Psychics hired by state forensic coroners

Sherlock

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Sherlock
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It seems that some U.S. state and county forensic coroners and public crime labs are the latest income source of psychic detectives. Nine nationwide coroner associations and/or divisions have now admitted to booking paranormal mediums.


Anyone else a bit concerned about how bizarre this is?

Amazingly at least two psychics have been guest speakers at annual state-level coroner conventions since 2005, and three others at smaller regional speaking events. With public law enforcement agencies having halted the hiring of psychics, several “paranormal mediums” have apparently turned to coroners.

The typical topic during speaking engagements has been the need to expand criminal insight of murder victims using direct contact with the dead.


From the current the web site of psychic detective Noreen Renier we find this endorsement from Marlene Lantz, the just retired Chief Deputy Coroner for McHenry County, Illinois. She endorses Renier noting "I asked Noreen if she would come and address the Illinois Coroner's and Medical Examiner's Association at their Spring meeting. We had worked with Noreen on a homicide case in our county and she was a great help to us. I felt it was important to let members of the Association know what a valuable tool a Psychic may be in working those troubling cases. She was both informative and entertaining."


Keep in mind that it was Noreen Renier who previously testified that she has two entities named Robert and Sing who help her contact the spirits of the dead and in one case --- while Renier was still under oath and in court --- she said she stopped a ghost from over-flowing toilets.


Likewise Pennsylvania coroners hosted Noreen Renier at an annual convention held several years ago at the Ramada Inn in Altoona.


Recently “psychic intuitive's” Jennifer Cash and Barb Larsen have also been paid for speaking engagements before coroner groups in California and Texas.


It’s been difficult to ascertain booking fees for all of the events but it appears the Barb Larsen and Jennifer Cash dinner speaking engagements were paid at rates near $3000 and $4800. I assume that included the salmon and steak dinner with wine.
 
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The idea that a coroner's findings of an individual's cause of death might be based not on forensic examination, but on the input of a psychic, frankly chills me. Imagine the number of baseless murder investigations and accusations - or murders dismissed as suicides - that this practice must certainly lead to.
 
Given Noreen's recent legal and financial reverses, I would not believe anything sourced directly from her web site
 
You certainly have a point 'MG' but Marlene Lantz did not deny she made that endorsement, and the paid events in Pennsylvania, Texas, and California with psychics were also confirmed. Checkmite --- I too fully agree and find this extremely disturbing. It doesn't seem to be even sensible to hire those who claim contact with the dead for entertainment at such events. People have died under often horrific situations and the final determination of their death shouldn't be either placed in the hands of unproven paranormal claimants, or even in conjunction with entertainers who pose as intuitives. Coroners should be both ethical and professional and solely determining outcomes through proper measurement methods and valid results.
 
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If the coroner's conclusions were based on information from a psychic, I'd think that would be automatic grounds for appeal if you were convicted of a crime based on this.
 
If true, it's a "Get out of jail free" card for the bad guys.

None of the "information" divulged by a self-proclaimed psychic qualifies as "reasonable suspicion," much less as "probable cause," and no opinon based upon their pronouncements can be held to any "reasonable degree of medical certainty." Self-proclaimed psychics' (for lack of a better word) methods are not "generally accepted within the scientific community" and are virtually by definition not based upon observable or examinable evidence. None of what they say is first-hand information. What they say is, at best, a unqualified hunch. In civilized countries, people are not supposed to go to prison because of unqualified hunches made by non-witnesses.

What this all means is that any official medical opinion based upon a self-proclaimed psychic's contribution is infected to the point that it ought not to support a conviction-- even if the suspect is guilty as hell!!

Any coroner or medical examiner that relies upon such "evidence" is wasting taxpayer money and ought to be brought up on charges of malfeasance.
 
I'm appalled. I was a citizen of McHenry county for a time and will be sending off a concerned missive today. For which I'll be thanked and my opinion summarily dismissed.

Really, we seem to be going backwards.
 
Not only distressing for the obvious reason, but that there still exist coroners in an age when properly-certified Medical Examiners are ( or should be) the norm.
 
Coroners versus medical examiners using psychics

Excellent point Bikewer. As we have seen before "psychic detectives" have sought endorsements from low-level police recruits, part-time traffic cops, county jail workers, and small township and parish agencies with little or no forensic training or investigative knowledge. When they've captured such a low-level endorsement they then re-identify such persons as a "key investigator" or "police detective."

The same game appears to be at work here. Coroners are generally publicly elected and do not have medical degrees covering the cause of death. In many rural areas they can simply be someone who can verify that a death has taken place but not the cause. At this time there is nothing to suggest medical examiner associations have hired psychic detectives as guest speakers or as consultants.

Which brings up the question --- are the particular coroners involved with paranormal "psychic investigators" naive and/or being targeted and used by those they are hiring?
 
Chicago area psychic Mel Doerr and coroner Richard Keller

Here’s a bizarre twist on an additional Illinois coroner involved with a psychic detective.

In 2008 Lake County (Illinois) public coroner Richard Keller turned over a human skull kept by the Lake Forest Police Department to local Mt. Prospect resident and psychic Mel Doerr.

Keller told a Chicago reporter that he selected Doerr because he had worked with him previously and Doerr had indicated that he had provided psychic readings for several law enforcement agencies. Mel Doerr for years has claimed to be a specialist in “Kahuna Hawaiian Shamanism” rituals.

But in a twist, according to a Sun-Times Media news story (Waukengan, Illinois) Keller in February 2011 plead guilty to two felony charges and resigned his coroners position.

Keller had already surrendered his medical license and his Drug Enforcement Administration license in 2008 --- the same time he was handing over the unrelated mysterious skull to Doerr --- and Keller’s felony charges were based on charges of unlawful delivery of a controlled substance.

Those arose from his involvement in the death of a 30-year-old man while he was Clinic Medical Director at the Green Dragonfly Methadone Clinic.

Apparently psychic Mel Doerr missed foreseeing these events of his friend Richard Keller and apparently has also been unable to determine the name and residency address of the man whose human skull he examined.

According to a Chicago Tribune news story the Green Dragonfly Clinic closed in September 2009 after state and federal inspections revealed numerous violations at the facility.

Keller was additionally charged with obstruction of justice for failing to turn over all of the Green Dragonfly clinic's records, as required by a grand jury subpoena. Authorities ended up seizing the records in September 2009 through a search warrant.

In late 2011 self-described psychic detective Mel Doerr continues to practice Shamanism and the skull has been returned to police. Apparently this may represent the best investigative outcome of body parts being provided to a "psychic" by a coroner for examination. Or is there something yet better out there?
 
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Actually I'm all for psychics helping with police investigations.

However, just like all cops go to a state licensed police academy and all medical workers in the police have to go to state certified medical schools, all psychics involved must be properly certified and tested properly.

That would force psychics to actually pass tests and be exposed as the frauds they are.
 
GrandMasterFox said:
Actually I'm all for psychics helping with police investigations.

However, just like all cops go to a state licensed police academy and all medical workers in the police have to go to state certified medical schools, all psychics involved must be properly certified and tested properly.

That would force psychics to actually pass tests and be exposed as the frauds they are.
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I like this idea however maybe consider the fact that just the act of licsening, whether anyone can pass it or not adds a false sense of legitimacy to the whole endeavour.
 
Over twenty years ago, I attended a lecture by a forensic pathologist who discussed the coroner system. At the time, he believed the antiquated notion of a medically unqualified coroner, whether politically appointed or elected, was on the way out.

The stories he told were from his own cases, where he had been called in by the state criminal investigators to review the findings of local coroners.

Most of the states having coroners were southern states.

The tales were horror stories, and there were lots of them. Many of the tales involved the deaths of young black men who had been bound and hanged, or who had been shot in the back, or in the rear of the skull. The coroners ruled them suicides. This was in the mid-1980s.
 
rossbalch said:
I like this idea however maybe consider the fact that just the act of licsening, whether anyone can pass it or not adds a false sense of legitimacy to the whole endeavour.
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Right. Not only that. The same publicly-elected officials who already consult psychics would then say to themselves "Hmmm. If we're going to license psychics, who should we get to devise and administer the tests? Psychics!" And then we have official psychics, on the public payroll no doubt, bringing us more official psychics.
 
No one says how she helped though. I read a case once where a psychic was hired because the criminal was supposedly into the occult. The psychic was hired as an expert in the field, rather than for any paranormal skills. Perhaps she was hired for cold reading skills? Who knows.

I would suggest a combination of a bit part, a misleading quote and a silly booking for an entertaining speech is the truth here. And who's to say she wasn't invited to speak for a good old laugh? My university once got one in just so we could rip them to shreds (figuratively) at the gig.

Let's not leap to conclusions here.
 
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