Supernatural sleuths and the search for truth
The official line is that police do not seek help from people claiming to be clairvoyants - but the pressure to solve crimes can lead to a softening of the rules, writes Kim Arlington.
It was a case that made international, albeit slightly sardonic, headlines.
''Psychic finds wrong corpse,'' reported Britain's favourite tabloid, The Sun. ''At least someone was found,'' the New York Daily News conceded.In August, a fortnight after six-year-old Kiesha Abrahams went missing from her Mount Druitt home, a ''hunch'' led an Aboriginal elder to bushland in Sydney's west.
There, in the Nurragingy Reserve at Doonside, Cheryl Carroll-Lagerwey made a gruesome discovery: a human torso minus the arms, legs and head, wrapped in plastic beside a creek.
The remains were not those of Kiesha but of Kristi McDougall, a 31-year-old mother who had disappeared two months previously. Two people have since been charged with her murder.
