Anderson Independent from Anderson, South Carolina • 23

Tfie Anbcrson jlnbcpmbmf Frl Pac 22 1978 ID Amcfl Study To Determine Psychics Reliability In Police Cases was identified by the mother of one of the victims as having been with her boy shortly before his death Under questioning Sims said the man a family acquaintance with a record of sex offenses told police where they could find the body of one of three victims And with that and other evidence the 33-year-old unemployed track driver Harold Ray Memro was arrested and charged with murder In nearby Downey and Torrance a Dutch-born psychic named Jan Steers figured in some of te most curious police-psychic cases in Southern California in the early 1970s The small quiet middle-aged psychic who has since returned to Holland is said by police officers to have disclosed secret information about at least two unsolved murders and over the telephone was able to pinpoint the location of a dying policeman with minutes of his near-fatal injury One of the officers who worked with the psychic in 1973 was Torrance police detective Ray Gross One day last week Gross recalled the first time he met the psychic "It was the strangest he said was staying late at the station one night when this man called me and began rattling off some shift about the Rolling Hills Theater murder (in which four persons were slain In 1972) guy insisted that if I would return to the scene of the crime I would find a set of the fingerprints on the right door Jamb exactly 4 1-2 inches up from the floor said the detective sergeant and I figured what the heck The guy was pretty insistent and anyway by that time we any really solid leads in the So the next day the detective returned to the theater where he of overlooked in the original Investigation and where the psychic said be Wdl almost They 4 1-2 inches up from the floor Gross said were 4 1-4 The fingerprints later matched those of a suspect When the psychic volunteered to come to the station to share his information Gross thought this time I figured that when the guy arrived I was going to throw him in the clink because he knew as much about the murder as I As it happened however the psychic had an unshakable alibi And more Steers began to tell the sergeant and myself about how the victims were laid out the night of the murder and believe me he was correct all the way down the line I got white as a the officer said mean there was Just no way this man could have known what we found at the murder scene unless he was truly The officer who through his association with Steers came to be humorously known by his fellow investigators as of the kook (someone even put a miniature crystal ball on his desk one day) said also thst the predictions sbout the killer all checked out down to the 32-caliber pistol hidden in his blood-stained boots the day of his eventual arrest The case never went to trial though because the suspect hanged himself in the Torrance jail think you can say that psychics are a panacea In solving the Torrance detective says today they can be an invaluable investigative tool I mean you get the right Investigator working in tune with the right psychic and a department could settle a lot more of their unsolved By MASK JONES (O 1979 The Lot Angeles Times LOS ANGELES How could It be a police detective wondered that a housewife apparently with psychic capabilities could help put together the drawing of a man who a week later would be the prime suspect in a triple murder? How was it thought a deputy district attorney recently that a second local psychic could reenact a 2-year-old murder after touching the killer's fingerprint card? And how was it possible the FBI wondered last month that yet a third Los Angeles psychic knew so much about a 500000 kidnapping in Las Vegas when in fact the crime was still in progress? Are any or' all of these three cases ex-smpies of dairvoysnce or coincidence? Did each of the psychics through tie and distance or were they Just lucky? Answers are not easy to come by when the topic is ss elusive as parapsychology But while psychics have been casually involved for years in criminal investigations the most recent local case resulted in the arrest of a murder suspect earlier this month by police in South Gate near Los Angeles there have been few experiments to determine their reliability in crime cases Until now Last week members of the Los Angeles Police Department admitted that for the past eight months been conducting serious research into psychic phenomena The latest study which began in October involves nearly four doxen specially selected Los Angeles psychics homicide investigators and citizens The man leading what may be the first announced police-psychic study in the county is Dr Martin Reiser director of the behavioral sciences department tar it been demonstrated to my satisfaction that so-called reputable psychics can solve he said yet the homicide division and I do want to make a serious re-evaluation of paranormal phenomena other he said want to find out once and for all whether the hundreds of tips volunteered by psychics are all screwy or indeed whether some of them have Reiser said that late last month the police department with the aid of clinical researchers at UCLA and Los Angeles City College gathered four separate teams of psychics homicide detectives and citizens He said that during the next few months each of them would be individually tested for their abilities to perceive or to crimes described inside 12 sealed envelopes containing items of evidence pertaining to a different crime trying to be as unbiased as Reiser said if it looks ss though investigative information supplied by psychics not only is feasible but has utility then well use 1L That's the nature of a police organization Despite the psychologist's guarded optimism there was through it alia bedrock of pessimism laid down by the results of Reiser's first police-psychic study last May In that smaller experiment a dozen Los Angeles psychics were tested in much the same fashion ss those in the current study One psychic he said astonished everyone by managing to a crime involving a church while holding one of the treat envelopes (the contents of which described the murder of a church official In another example five of the individually tested psychics a crime in which a car was especially important (the case described in the test envelope concerned a murder sssodated with an auto theft) In spite of the infrequent surprises though Reiser spelled out his disappointment in a 14-page research paper entitled Evaluation of the Use of Psychics in the Investigation of Major to be published in march by the Journal of Police Science and Administration In it Reiser concluded Overall little if any information was elicited from the 12 psychic participants that would provide material helpful in the investigation of the major crimes in For years the stereotype of psychics has in the words of Los Angeles psychic Kebrina Kinkade on the whole been bunch of nuts and kooks who came out of the woodwork when his esse broke" And it followed she said that if police had brought a psychic in on a particularly baffling case they cringed at the thought of admitting it in public for fear of censure That may be changing Parapsychology is the subject of clinical research at recognized universities and there is a growing public belief that some individuals may be invested with the ability to through time and distance South Gate Police Detective William Sims said his department had exhausted what was frit to be every lead in the sex murders of three young boys between 1976 and September 1978 Then through an intermediary Sims and a second officer solicited the aid of a local (and unidentified) woman psychic in her 40s The detective told the Los Angeles Times he is still at the way the psychic had been able without a single clue or revealing item of evidence to the killer together with his victims in a psychic vision one afternoon In October Sims said that the psychic and a police artist produced the drawing of a man who later How Many Times Do You Start Your considering how many times the average car is started In trying to get a figure Tom Hewitt vice president of the Automotive Information Council considered his own motoring Hewitt went to work a luncheon meeting back to work to a midafternoon business appointment back to work and finally home On a Friday night he took the car to a restaurant then to a show and finally back home Then Hewitt considered his wife's motoring in this two-car family She went to a beauty salon grocery store bakery library home to a meeting with her teacher and finally home again Then she took her son to basketball practice and picked him up later nine starts for each Car Daily routines vary but a fair average might be five or six starts This amounts to approximately 2000 starts per year The AIC asks what mass-produced product other than an auto is subjected to the above-mentioned conditions and performs so reliably The Job naturally is to make wonderful potato about the auto industry but I think id another product I must add that owned several exotic Italian sports cars that each averaged about three starts a week if I was lucky They were in a repair shop most of the time having their ignition and hiel system worked on ByDANJEDUCKA (c) 1971 Chicago Sun-Times going to toss you a question that many people will mentally fumble until they whip out a pocket calculator the questions: How many times do you start yAur car In a year? Before you begin adding and I give you the rather astounding estimated figure ponder the significance of the question Remember that car starts often are made under extreme conditions from freezing temperatures to sizzling summer heat besides during heavy rains and snowfalls Keep in mind that a car that cpnslstentr ly starts must have a list of durable components in its ignition and fuel systems These include the battery starter motor spark plugs fori pump and carburetor In short motorists are not opening and closing a reflgerator door when they start their autos Yet many act as if this were the case because their cars keep starting The result is neglect People do everything from running down the battery to leaving headlights on When the auto finally start forced to take It for a tune-up that may turn out to be considerably more expensive than it would have been if a routine service schedule had been followed With the rotten winter weather northern motorists have had so far this column should serve as a final warning to those who want to lose time and money due to a car that start when really dreadful weather arrives especially in the neighborhood Drivers steer the vehicles with their feet (Staff Photo by Paul Hanks) CART CRAZE Tommy Keed steers his cart down a hill in Huntington Hills Homemade carts made of lumber and skateboard wheels are the newest craze The Siovies Deer A Powerful Tough War Film By BICHARD FREEDMAN Newhouse News Service Heroically defying audience resistance to movies about Vietnam Deer Is a brutally tough and Immensely powerful account of the war's effect on the religious patriotic people of a Pennsylvania mill town In its three-hour length and noveilstic dimensions it tallows three macho steelworkers Xktaari (Robert De Niro) Steven (John Savage) and Nick (Christopher Walken) from their life of roistertag camaraderie at home into the deepest heart of Everyone except the very young and impressionable should see Deer Hunter audiences ignore it as they have done earlier Vietnam movies Deer Hunter will only have made its point more clearly Deer Chosen Best Film NEW YORK (AP) Films exploring the Vietnam War's impact on Americans took the major prizes in the 43rd annual New York Film Critics Cir-deiwanb Deer won best picture of 1978 and Jan Voight was named best actor for his role as the paralyzed Army veteran in Ingrid Bergman took the best actress award for her portrayal of the concert pianist in Ingmar Bergman's Deer was released in New York only last week for a special week-long preview to qualify it for entry in this year's film critics and Academy Awards competitions It win be re-released in February Maureen Stapleton was voted best swotting actress for her portrayal of a tan-loving widow in Woody Christopher Walken who played a man psychologically devastated by the Vietnam War In "The Deer Hinder "won as best supporting actor Because of a change in voting procedures the best-film category included only pictures in English Later he takes up with girl friend (Meryl Streep) but haunted by the fate of his friends he persuades Steven to return to his shattered wife and goes back to Vietnam in a doomed attempt to save Nick The Deer may be too ambitious for its own good as a coherent entertainment It is both a compassionate celebration of the mores of ethnic America and a condemnation of the stupidity and brutality of the war many of these people unthinkingly supported The wedding reception is dominated by a huge sign glibly celebrating the departing heroics and when Michael returns he is greeted by a cake festooned with American flags But during the wedding a Green Beret sergeant shows up like the Ancient Mariner to warn the would-be heroes of the hell that is in store for them and at the end of this searing movie the survivors sing a toneless washed-out version of Bless Brilliantly acted especially by De Niro and Walken and powerfully directed by Michael Ctadno Deer rubs audiences' noses in the horror of the real Vietnam and its relationship to peacetime dreams of blood sport and It is a flaw ed but important movie both as a work of art and for what it has to teU us about ourselves Everyone except the very young and hnpreo-sionable should ace it If audiences ignore it as they have done earlier Vietnam movies Deer will only have made its point more dearly darkness in Vietnam The first hour of the film Is devoted to the wedding of Steven and Angela (Rutanya Alada) In an onton-fwi Russian Orthodox church It Is a wedding ceremony and reception as richly detailed as the one Robert Altman satirizes In Wedding- Bid wnti champagne-slurping parvenus these are ethnic workers who wear cllpon bow ties and betting on the outcome each of the Americans must fire a revolver with one cartridge in it at his temple It Is the most horrifying scene in movies Nevertheless the friends survive and even escape but this brash with death has changed them forever Nick goes mad and ends up in a Saigon hellhole where Viet Cong prisoners are forced to enter- tain the bettors with the same Russian roulette ritual he had endured Steven has lost both legs in combat and is confined to a veterans hospitaL Only Michael comes home in more or less one piece But even he avoids the gate celebration the town has prepared for him preferring to spend his first night alone in a moteL and drink Iron City beer Before shipping out to Vietnam and still wearing their rented tuxedos the friends take off far one last ill irlllsX Inf their rankv Un The complex wedding ritual becomes an coudlv ctaboftlt huoting rttuil of whkh lUchid with hfobaiief in iriling a deer deanlr with one riwt Is the Ugh priest He gets his deer all right but the deer dies grotesquely Next we see the friends ss prisoners of the Viet CUn who subject them to a third infinitely sadistic wmfettg-With their captors joking.