I decided to write to local politicians to see if I could initiate the establishment of an Amber Alert system in Phoenix. I contacted local missing persons organizations asking for their help, but to no avail. So I did the work on my own. Of the many letters I wrote, I received a response from only one politician, but one politician was all I needed. I was asked to serve on the task force to design the alert and I was honored to do so.
I chose to remain anonymous until the alert system was made public and put into use because I didn’t want to diminish its credibility in any way. (It made me sad, but I was just being realistic.) Meanwhile, a year passed and the alert system still hadn’t been introduced to the public. I was beginning to grow impatient. In March, three years to the very day since the little girl in Texas had been abducted, the alert system was spontaneously unveiled in Maricopa County. The Texas girl was not only the reason for my learning about the alert, but also, I believe, the reason that I had so much help moving it along.
A whole chain of events had to occur in order for me to bring my hometown alert alive. Now children in Arizona will have a chance to survive what the little girl in Texas didn’t. I think it’s no coincidence that the alert system was unveiled in Phoenix on the anniversary of her abduction. It is true that everything happens for a reason.
Two months after being unveiled, the alert brought back a little girl who had been taken by her non-custodial dad. He had made some questionable statements that could be interpreted as physical threats. A trucker spotted her dad’s license plate and she was recovered three hours later.
I was asked by a local news station whether it was a mistake to activate the alert in a parental abduction. My response was that parental abduction should not be exempted if a child may be in danger. It’s a call that the police have to make on a case-by-case basis, and I think they made the right one. The abducted girl was home safe and sound with her mother for Thanksgiving dinner that week.
The Maricopa County alert went on to save a baby who was in the backseat during a carjacking just two months later. Countless children have been saved thanks to this clever alert system.
The little Texas girl’s remains were recovered in January 2004, and she was finally brought home to her family. I was able both to confirm the correct information that I had provided to the police and to learn from the markers (physical clues and locations) that I misread.
For example, I kept seeing small airplanes (not commercial) and later I kicked myself for not being more vigilant: I should have narrowed the location of remains to areas near airports, Air Force bases, and so on. The body was located a mile from an Air Force base. I had said over and over she was by government land, large parks and barbed wire fences. I kept seeing the word “pueblo,” and as it turned out, Pueblo Trail was near the area of her remains. I also kept seeing “Timber,” and Timber Wolf Lane was near the area.
This type of search is not an exact science, and not all information may be confirmed. But many of the markers I receive can be helpful when properly applied. I could have narrowed the search to a square mile. That may sound like a huge area, but when police are looking for a small child in the state of Texas, narrowing the search to a mile is excellent. Sometimes it’s not in the grand plan that profilers ever find the murder victim. Sometimes others’ lives are supposed to be affected by the discovery of a body—for instance, a hiker may be meant to stumble upon someone’s remains.
Remember, real life is the only way for head-tappers to learn and become effective. In the four years since I worked on this case I’ve sharpened my skills considerably, but I will never forget that little girl in Texas who forever changed my life through her whispers.
Elizabeth Smart
Everyone I came across in 2002 wanted to know what I thought about Elizabeth Smart’s abduction. Since the outcome of her case was not only happy but miraculous, I will share some of the pertinent details. Before her return, I had shared this information with a reputable search-and-rescue team that was deployed to Utah.
In June 2002, Elizabeth Smart was abducted from her home. Her heartbreaking story was on every major news program in America. The nation watched as the Smart family searched desperately for their daughter. We were all witness to every parent’s worst nightmare.
I, like everybody else, saw Elizabeth’s picture on TV and wished I could help. But I don’t make a practice of giving information on a case unless I am asked for my input. Soon after the abduction, my friend Catherine asked me to provide a profile of the perpetrator to be sent to the search-and-rescue team in Utah. All the information I provided is on record and verifiable.
In my profile I stated that the perpetrator had the name Brian connected to him. I stated that he had worked for the Smarts as a groundskeeper/handyman. He was a transient, but he managed to function in society. He would often change his appearance, and I was picking up on a strong connection to California, so he might have fled there or been from there. He had pedophilic tendencies, with a possible history of acting on them. I also described a small town outside the city where Elizabeth was abducted as being a place that he’d reside or spend a lot of time. It was somehow significant to him. I also knew that he’d taken Elizabeth to a forest area, a setting with pine trees.
As the authorities later learned, the man arrested in the kidnapping of Elizabeth Smart was Brian David Mitchell. He had worked for the Smarts briefly as a groundskeeper/handyman. He was a drifter who just a decade prior had been a family man. When he abducted Elizabeth, he held her in a forestlike campground area; he later took her to San Diego, California. His ex-wife alleged that Brian was a pedophile.
Unfortunately, none of my information was acted on when I first shared it. It was only discovered to be accurate after Elizabeth was recognized on the street by an observant stranger, who notified the authorities.
These details could have helped much sooner if they had been used. If my information couldn’t help identify the perpetrator and thus help lead us to the victim, I wouldn’t even bother to profile. The name of the perpetrator and his association to the victim are key, but the information is only useful if it is put to use. I hope someday the system will recognize people like me who are legitimate so that our insights can be shared with the proper authorities as soon as a kidnapping occurs. Otherwise, what good is this gift?
Once again, ours isn’t a perfect science. Profilers are still human beings who will have margins of error, like everyone else. But there is no doubt that profiling can help victims. It is an ability that must be acknowledged, because the stakes are so high: human life.
Lost in the Desert
One day I received a call from my mentor, Catherine, who is also a medium; she and I have held many group sessions as a duo. One of the ladies from a group session had a sister whose friends were missing. I had been watching the situation unfold on the news for a couple of days and it was receiving a lot of local coverage.
The general assumption was that the three missing people might have been carjacked and possibly killed. Steve Cerqua, his wife, Kathy, and Kathy’s mother had all disappeared. There were records of ATM withdrawals and a record of the family shopping at a local store, but they hadn’t been heard from since. I accepted Catherine’s request for me to help them, and received a phone call from some of the the missing people’s relatives on the second day after their disappearance.
I started by asking who drove the Toyota Camry. I knew the Cerquas and Sally Rosenwinkel weren’t driving one when they disappeared, because I’d seen a description of their vehicle on the news, but I needed to confirm that I’d made the right connection. I was told that the Cerquas’ daughter drove a Camry that she often parked in their driveway.
Good! I had the right person. I was connecting with Steve Cerqua. I told the family that all three were alive and not to worry. I added that the missing trio would be found within five days of their disappearance and that they would return safely.
The family wanted to know why Steve hadn’t
used his cell phone to call them.
“He couldn’t use it where he was. It wouldn’t work,” I told them.
They wanted to know the obvious: Why were their relatives missing?
I told them that the vehicle the couple was driving was not capable of going where Steve had wanted it to go. It was stuck in mud or something thick. Also, Steve had felt pretty comfortable with his navigating ability, and that had something to do with his making a driving error.
Their daughter wanted to know if her dad would leave her mother and grandmother to go for help, and I said yes. The friends and family of the missing group had mixed feelings about that. They found it hard to believe that he’d ever leave his wife. I told them that he had no other choice; he would do it to save them. Then I gave the general location of the missing trio, saying that they were farther away than people thought, and I described a lake and picnic area nearby.
The missing couple’s daughter was able to retain some hope that indeed her parents were alive. Catherine insisted that I call the detective on the case and give him my input, which I did. Unfortunately, the police didn’t seem to think my information was valid, and they did not want my help.
The three dehydrated people were rescued four days after their disappearance. Steve had been trying to take a shortcut and his 4X2 got stuck in the mud. He couldn’t use his cell phone because of the mountains. Finally, on the fourth day, he left Kathy and his mother-in-law to attempt to climb a nearby mountain from the top of which he hoped to obtain phone reception. He was gone for hours, but was successful in placing a call for help. A local news helicopter arrived to assist them.
Steve and Kathy celebrated their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary later that week in Hawaii. When they returned, they had a party for all of those who helped out during their disappearance. I was not able to attend, but Catherine did, and she said it was a wonderful evening. The family made a scrapbook with all of the news clippings from their disappearance, including a page designated for the psychics who worked on their case. It just doesn’t get any better than that!
The Cerqua story will always remind me that missing persons can actually be alive and well. I live for cases like theirs! Even though my information didn’t actually save them, it provided great comfort to their loved ones during their absence. I refer to this story whenever I need to remember a happy ending.
Head Tapping
Profiling is not just about dealing with mysteries and criminals. Sometimes it involves probing the minds of people who are involved in situations that are not matters of life and death. I was once useful in helping a client locate millions of dollars in inheritance money. I did this through a phone reading, without being given any information: I brought through the sitter’s deceased father, who said his daughter had inheritance money coming and told me where it was. I provided her with the country where the money could be found and told her whom she should contact for proof of its existence. She located the money and the person who had the proof.
I also receive many calls from people trying to get information about loved ones who are up to something. There’s nothing like tapping into a person’s head and then having to tell my client that I see his wife near a bar in a parking lot meeting another man. I almost always receive word back. Without fail, my client calls back to confirm my information and then adds that this isn’t the first time the spouse had strayed.
Sometimes a husband will think his wife has been abducted when in fact she has run off. It’s a little distracting to get a distress call, only to find that she is not a victim, that the husband knew that it was a possibility that she was out carousing. I prefer to be left out of these situations.
If I tap into a person’s head when he or she is drunk or on drugs, I can feel the dulling, slowing effects myself. I also feel their emotions. Head tapping is interesting, because it allows me to really get into someone’s thoughts. However, children who have been brutally traumatized are usually inaccessible to me. I have to get my information from the perpetrator’s head, not the child’s. The child was usually too confused to know what was really happening, so it’s more difficult to read.
I am also used for jury selection in rape/homicide cases, in order to obtain the sentence the prosecution wants. I only work with prosecution teams I am familiar with. Also, I only work cases where there is no doubt the defendant committed the crime. I want the information I receive to be backed up by DNA evidence. I do not take what I do lightly.
I have been asked if that’s stacking the deck against the defense. First of all, I hope so. Second, I am only choosing from a pool of potential jurors already selected by our justice system. Finally, I have to say that defense attorneys would try to discredit people like me anyway. If I can’t do what I say I can do, if they are right in saying that my information is unreliable, then they have nothing to worry about. Besides, the prosecutors ultimately go with their own final decisions.
No Other Road to Walk
One case that I took more personally than most was the death of a witness who was going to be testifying in court the next day. She was also a mother, and her children were in the house when she was murdered in cold blood.
Being a mother, I gave this one everything I had to give; it consumed me. The defendant had no remorse. What most people didn’t see was that the victim herself was there in the courtroom every day of that trial. On the day of closing arguments, I walked into the courtroom while fumbling through my oversized purse in search of my lipstick. Just then, I heard a soft female voice say, “That’s my boy!”
I glanced to my left and the murder victim was sitting beside me, smiling. I looked up and saw the back of a young man’s head. Just then the prosecutor walked up with a young man he introduced as the victim’s son Neil, and we shook hands.
This was another one of the defendant’s casualties, one who would become a strong and significant man in spite of the thug who killed his mother. In my thoughts I heard, “You’re here for him. You fight for him!”
I gave Neil a ride home that day. He opened his wallet to show me his mom’s picture, one of many family pictures in his wallet. That said it all.
I gave him my phone number and told him to call me if he ever needed anything at all. He said thanks and we parted ways. He never knew the extent of what I do. It wasn’t necessary. All he needed to know was that I was a jury consultant who cared about his mom’s case.
Meanwhile, the lead prosecutor was growing very concerned about jurors having to be excused and replaced at the last minute. On Saturday I attended a party at the prosecutor’s house. She was frazzled, wanting to know when the jury would come back with the sentence and what that sentence would be.
“Boy, they don’t ask for much, do they?” I thought sarcastically. I shot back at her: “Tuesday at three the jury will come back in favor of the prosecution’s plea for the death penalty.”
She smiled and said she felt a little better, but she still had that huge knot in her stomach. After all, a lot was riding on her ability.
The case had begun to take a toll on my health, and I caught a cold over the weekend. I found comfort in getting sauced on cold medicine. Tuesday morning rolled around and my weary eyes opened to look at the clock. It was 9:30; the jury had just gone into deliberation. I was sick to my stomach, but it wasn’t from my cold. I felt the weight of the prosecution on my shoulders, as well as that of the victim and her children. I wanted to bring them some justice and let those kids know that their mom mattered.
I also wanted to make sure that this murderer was never released to kill again, and there was plenty of evidence that he would have done just that. My head felt as if it was in a vise all morning. Eventually it was three o’clock. I picked up the phone to call the prosecutor, hoping that she had gotten a verdict.
She picked up the line immediately. “We just got the call! The jury is back with their sentence! I’ve got to go; I’ll call you when it’s over. And Allison, just so you know—the jury came back at
two fifty-seven P.M.”
We hung up as I watched the clock ticking. I drove to the mall to do an errand, my heart pounding and a lump in my throat the entire time.
After half an hour the phone rang. I almost jumped out of my skin.
“Hello?”
“Allison, you’re good.”
“Did we get the death penalty?”
“Yes.”
I had to know: “What did the defendant do when it was read?”
“He laughed.”
A happy ending. But I want to emphasize that I alone didn’t achieve these results. It took a lot of good police work and the right, gifted legal team to make this happen. It also took the bravery of the young children who will always remain a part of their mother.
After every case I say to myself, “This is my life.” Some people say they could never do my job even if they had the ability to. I can understand. It’s a tall order, but for some reason I can’t do anything else.
Chapter 5
Kindergarten Mediums
My six-year-old daughter, Ariel, came home from school one day upset because her peers weren’t able to see the apparition of a man who stood in the hall in front of her classroom at school. She described him to them and her classmates laughed at her. When she turned around, he was gone.
I found out later that Ariel’s friend Erin had leaned over and whispered, “I can see him too, Ariel.” I am so tickled that Ariel has a friend her age with the same gift, so she doesn’t feel so alienated. Ariel and Erin talk to each other about their abilities and about what I do. They know that not everyone can see the things they do, and that that’s okay. They like having their special “powers.”
Don't Kiss Them Good-bye Page 4