chillzero
Penultimate Amazing
- Joined
- Dec 11, 2002
- Messages
- 15,547
I wondered if anyone else saw this program on Living TV a few days back?
It was about a body that was unclaimed after the King's Cross Station fire in 1987, and how a team of psychic detectives attempted to help the police identify him. I was initially impressed that the info claimed the psychic team (Colin Fry, Tony Stockwell and some woman whose name I forget) attempted to help the police not claiming success at the outset.
There were 2 families who had fathers missing that fitted the description of this body quite well. For some reason never explained the policedid not do any DNA tests, so one called in this team, and asked the families to participate. One family agreed.
The team went initially to the family home and did some reading about the missing father. This was amusing to watch as the woman was quite pathetic even in cold reading terms. Then they went to the son's home and did some more reading. This is where the cracks started to show. They claimed that the father was not the man known as body 115 from King's Cross. They told the son and daughter that their father had passed over around the same time, but that he had fallen into water. Tony Stockwell added that he had been murdered and buried. He waffled on about a metal fence and gravelly ground.
Colin Fry then spoke to them alone, and told them that a young man had attempted to take money from their father, and when he resisted he was struck on the head, and fell in the water. The robber then pulled him from the water, and on realising he was dead panicked and pushed him back in the water, where he became trapped in a storm drain.
They then got a proper detective to identify the canal in question. They all trotted down to it after checking another location they immediately dismissed. As they approached the water, the woman started complaining about a pain in her side - inconsistent with the knock to the head previously claimed. Then they made a story about the man being very afraid, and hiding from some people who were searching for him. They mentioned voices. They walked along the canal, and after various little dramatic scenes decided that the man was followed by one man, and afraid, and then beaten so that he fell in the water twice, before the killer finally pushed him back in the water.
There was a metal fence nearby that Tony Stockwell claimed as the one he had seen - ignoring that it was on grass, and leading onto brick - no gravel, and not the kind you can push aside and crawl through as he had claimed.
They found a drain (after looking over the edge plenty), and got advice about what would happen to a body hidden there. The advice was that it would either be washed through the storm drains until it reached places it would be found, or it would be washed down river where it would be pulled out by the police. There was a very small possibility that it could be trapped by an object on the bottom, but it was revealed that the canal had recently been dragged for a different case and nothing was found.
However, they happily wrote this up as a success, and the daughter was happy to believe them. The body did turn out to belong to the other family. but my interpretation of the program was that the police already believed this and may have revealed this to the psychics (fingerprint analysis had been done, and we were told there was no match, but the daughter interpreted this as 'inconclusive').
It was quite amusing to watch the dramatics of the psychic team, and it was a clear lesson in cold reading, hot reading and fishing about.
Anyone else see it?
It was about a body that was unclaimed after the King's Cross Station fire in 1987, and how a team of psychic detectives attempted to help the police identify him. I was initially impressed that the info claimed the psychic team (Colin Fry, Tony Stockwell and some woman whose name I forget) attempted to help the police not claiming success at the outset.
There were 2 families who had fathers missing that fitted the description of this body quite well. For some reason never explained the policedid not do any DNA tests, so one called in this team, and asked the families to participate. One family agreed.
The team went initially to the family home and did some reading about the missing father. This was amusing to watch as the woman was quite pathetic even in cold reading terms. Then they went to the son's home and did some more reading. This is where the cracks started to show. They claimed that the father was not the man known as body 115 from King's Cross. They told the son and daughter that their father had passed over around the same time, but that he had fallen into water. Tony Stockwell added that he had been murdered and buried. He waffled on about a metal fence and gravelly ground.
Colin Fry then spoke to them alone, and told them that a young man had attempted to take money from their father, and when he resisted he was struck on the head, and fell in the water. The robber then pulled him from the water, and on realising he was dead panicked and pushed him back in the water, where he became trapped in a storm drain.
They then got a proper detective to identify the canal in question. They all trotted down to it after checking another location they immediately dismissed. As they approached the water, the woman started complaining about a pain in her side - inconsistent with the knock to the head previously claimed. Then they made a story about the man being very afraid, and hiding from some people who were searching for him. They mentioned voices. They walked along the canal, and after various little dramatic scenes decided that the man was followed by one man, and afraid, and then beaten so that he fell in the water twice, before the killer finally pushed him back in the water.
There was a metal fence nearby that Tony Stockwell claimed as the one he had seen - ignoring that it was on grass, and leading onto brick - no gravel, and not the kind you can push aside and crawl through as he had claimed.
They found a drain (after looking over the edge plenty), and got advice about what would happen to a body hidden there. The advice was that it would either be washed through the storm drains until it reached places it would be found, or it would be washed down river where it would be pulled out by the police. There was a very small possibility that it could be trapped by an object on the bottom, but it was revealed that the canal had recently been dragged for a different case and nothing was found.
However, they happily wrote this up as a success, and the daughter was happy to believe them. The body did turn out to belong to the other family. but my interpretation of the program was that the police already believed this and may have revealed this to the psychics (fingerprint analysis had been done, and we were told there was no match, but the daughter interpreted this as 'inconclusive').
It was quite amusing to watch the dramatics of the psychic team, and it was a clear lesson in cold reading, hot reading and fishing about.
Anyone else see it?