; the team has certainly disclosed much new information," while 37 percent voted "No, we still don't know most of the killers." It's clear that many audience members have a shaky grasp of logic and assume that if the Haunting Evidence team gives information--any information, correct, incorrect, previously known, or unverifiable--to police, that counts as some sort of success. To police, the victims' families, and skeptics, the results speak for themselves: Either the information provided by the psychics helped solve the cases, or it didn't. Carla Baron and the other high-profile investigators have had a chance to prove their powers and solve crimes on camera in the public eye. In every single case, they have failed.