Judith Richardson Haimes, a mother of six, assisted law enforcement in about 100 criminal cases throughout the northeast by using her psychic abilities. The most difficult situations, she discovered, involved missing children.
When Gretchen Harrington, then 8 years old, vanished in 1975, Delaware police turned to her for help in finding the child. Harrington disappeared that August while traveling to a Bible camp in Marple, Pennsylvania.
In a September interview with Insider, Richardson Haimes expressed her desire for her prediction not to come true.
Richardson Haimes made the statement while seated in a room with police.
The 79-year-old Richardson Haimes remembered saying, “Oh my God, she’s dead,” and how everyone was inconsolable.
Harrington was found dead a month later.
Daniel G. Nearly fifty years after the incident, Zandstra, who was residing in Marietta, Georgia, was charged with murder and kidnapping.
According to the district attorney, Zandstra was a close friend of the Harringtons and was the pastor of Trinity Church Chapel Christian Reform Church in Broomall when Harrington passed away.
The prosecution claims that the arrest came about as a result of a friend of Zandstra’s daughter contacting the police.
She was informed that her father occasionally behaved in that manner when she explained what had happened to his daughter. Police were informed by the woman that Zandstra had stroked her groin area when she was 10 years old during a sleepover.
The woman also gave detectives her diary from 1975, in which she wrote that she believed Zandstra had nearly been kidnapped twice.
When Zandstra was questioned by the Georgia sexual assault investigators this month, the prosecution claims he admitted to them that he had killed Harrington after picking her up on her way to camp.
He accepted my offer to take Gretchen to a forest area nearby. The defendant claimed that he had stopped the car and told the victim to remove her clothes, the district attorney’s office said in a statement.
According to the testimony he gave to police, Zandstra allegedly punched Harrington in the head with a fist after she refused. Zandstra allegedly covered her body after concluding she had passed away and fled the scene.
“I have goosebumps all over because I so badly wanted to be wrong. ”.
Richardson Haimes acknowledged that she couldn’t recall many details about the nearly 50 years ago case, but she did have the impression that the offender belonged to the Sunday school or bible school.
If they didn’t catch him back then, I knew he would hide in plain sight, the woman said. ”.
Richardson Haimes claimed to have strict guidelines for cases involving missing persons.
She referred the victim’s family to the police when they contacted her directly because she would never take on a case with the present. She claimed that she only took part in incidents where the police specifically asked her to do so.
Because she was worried about her family’s safety, she also generally didn’t want her involvement to be known to the public.
She was wary of detractors who didn’t like that she was given serious consideration by the police as well as retaliation from criminals.
When a young woman’s headless torso was discovered in New Jersey, she assisted state police. She stated that she was a target, so the agency must have known about her involvement.
A bang was once heard on my front porch. I went and opened the bag they left,” she remarked. The container contained a head of cabbage. ”.
Richardson Haimes stopped working as a professional psychic for private clients and stopped volunteering for law enforcement organizations after experiencing a brain bleed as a result of an allergic reaction to medication while undergoing a CAT scan in 1977. When she tried to concentrate, she would also get terrible migraines.
She filed a historic lawsuit against Philadelphia’s Temple University on the grounds that the allergic reaction cost her her income as a clairvoyant and caused her to go broke. But ultimately, both the case and the award were overturned.
After many years, she no longer has severe headaches, but she only conducts readings for herself these days.
“Psychics have never resolved a criminal case. That is not how it operates, she continued. “We serve as a tool for investigations. Assistance is provided. ”.
A sixth sense that is challenging to explain is what Richardson Haimes defines as being psychic.
She first became aware of her ability to foresee the future or know what had already occurred when she was about six years old and living in rural Kentucky with her mother.
Her mother was concerned that word would get around the town.
She said, “Someone like me was possessed in the heart of the bible belt, Kentucky.
On the other hand, Richardson Haimes considers her skills to be instinctual rather than extraordinary.
She said, “There are different types of people in my field — people who are outright liars and people who are well-intentioned moron. Then there are those who have a highly developed sixth sense that is essentially just an animal instinct. ”.
On the Gulf of Mexico in Florida, Richardson Haimes currently resides in Clearwater.
Her oldest daughter, in her 60s, has “a tremendous amount of psychic ability,” but has never pursued it professionally.
She partly credits the fact that three of her sons went on to work in law enforcement for her own career in the criminal justice field. She recalled times when she had praised them for using their “sixth sense” in certain circumstances, but they had retaliated by saying it was just “cop sense.”. ”.
You could say they have a healthy dose of skepticism, she said. “With this, you have to have it. Simply believing what others say is not enough. They must show you the proof. ”.
Richardson Haimes said that while she is relieved that “the perpetrator” has been found, she does not believe Harrington’s death was an accident.
According to Insider, a lawyer could not be located for Zandstra, who has been denied bail and is fighting his extradition from Georgia to Delaware.
“I suppose that clears his conscience,” she said. That is undoubtedly not how it occurred, I can assure you. ”.
