Psychics prey on the fears of families of missing people. They make up stories that they think placate worried families, but are in fact misleading and only serve to deceive.
Take Sylvia Browne. Back in 2003 she appeared on the Montel Williams Show, where she told Pam and Craig Akers, the parents of Shawn Hornbeck, that he was dead and his body could be found in a wooded area 20 miles from their house in Richwoods, Missouri. Search efforts were redirected to this area, ultimately finding nothing.
About a month after appearing on the show, Browne allegedly offered her services to the Akers for $700. As Wayne Evans, a spokesman for the Shawn Hornbeck Foundation, said, “Pam was that desperate that if she had had $700 in her bank account she would have put it on the table. We are talking about a mother who would have sold her soul to have her boy back.”
Shawn Hornbeck was ultimately found quite alive.
Preying on people in times of weakness is bad enough, trying to extort money out of them is downright evil. Stop Sylvia Browne.
[tags]sylvia browne, robert lancaster, skepticism[/tags]
#1 by Samh on 23 January 2007 - 9:10 am
I occasionally used to watch Montel Williams on a lunch time, and often he would have Ms.Browne on the show.
I was struck by her contempt for the people who had sincerely come to ask her questions.
I’m sure many of her skeptics have contempt for them too, but that is beside the point.