Dorothy Allison, 74, 'Psychic Detective' Consulted by Police.
(Metropolitan Desk)(Obituary). Douglas Martin.
The New York Times (Dec 20, 1999): pNA.
Dorothy Allison, a self-proclaimed psychic with a knack for turning up at the scenes of notorious crimes, died on Dec. 1 at Clara Maass Medical Center in Belleville, N.J. She was 74 and lived in Nutley, N.J.
The cause was heart failure, The Associated Press reported.
Ms. Allison, a small woman in thick, oversized glasses, materialized to offer to solve crimes including the Patricia Hearst kidnapping, the ''Son of Sam'' killings, the murders of children in Atlanta and the death of JonBenet Ramsey. She was not successful in those cases, but her supporters insist that she hit the mark on others.
Chief Robert DeLitta of the Nutley Police Department, which became something of a booking agent for Ms. Allison, said, ''The information she provided was very, very accurate -- right on the money.'' He said hundreds of police departments from all over the world called the Nutley police to reach her.
Her fame made her the emblem of a vigorous debate about the efficacy and legitimacy of so-called psychic detectives. ''Dorothy couldn't locate Patty,'' Randolph Hearst, Patricia's father, said in a Newsweek interview. ''But she is honest and reputable. I wouldn't laugh at it.''
But skeptics, many armed with volumes of research, insist that psychics have never solved a single crime. Joe Nickell, a columnist for Skeptical Inquirer, the magazine of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal, said in an interview that psychic detectives use a trick called ''retrofitting,'' which involves tossing out several clues, like a number or a mention of water, that are interpreted to fit the facts after they become known.
Police departments may waste valuable time and resources digging in specific spots and draining ponds on the erroneous advice of a psychic, he said. ''Certainly Dorothy Allison caused a great deal of -- I'm sure unintended -- mischief,'' he said.
Michael Shermer, the publisher of Skeptic magazine, said in an interview that psychic detectives commonly make logical predictions; for example, they suggest that a corpse will be found in a remote area.
''If you have a body, are you going to dump it in a crowded city?'' he asked.
When Ms. Allison named names, they were not always the right ones. In the case of the murders of about a dozen black children in Atlanta in 1979-80, she gave the police 42 names of possible killers, and none of the names were Wayne or Williams. A man named Wayne B. Williams was eventually convicted of the crimes.
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In interviews over the years, Ms. Allison said she had worked on more than 5,000 cases, so many that she had trouble recalling the names of victims. She said she had led detectives to 250 bodies and had solved hundreds of murders. Among the police departments that consulted her was New York City's.
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Ms. Allison refused payment for her work, saying it would be ''blood money.'' She did accept money for expenses and payments for appearances on talk shows and other forums. She also wrote articles and books, the most successful of which was ''A Psychic's Story,'' published in 1980.
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''If you asked me if I believe in psychics, I'd say no -- only very few,'' Ms. Allison said in a New York Times interview in 1996.
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