Sleuth for Truth

A Gulfport merchant offers her own blend of detective skills to local police

By Marian Jarlenski, Staff Writer

Carole Unser is not the typical amateur detective. She has no magnifying glass. She has no education in criminal justice. She doesn’t even have a sidekick named Watson.

Instead, the Gulfport merchant wants to use clairvoyance—the ability to conjure images through a psychic sense—to help police investigate crimes.

Unser, who is part owner of a six-month-old store called “Angel’s Blessings” on Beach Boulevard South, does not use crystal balls or run a psychic hot line. She says she wants to increase public credibility of professional psychics.

“When I say ‘professional,’ I don’t mean bigger and better. I mean quality-wise,” said the 60-year-old Unser. “I always strive for the highest and best in clarity and accuracy.”
Stories of psychic sleuths abound. In April, the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office drained a pond on the advice of a psychic hoping to find the body of a missing woman. The body was not found. In the yet-unsolved JonBenet Ramsey case, numerous psychics came forward to offer explanations of the crime. Even popular movies, like last year’s “The Gift,” feature stories of psychics who aid police investigations. However, the use of clairvoyance in detective work may not be as common as it appears in the entertainment world.

“The Gulfport police department has never worked with psychics,” said Chief G. Curt Willocks. In the 11 years he has been chief, Gulfport has never had a case that warranted anything more than “using the shoe leather and good, old-fashioned police work,” Willocks said.

“I wouldn’t slam the door on any possibility,” Willocks said. “But I’m going to be very skeptical—I’m paid to be.”
Other non-believers include Joe Nickell, who has critically studied and tested otherworldly phenomena for 30 years. Nickell, who works for the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP), used to be a magician and a private investigator. CSICOP researchers, including more than 60 academics and scientists from Los Angeles to Toronto, have examined science-fringe claims since the committee’s 1976 start. After his experiences learning magic, “mind-reading” and other tricks, Nickell became a senior research fellow at CSICOP.
He said psychic powers simply don’t exist.

“Most police departments, in my estimation, don’t use psychics, but psychics are sometimes hoisted on them,” he said. “When you work for a police department and have no leads, and aren’t getting anywhere…and the family comes to the police…sometimes police have to do it for public relations reasons or to satisfy the family. All of that’s a distraction from real detective work.”

Nickell said clairvoyants use a method called retrofitting—in other words, the psychic will give police vague clues that detectives later attribute to helping solve the crime. According to Nickell’s research—which, as a self-proclaimed skeptic, he slyly admits is subject to interpretation—about 72 percent of U.S. police have never worked with psychics.

Another obstacle to credibility in clairvoyance is the lack of clear qualifications to define psychic powers. While a police detective must go through specific training and education, becoming a certified psychic often includes little more than an application. The American Association of Professional Psychics near Baltimore, Md., has about 600 members, and applicants must perform a test reading to join, said Barbara Gable, the director for certification.
Still, the accuracy of a reading cannot be proven the same way a passing grade on a proficiency test can. And proof is clearly the bottom line in police work.
Personal stories of accurate predicting perhaps offer the closest thing to evidence of clairvoyance. Although Unser has never done police work, she has done readings to investigate the death of a former co-worker’s brother.

Mary Bruno, who works for a local computer company, said Unser was able to describe details of her brother Edward’s death. Although Edward fell or was pushed off the Sunshine Skyway bridge almost 20 years ago, Bruno said Unser employed psychometry—using an object to prompt a vision—to find out details that were on the autopsy report. Psychometry is one tool clairvoyants use.
“They didn’t find the body until about a week later, when we were having a funeral for him. We never knew exactly how it happened,” Bruno said of the death. “But I have been impressed with Carole. She’s picked up on some things that I would never expect.”
The fact remains that while forensic evidence is quite literally a science, psychic powers are not. For her part, Unser said she doesn’t want to be scientific, but wants to help people.

“In all honesty, I don’t know how I do it,” said Unser of her visions. “I just do it.”
The realm of police work in Gulfport will likely not include psychometry in the foreseeable future, however. For one thing, Gulfport does not have a special homicide unit that larger cities with higher murder rates demand, Willocks said.

In the age of DNA testing and highly technical evidence gathering, the future of cooperation between psychics and police seems hazy at best.

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