Haunting Evidence was a television series running from 2005 to 2007 following the travels of a psychic profiler, a medium, and a paranormal investigator through the US to investigate “cold case” homicide and missing persons cases. The idea was that this team of “unconventional investigators” could shed new light on unsolved crimes, which they didn’t. The final cast consisted of “psychic profiler” Carla Baron, medium John J. Oliver, and “paranormal investigator” Patrick Burns.
Like all such TV shows, this one preyed on vulnerable and desperate families as a source for public entertainment (though it wasn’t presented as such), and instead of producing results it, once again, lent “credibility to psychics who have once again clearly and demonstrably failed to give useful information.” Even one of the families involved admitted that these frauds “feed on the emotions of people in real tragedies”, and called Carla Baron “a real fruit loop.”
Baron herself claims to have ample experience helping the police solve cases. Though when the Independent Investigative Group (IIG) looked into 14 cases where Carla Baron claimed to have assisted detectives, the police – needless to say – did not support her claims, and in most cases even the families of the victims admitted that they currently “distrust Baron who they say provided no useful insights and demanded media attention from the start” (a useful resource here). Skepdic has been loosely following her involvement in the investigations of the Ray Gricar case. And in 2011, when the family of Holly Bobo declined Baron’s offer for help, Baron wrote on her website that the family “chose not to seek her information on Holly’s death on the advice of the police,” who, Baron believes, were “terrified to hear what I might have to say” about the abduction. “This, my friends, is yet another ‘control’ tactic deployed by the infinite ‘powers-that-be’ within gov’t jurisdiction to let all of us (a.k.a., the ‘public’) know – Who’s really running the show. Let’s not let anyone steal their proverbial thunder, shall we?” At least the comment illustrates rather nicely what kind of person we’re dealing with here. Earlier in her career, Baron drew some attention for appearing on a British television show called “Dead Famous” claiming to channel the spirit of Jim Morrison, and she built her celebrity career, such as it is, as “official psychic spokeswoman for Court TV.”
“Paranormal investigator” Patrick Burns (a.k.a. “Ghostgeek”) is worth a mention as well. He is the organizer of Ghostock, a series of paranormal enthusiast events, and author of several books such as the admittedly market-savvy The Other Side: A Teen’s Guide To Ghost Hunting And The Paranormal (with his wife Marley Gibson), targeted at a particularly gullible audience. John Oliver, on the other hand, is a spiritual teacher and psychic consultant, who is “educated in the spiritual sciences of astrology, tarot as a spiritual journey of the human, and classic school feng shui,” and who arranges seminars throughout the US on “how to develop your ESP.”
Diagnosis: Carla Baron is an utterly bankrupt human being, and the others aren’t much better. These are people who shamelessly prey on people in difficult situation for fame and media attention in the most revolting manner possible.