By Jason Dearen, STAFF WRITER
Inside Bay Area
6/07/06

MARTINEZ -A well-known television psychic can testify as a witness in the murder trial of self-described soothsayer Susan Polk, a judge ruled Tuesday.

Contra Costa County Superior Court Judge Laurel Brady's decision came over objections from prosecutor Paul Sequeira, who argued that allowing a psychic to testify could send the wrong message to the jury and could raise thorny legal issues.

"If a psychic is going to testify and say `I am a psychic and I can see the future and I have solved cases with my psychic abilities ...the very nature of the testimony is that of an expert of sorts,' " he said. "The court would laugh me out of here if I called a psychic as a witness."

Brady's decision will allow very limited testimony from Campbell-based psychic Annette Martin, whose Web site offers her professional service as a psychic detective, a "ghost investigator" and pet psychic who can talk to your animals. Martin is credited with helping Pacifica police find the body of a missing man in 1997, a case profiled on Court TV's "Psychic Detectives" program. Martin did not return a call seeking comment.

Judge Brady said she will not allow Martin to testify about the validity of psychics, only about her career. "This is tangentially relevant only for credibility," Brady said. "We're not here to determine if psychic ability exists.... She can testify as to what she does for a living and the jurors can take from it what they will."

Polk, 48, has testified throughout the trial that she is a medium.

She said she predicted the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the assassination attempt on Pope John Paul II and a number of other events. Brady is allowing Martin's testimony because Polk wants feels the prosecution has used her psychic claims to impeach her credibility.

Polk is on trial for the October 2002 murder of her 70-year-old psychologist husband, Felix Polk, who she claims was an Israeli spy who ignored her psychic predictions. She admits to stabbing Felix, but that it was done in self-defense. Trial watcher and defense attorney Paula Canny was surprised Judge Brady allowed the testimony. Canny said if the judge allows much more information than the testimony she has outlined, Polk could find a way to force a long legal debate on the scientific validity of psychic phenomenon and paranormal psychology in a process known as a Kelly-Frye hearing.

Polk said she wanted to stop the trial and have a Kelly-Frye hearing, and would attempt to get her experts lined up and ready to testify quickly. Brady said if she could get her experts together by Wednesday she would consider it. That would in essence create a hearing in which the issue would be debated. But Brady made it clear that it is unlikely that she would stop the trial.

"I am sure the judge wishes the Kelly-Frye issue had never been brought up," Canny said. "A hearing on the validity of psychic phenomenon could be a judicial disaster."

The judge's decision came during a brief interruption in the testimony of defense domestic violence expert Dr. Linda Barnard. Barnard testified that in her opinion Felix Polk's abuse and control over his wife started when they began a relationship while she was his teenage therapy patient.

Barnard said she reviewed Felix's medical records and learned that he had been diagnosed with a schizophrenic disorder in the 1950s, and that he spent almost a year in a naval psychiatric hospital.

Barnard said that a tape-recorded speech that Felix delivered about satanic ritual abuse in which he expressed his rage over his belief that his son had been abused by a cult "was crossing a line that was disturbing to me."

She also said Felix used his position as a psychologist to control his wife, and felt his medical license would be pulled if Polk ever divulged the genesis of their relationship. In his cross examination, Sequeira determined that Barnard had based her diagnosis of Polk as a battered woman on Polk's own version of her personal history. Sequeira asked that if any doubts about Polk's credibility as a historian were raised when Barnard learned that Polk believes she's a medium who predicted terrorist attacks and assassination attempts.

Barnard said she asked Polk about the claims. "She explained enough to my satisfaction that I didn't change the course of action," Barnard said.

"You didn't think she needed a psychological evaluation?," Sequeira asked. "My function was to provide a domestic violence assessment," Barnard said.

Sequeira asked if Barnard thought Polk's claim that she is a psychic was cause enough for a psychological evaluation. "Some people really are psychic. I don't know if she is or isn't. If she is than it's a big burden (for Polk) to carry. ...But it doesn't affect my ability to assess if she is a victim of domestic violence," Barnard said.

Toting his box of legal files out of the courthouse after the day's testimony, Sequeira said he has never heard of a psychic testifying in his 22 years as a prosecutor.

He noted that psychic witness Annette Martin also claims that she can talk to ghosts. "There's one ghost in particular I'd like to talk to," Sequeira said with a grin. "He could shed some light on this case."

Staff Writer Jason Dearen can be reached at jdearen@angnewspapers.com

By Lisa Sweetingham
Court TV - June 6, 2006
MARTINEZ, Calif. -

Psychic in dispute Polk attempted to call a unique expert witness to the stand Monday, over the prosecution's objections. "I don't understand the relevance of a psychic detective," Sequeira announced during a sidebar Monday.

The judge did a double-take. "A what?" she said.

Polk has testified that she is a psychic. Felix, she claims, was a secret agent for the Israeli Mossad. Polk believes she was unwittingly working "deep cover" when her husband put her in hypnotic trances in order to elicit psychic predictions, including the attacks on the World Trade Center, which he then used for his own political aims within Mossad. No evidence has been presented to support that she is psychic or that Felix was in the Mossad. Polk argued that psychic detective Annette Martin would help rebut the prosecutor's attempt to discredit her for her psychic beliefs.

"I'll be perfectly honest with you," Judge Laurel Brady told Polk about her new witness. "This has never come up in my courtroom before and I may have to do a little research."

Polk called for a mistrial based on judicial misconduct. She accused the judge and prosecutor of "sandbagging," "grandstanding," and "running out the clock," as well as using tactics of "sheer provocation and goading," in order to discredit her and prevent her witness testifying. "Mrs. Polk: Enough, enough, enough," Brady said.

The judge postponed Martin's testimony, ruling the prosecutor should have been given notice so he could review her resume.

Polk refused to call her next witness.

"Well it's not up to you," the judge replied as she left the bench. "You will call your next witness." Minutes later, the jury returned to the courtroom, Polk conferred with and embraced Martin, and then called her next witness: Dr. Linda Barnard, a marriage and family therapist in private practice in Sacramento who is an expert in battered women's syndrome.

By Lisa Sweetingham
Court TV
MARTINEZ, Calif. - Accused killer Susan Polk claims she is a maliciously maligned psychic who was abused by her therapist husband, and is now being abused by the justice system for her decision to represent herself at trial against a first-degree murder charge.

Polk even called a psychic detective to the stand Wednesday to bolster her claim that psychics - and fairies - are real.

But a prosecutor introduced evidence in court Wednesday suggesting to jurors that Polk is no medium, but merely a textbook example of someone who suffers from delusions of persecution and resorts to violence against the object of their obsession.

"Can you describe for the jury what a delusional disorder is?" Assistant District Attorney Paul Sequeira asked defense witness Dr. Linda Barnard, an expert in intimate-partner battering, who testified that Polk suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of her abusive 30-year relationship with the victim,Dr. Felix Polk.

Barnard said individuals with delusional disorders may seem out of touch with reality, have false beliefs and hallucinate.

She referred the prosecutor to the psychiatric reference book, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, fourth edition, or DSM-IV. Sequeira had a copy of the manual handy and flipped to a passage on "persecutory type delusional disorder." He read out loud in a calm voice: "This subtype applies when the central theme of the delusion involves the person's belief that he or she is being conspired against, cheated on, spied on, followed, poisoned or drugged, maliciously maligned, harassed."

Sequeira paused to ask Barnard if that fit her understanding of a persecutory-type delusional disorder. Barnard agreed it did.

Sequeira continued: "Small slights may be exaggerated The focus of the delusion is often some injustice that must be remedied by legal action ... And the affected person may engage in repeated attempts to obtain satisfaction by appeal to the courts."

He paused again, reading the final sentence with gravitas: "Individuals with persecutory delusions are often resentful and angry and may resort to violence against those they believe are hurting them."

Barnard agreed it was an accurate description of the disorder.

"Thanks. No further questions," Sequeira said.

Barnard was not asked if the condition fit Polk's behavior, but the implication was clear. Polk, 48, initially denied knowledge of her 70-year-old husband's death in October 2002. She later admitted stabbing him in self-defense with a paring knife after he attacked her. She objects to the word "killing" or "homicide" in court, referring to testimony from her medical expert who says Felix died from a heart attack, not his multiple stab wounds.

Polk testified at length about her belief that Felix cheated on her, spied on her, followed or had others follow her, poisoned her and her dogs, and drugged her with teas during therapy sessions.

She has sent letters to judges accusing a fellow judge of taking a bribe, she has informed federal agencies that she believed her husband was a spy for the Mossad, and at the end of court Wednesday, Polk's incessant bickering caused the proceedings to fall apart, a contentious sidebar ensued, jurors were sent home after waiting in the hall for over an hour, and the flustered judge remarked, "I think we're at 'motion for a mistrial' No. 71."

Two of Polk's three sons say her claims to having been raped, beaten and used as a psychic pawn by Felix are false delusions. Polk's middle son backs his mother 100 percent.

"What if those things are true?" Polk asked Barnard on redirect testimony.

"Then it would not be a delusional disorder," Barnard said.

Barnard warned that laypersons often misuse the DSM-IV to misdiagnose individuals. Regardless, she said, it had no bearing on the fact that Polk was a victim of domestic violence.

"In the over 30 hours that you talked to me did I seem to be out of touch with reality to you?" Polk asked. "No," Barnard said. "You did not."

"You heard that in my opening statements that I do believe in fairies?" Polk asked.

"Yes, I heard that," the witness said.

"And did you take that literally?" Polk asked.

Barnard smiled and shrugged her shoulders. "I didn't take it any way," she said. Barnard agreed that if Polk were a psychic, then knowing in advance about the World Trade Center attack and the assassination attempt on the pope was a heavy burden. "Having that knowledge and having no ability to get anyone to believe it and do anything about it would be pretty frightening," Barnard said. "Pretty scary, I think."

Polk was allowed to call psychic detective Annette Martin to the stand Wednesday, but the judge ruled that Martin could only say what she did for a living, not discuss the scientific underpinnings of her work. Martin, a blonde with sleepy eyes, wore a seafoam blouse and a black pantsuit adorned with an owl brooch. For the past 34 years, she said, she has aided law enforcement agencies and families across the country, in more than 100 cases, to find perpetrators and missing persons. "I'm just a tool to help them," Martin said, "to bring more evidence for their cases.",

Polk tried to ask Martin about her techniques, casework and the prevalence of psychics to rebut the prosecutor's attempt to discredit her for believing she too is a psychic.

The judge previously told Polk that Martin's testimony was only tangentially relevant, and could trigger a lengthy "Kelly-Frye" hearing, a kind of threshold test or preliminary showing of proof, in which witnesses are called by both sides to determine the validity and consensus among the scientific community with regard to any new scientific technique.

"This is a deliberate attempt to embarrass me in front of the jury," Polk argued when her questions were not allowed. She also accused the judge of "making faces."

"I object," Polk said. "You're making faces, blowing out of your mouth, putting your fingers on your head and looking angry."

The judge asked Polk to move on.

"Do you find the courts are prejudice against people with psychic ability?" Polk asked Martin. The judge ended Polk's questioning. Sequeira had no cross-examination. "I intend to write this up in a motion to have you recused for prejudice," Polk said sharply, as she scribbled notes on a pad. She hugged Martin and invited her to stay to watch the proceedings.

Outside the courtroom, Martin said she never spoke to Polk before meeting her in court. "She's just trying to show that everyone is psychic," Martin said about why Polk had called her to the stand. Any psychic impressions about a verdict?

"My answer to that," Martin said, "is that everyone is innocent until proven guilty."

With her sunny smile and shoulder length blond locks, Annette Martin is far from your stereotypical Miss Cleo idea of a clairvoyant.

Seeing that clairvoyance runs in her family tree, Martin said she came from a very supportive and musically talented household.

Known for having a "big Voice" as a young child, Martin pursued singing at an early age and enjoyed a successful operatic career. Accomplished in her own right, Martin was the first North American in 25 years to perform with the Mexico City National Opera.

Like two birds in a hand, Martin first discovered her psychic talents in an alarming matter which allowed her the knowledge about others no one else could discern with a glance. Although Martin said she had never been uncomfortable with her extraordinary gift, at first, being such a young age, she did not understand some of the images she saw.

A unique part of Martin's clairvoyance is her ability to see what was wrong with a person medically, detailed 3-D images of certain body organs. "I think I'm very versatile," she said.

Formed in 2001, the psychic investigative agency in Campbell specializes in homicide, missing persons, grand theft, arson and industrial espionage cases.

When working on a certain police case, Martin said she is able to delve into the mind of the perpetrator and see the extent of their scars and especially their medical intakes.

"I'm able to pick up on the physical aspect and the emotional aspect," Martin said. "It's a great assistance to the police department."

The process starts out with Martin taking three deep breaths, opening her palms to bring a beam of pure white light through the frontal love and down the body so that it is bathed in white light, as is her aura. To remove her presence from the victim or perpetrator's mind, according to Martin, involves reversing the process by closing her palms and taking two deep breaths. While taking in the third breath, Martin opens her hands as a signal to "let it go."

Although she never had any formal training in developing her psychic abilities, Martin said she is nevertheless aided in clairvoyant work.

Referred to as a 'guide,' the spirit of Edgar Cayce (1877-1945_, the famed early 20th century psychic, has been assisting Martin since her early days.

Described by Martin to be wearing a rumpled suit, with a squished up hat, Martin said Cayce was not only soft-spoken and sweet but also crucial in helping her diagnose the medical aspect of her psychic work.

There are times when, Martin said, it was not unusual to confuse a real ghost to what is termed as "impressions."

It's like a movie that is stuck and playing all the time," she said. Unlike spirits, Martin said impressions were usually a product of something horrific or dramatic that happened and especially difficult to remove from the location it occurred.

Together with Keaton, Martin said she has worked on over 150 cases through a span of thirty years. Thus, bringing about the point that one has to be extremely intuitive if they plan to evade Martin. "It makes me very angry that they could have the audacity to kill someone," she said.

One of the most wonderful things Martin said she does with her partner, through the work of their agency, is to bring closure to the family involved and especially in homicide and missing person cases.

According to Martin, while everyone has the ability to be psychic it takes a certain kind of clairvoyant to succeed in her line of work. "The wanting and the having of the experience are two different things," she said. "Murder scenes are not nice."

Having written a children's book and psychic workbook in the past, Martin joined forces with James N. Frey, internationally acclaimed author of 'How to Write a Damn Good Novel,' in the effort to write her own biography and has recently completed the last chapter of the book.

While retirement is thought some may have in their minds constantly,Martin is adamant about continuing to use her talents to help those who are in need of her expertise.

Repeating the same promise she had made to the late and great R. Buckminster Fuller (1895-1983), Martin said, "I promise I will always do my work. I'll continue doing this until I drop dead."

During the middle of a yoga class, a meditating woman has a vision of a dead body suspended in the air and of a street sign. Convinced she has clues to a murder, she rushes to a sheriff's office.

There, she is greeted by, among others, a well-dressed detective sergeant who watches as she goes into a trance and provides remarkable details that match unpublished facts about a case they are working on of a young woman who had been killed in Novato.

It sounds like a scene from "Medium," the NBC show in which Patricia Arquette plays a character based on real-life psychic Allison Dubois, but it's not.

It's how Campbell psychic Annette Martin and homicide detective Richard Keaton of Novato met 30 years ago.

The encounter led to a crime-solving partnership that continues today as the Campbell agency Closure4U Investigations, which opened in 2001, in which Keaton, who retired from the Marin County sheriff's department in 1998, and Martin work together to find missing persons and solve cold cases from around the country.

Keaton brings his proven detective skills to the cases. Martin says she has known since she was 7 years old that she has psychic abilities, including a skill known as psychometry, the ability to get psychic readings off the energy from objects by holding them or placing them to her head, and she uses them to help solve the cases. Keaton said that Martin has worked on more than 150 homicide or missing person's cases around the country since 1975.

Recently, Martin was featured on Court TV's "Psychic Detectives" series for solving a 1997 missing person casein Pacifica. They both appeared on a BBC television show about cold cases and the topic of psychometry. When Martin went to the sheriff's office in 1975, Keaton recalled, detectives were working on the case of a young woman who had been killed inside a metal shed at a trailer park in Novato. Terry Listman's body had been found May 28, 1975.

"She had been left for five days in temperatures that had exceeded 100 degrees," Keaton said. "(However) Annette was able to provide details about the case that hadn't been released to the public. She said that she saw that a girl had been abducted -- and she had specifics about the suspect, like that he had stomach problems. She did this thing where (the suspect) was repeatedly putting things into his mouth, over and over again."

After an hour of interviewing Martin, Keaton reported to his lieutenant, who suggested bringing her back that evening to meet with additional investigators. When she returned that evening, Martin was greeted by a squad of law-enforcement personnel including Keaton, sheriff's officials and the district attorney. Some of the officials present were real "Joe Friday, 'Just the facts, ma'am' types," Keaton said.

What turned into a three-hour interview began with Martin taking three deep breaths and going into a trance. During the trance, Keaton said, Martin was able to relate to detectives information they already suspected, such as that the killing had been made to look like a suicide, and that the killer had fled the state. She also said that before he made his getaway, a person of authority had appeared, briefly stopping his exit. She said that when he was eventually arrested, he would be wearing all white. She pointed to a map of the United States and indicated that the killer would be found in Washington state. She also told detectives that before they caught him, he would have killed again.

Keaton recalled Martin's reaction when he put some keys that had belonged to the suspect into her hands. "I leaned in and said, 'Annette, I am going to hand you some keys. Do you have any information relative to these?' " Keaton said. "She screamed, 'Oh my God!' And then she threw the keys across the room. I thought, 'What the hell did I do?"

By the end of the meeting, Keaton said, Martin had been able to identify five of the six keys on the ring.

Detectives arrested the suspect, Robert James McQueary, one year later -- in Washington -- where he worked in a hospital and was dressed in white at the time of his arrest. At his apartment, detectives found hundreds of antacid tablets, which Keaton said the suspect repeatedly took. They also learned that just as the suspect was making his getaway, his parole officer had stopped by on an unannounced visit. McQueary had served time before for various assaults on women. And there was one more eerie detail: The suspect had committed another attack. McQueary was convicted in Washington for assault with intent to commit murder -- he had bludgeoned a woman twice, buried her and left her for dead. In 1976, McQueary was sentenced to 45 years to life and he is serving time at Airway Heights Correction Center, a medium-security prison. McQueary's earliest parole hearing is April 27, 2007, and Marin County police intend to serve the outstanding murder warrant on him if he is released.

Over the next two decades, Keaton said, the department would often call on Martin for assistance on cases that were tough to crack. It was always in an unofficial capacity, not announced to the press, and Martin was never paid. If her information led a particular direction, detectives would still need to corroborate it through other sources and find evidence before making an arrest, Keaton said.

Trailside Killer
A case that stands out is that of the Trailside Killer, a serial killer who roamed the trails of Mount Tamalpais, the Point Reyes National Seashore and a park near Santa Cruz between 1979 and 1981.

"We were walking around the trails on Mount Tam, watching the birds of prey above looking for his target, that kind of thing," Keaton recalled. "I asked Annette, 'What do you think that he does for work?' She said, 'The only word that came to me was a carpenter."

Keaton mulled over the information. It was when he arrested David Joseph Carpenter for the killings on May 1, 1981, he says, that Martin's words made sense. Carpenter was tried, convicted and sentenced to death.

Marc North, a lieutenant with the Marin County Sheriff's Department, worked with Martin on a missing person's case several years ago. "I was assigned a missing person's case and had absolutely no leads whatsoever," North said. "This person had wandered off into a remote area. He was from outside of Marin. Rich said, 'Do you want to pursue Annette?' So I did.

"It was really quite something," North said. "She flooded me with the information that helped me to connect the dots and put the pieces together. The information that she put forth was information that had immediate relevance and was specific to the case. She told me the location and the position of the body in the case, as well as specific names of people that I would be talking with. I filed all of that away in the back of my head."

Within an hour of having left Martin's office, North said, he went to the missing person's home to contact the family. The first person to meet him at the door was one of the names that Martin had mentioned. Inside the home, specific items that Martin had mentioned were located next to the person's bed.

"We tend to dismiss that which is natural," North said. "We shut off from it. We consider it out of the ordinary. It's really not much different from Rich -- who is extremely intuitive -- accessing the same place that Annette does.

"There are people that present themselves (to law enforcement) as psychics -- and they are charlatans -- cavalier in what they do. They really hold back the folks that really are legitimate. You see them all the time. One thing that impresses me about Annette is that she won't come to you -- you have to go to her."

Early talent
As a girl, Martin had aspirations of becoming an opera singer or an actress, and performed throughout her youth with the San Francisco Symphony.

Born and raised in San Francisco, Martin said that she discovered her psychic ability at age 7 when she envisioned her friends suddenly turning on her with rocks and stones for no apparent reason. It happened later. Her interest in law enforcement might be genetic, she said, because her great-aunt Clara Dunham Crowell was the first female sheriff in Nevada. Another aunt, she says, was a clairvoyant nun who predicted the assassination in 1894 of French President Sardi Carnot with a knife that was concealed in a bouquet of flowers.

Martin attended Sacramento State University. At age 40, she got a bachelor's degree in psychology. During the years in between, Martin, now 68, had worked as a medical intuit -- someone who can read a person's body and relay information to them about health problems, and, as a result, got a radio show on KGU in Hawaii, where she demonstrated her psychic skills. She returned to Marin in 1975 with her husband and two children.

Keaton, 63, was raised in Marin County and graduated from Marin Catholic High School in 1960. He joined the sheriff's department in 1963 as a reserve officer and became a full-time deputy in 1964. His older brother, William "Buzz" Keaton had joined a year earlier, eventually becoming undersheriff.

Like most deputies, Keaton started out working graveyard shifts in the jail. He eventually worked his way up to sergeant and later to the investigations unit. It was for his work in investigations, where he chose to carve out his career, that most people remember the detective. Through the years, Keaton said, he worked on several hundred cases. He stayed on as a supervising sergeant in the detective division through four sheriff administrations, and was responsible for training new detectives as they came into the division.

Keaton retired and earned his private investigator license in 1999, forming his own investigations firm, which he runs out of his home in northern Marin. His casebook includes the Zodiac Killer case, which remains open. Keaton and his wife, Nancy, have been raising and breeding Bernese mountain dogs for the past 12 years.

Smooth, thorough
As Marin County's lead homicide detective, Keaton was known for having an ability to talk with anyone. This helped him bond with victims' families, as well as get confessions out of the bad guys.

"As a detective for the sheriff's department, his reputation certainly preceded him," said Marin County Sheriff's Capt. Tim Little. "One of his strengths is that he always respected everyone," Little said. "If you were in the office and he was on the phone, you couldn't differentiate if he was talking with a victim or a witness or a suspect. I think that is why he was so successful -- especially with victims' families. He cemented the trust and confidence that people need."

Over the years, Keaton said, he learned the importance of talking, interacting and even "BS'ing."

It's how he nailed James Burgraff, a.k.a. James Von Burgraff, for a 17-year-old, execution-style killing at a hotel near Sausalito. And it's how he got Leslie Arthur Byrd, a bank executive from Novato who killed Cynthia Engstrom, a 19-year-old prostitute, in his bathtub one weekend in 1985 while his wife and family were away. The young woman's naked body had been dumped in a driveway in rural West Marin.

Keaton said that Byrd was interrogated three times over a five-day period, but each time they had to let him go. The district attorney had said that while the circumstantial and fiber evidence was strong, Byrd would have to admit to the crime before charges could be filed. Byrd had only admitted to bringing the woman to his home and having rough sex with her, but said that she died accidentally in the bathtub while he was downstairs. "First of all, you don't call him Leslie; it's Art -- otherwise he gets insulted. Then he says, 'I'm going to tell you the truth -- I'm not going to lie.' I say, 'That's great.' And then he says nothing.

"I started thinking that it was really us against him, that if you believe him, that you should let him go," Keaton said. "So I told him that I thought that he was lying. I told him, 'Let's take a walk up to the cafeteria and we'll each pick 10 people, randomly. I'll tell my story and you tell yours. Let's see who they believe.' He bent his head down and said, 'I wouldn't believe me, either.'

"Those were words that came back to haunt him at the trial," Keaton said. "The trial, in essence, boiled down to 'Who do you believe?' " Byrd was convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to 15 years to life. He was denied parole in 2002; his next parole hearing is in 2006.

Skepticism, success
Pacifica Police sergeant Fernando Realyvasquez said that using a psychic was something that had never entered his realm of thinking -- until the family of Dennis Prado, who had been missing for more than two months, asked him to call in a psychic.

Prado, 71, had gone missing on May 14, 1997. His car had been left at his apartment, along with his wallet and other personal items. The home showed no signs of a break-in. Though Prado had some issues with neighbors in the apartment complex and he had been threatened with eviction if the problems did not stop, there were no signs of foul play.

"I had exhausted the leads that came my way as much as I could," Realyvasquez said. "I would make flyers on a weekly basis, and the family had also been making their own efforts. The family came to me after a family meeting and asked if we would consider bringing a psychic into the case."

The detective said that he had been skeptical of psychics and the like for most of his career. Keeping an open mind, he said he first went to his captain, and then to the chief of police in Pacifica to get permission. "The chief said that if it was something that was going to make the family feel better, to do it," Realyvasquez said.

Realyvasquez first ran a background check on Martin before contacting her, he said, including checking in with Keaton in Marin to get a read on her credibility. When the psychic passed the mini-investigation, Realyvasquez met Martin at her Campbell office. She held a photograph of Prado in her hands, and then looked at a map of the area around his apartment complex, including the 2,000-acre park that ran behind it. Martin said Prado had gone for a walk in the wilderness area. Taking the map, she drew a small circle, and said that Prado would be found in that area.

Realyvasquez said he remained skeptical since the area had been combed by search-and-rescue teams. He shared Martin's information with Roberta Hauser, a search-and-rescue volunteer on Tuesday, July 15, 1997. The following Saturday, July 19, 1997, Hauser went to the area that Martin had pointed out -- and within an hour had found Prado's decomposing body. "The fact of the matter is that he had been missing for nearly three months," Realyvasquez said. "I am still a little bit skeptical, but on the other hand, in this particular case, we probably wouldn't have found him if it hadn't been for Annette Martin."

It's the letting go
In the old days, Keaton said, at the end of a case he would often find himself drained, fatigued and emotionally drawn.

"We'd go to a place across from the Civic Center, and we'd smoke cigarettes and do shots," Keaton said. "Then you go home, and you are still consumed with it. It's always on your mind. It takes its toll. That's probably why some cops have alcohol and heart problems." Keaton underwent a quintuple bypass in 1992.

He calls the way Martin deals with the stress to be her true gift. "People say, 'How can you do this, Annette?' It's because when the session is over she takes three deep breaths and wipes her hands. It's like wiping a blackboard clean. A week later, she doesn't remember it."

Answering questions
To reach Closure4U, call (408) 379-6669 or visit www.closure4u.com. To reach Richard Keaton Investigations, call (415) 898-3999.

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Questions for Annette Martin

Q: You've spent 31 years as a professional psychic, but when did you first notice your powers?
When I was 7 years old.

Q. How in the world did they find out you did readings?
I don't know. In 1969 while living in Hong Kong the phone started ringing off the hook. I was heavily involved with the Hong Kong operetta company. I was busy entertaining and doing business things. My husband finally said, "you have to do something about this." I said, "I'll charge because then I know it'll stop. A British woman called me I said, "There have been some changes and I've decided to start charging for my readings." She replied, "Oh, wonderful! When can I come?"

Q. Is being a psychic tiring?
No, I don't find it tiring. I find it exhilarating. I really enjoy it. I'm a natural counselor I have a degree in psychology. Along with the intuitiveness comes natural counseling.

Q. How do you respong to questions like: If you're psychic, why don't you just pick the winning lottery numbers?
Because I don't do numbers. Trust me, my husband keeps asking me!

Q. Do psychic visions interfere with you day to day life?
No, it doesn't interfere. I turn it on and off like a light switch. Everybody I work with has an appointment. If I happen to pick up something about someone it's a matter of life and death.

Q. Have you ever gotten something wrong? Have you ever doubted your own abilities?
I've had a couple of people, in all the thousands of readings I've done, and I've had them tell me I'm wrong. I saw they were going to get the job and they did not. Between the time of the reading and the job being given, something happened. They changed their minds or the boss changed their minds.

Q. Have you ever doubted your own abilities?
No.

Q. What's the biggest misconception about psychics?
People think of us like gypsies and charlatans. Nowadays there are quite a few of us. They are all excellent at what they do. They're all really good. I think there are very good psychics around the world.

Q. Do you have a psychic idol? Someone whose work you aspire to?
Mr. Edgar Cayce. He's one of my guides. I had a famous astrologer do my chart. She called me back very excited. Mr. Cayce and I had so many planets in common! She exclaimed, "No, wonder Mr. Edgar Cayce is so close to you!" You'll see the chart in a biography about me that's coming out by James N. Frey - author of How to Write a Damn Good Novel.

PACIFICA TRIBUNE
Pacifica, California June 15, 2005
Segment to be aired in spring or summer
By Elaine Larsen, STAFF WRITER
"Beachcombings"

PACIFICA TRIBUNE
Pacifica, California January 6, 2005
Segment to be aired in spring or summer
By Elaine Larsen, STAFF WRITER
Inside Bay Area

PACIFICA — The Pacifica Police Department will earn its 15 minutes of fame — make that 30 minutes — when Court TV's "Psychic Detective" features the search for a local man.

Seven years ago, then-Pacifica Detective Fernando Realyvasquez had exhausted all leads in his search for Dennis Prado, a 71-year-old Pacific Oaks man who had disappeared two months before.

Extensive foot searches of San Pedro Valley County Park, where Prado was known to hike, proved fruitless.

Stumped, Realyvasquez, now a sergeant, took the advice of the missing man's distraught sister and turned to the paranormal for help, consulting famous psychic detective Annette Martin of Campbell.

She was able to lead rescuers in the right direction, and on July 19, 1997, Prado's body was discovered about three-quarters of a mile up the eastern end of the popular Valley View Trail. Badly decomposed, the body was about 15 feet off the main trail in some bushes — exactly as Martin had envisioned it.

Prado was discovered by Roberta Hauser, a volunteer ground searcher with the San Mateo County Sheriff's Search and Rescue team working in tandem with Morris Atwell, a member of the California Association of Rescue Dogs, and his specially trained German shepherd.

Court TV segment

The entire investigation — from the time Pacifica Police first received the missing person's report, to the successful discovery of Prado's body — will be re-enacted in an episode of "Psychic Detectives" airing this spring or summer on Court TV. The 13-part series takes viewers behind the scenes and into the center of police investigations in which a psychic's involvement played a key role in solving a crime.

Producer Pat Rogers of Story House Productions and his crew shot days of footage that will help re-create every aspect of the events of the case.

"It was a lot of fun, but a lot more hours than I expected," says Realyvasquez, who spent off-duty hours on the project. "When they first contacted me about doing this, I didn't know what to expect. It's amazing how many hours of film they had to get."

Realyvasquez — who was nicknamed "RV" by the Story House crew — took some good-natured ribbing from police colleagues, who joked about the "star" in their midst. But in the end, everyone from the chief on down supported both him and the whole filming process from beginning to end.

"I looked at it as a little PR for the Police Department, and definitely something fun and interesting to do," Realyvasquez said.

The shooting began with a segment involving Sgt. Joe Spanheimer, who, seven years ago as an officer, took the first report of the missing Prado. That filming took place at the Pacifica Police Department. The next day, Realyvasquez was filmed being interviewed about the case, followed by a mock "briefing" with officers in the patrol room with Cpl. Duane Wachtelborn acting as watch commander.

On Wednesday, the crew spent the day in Campbell interviewing Martin in her office. Thursday, she was filmed talking with Realyvasquez about the case. Saturday was devoted to footage taken outside the Pacific Oaks senior complex on Oddstad Boulevard.

Earlier that morning, the crew dodged poison oak to film atop the heavily brushy portion of Valley View Trail, where Prado's body was found. The next few hours were spent re-enacting Realyvasquez consulting with Hauser with the map circled by the psychic.

It required only a few takes for lighting and sound adjustments before both Realyvasquez and Hauser delivered their parts with amazing ease. Although the entire case was broken down and scripted by the Story House crew beforehand, the "actors" were given only brief direction and allowed to improvise on their exact lines in order to capture a natural result.

Others on camera

By the end of the week, several other members of the Pacifica Police Department got into the act. Sgt. Dave Bertini got a brief on-film walk-on during which he casually asks Realyvasquez "How's your missing person case going?"

Capt. Jim Tasa played a detective supposedly sent by Realyvasquez to investigate a potential lead. In real life, someone recalled seeing Prado at the Sizzler Restaurant in Colma. Tasa re-enacts that follow-up investigation with a visit to the Salada Beach Caf in Pacifica.

Crew members concede that while they exercised some artistic license in how the scenes were re-created, they strive to stick as true-to-life as possible. "We keep the facts the same, but do take some license with the visuals," says Rogers.

"Police departments we've worked with almost always agree to cooperate. It's on Court TV, and is a show that highlights the good work of police and psychics working together," he added. " There's a lot of hours spent filming, but it's in the five weeks of editing where it all comes together."

English translation of Annette Martin's section of an article published in

INTERVIEW

Noi Magazine - Italy - Dec, 1994
Manchett Magazine - Brazil - March, 1995
Blanco Y Negro Magazine - Spain - March, 1995
VSD Magazine - Paris, France - April, 1995

Much more spectacular applications of ESP exist. Those that concern mediums for instance - the champions of extra - sensorial perception. The American police sometimes call in this kind of clairvoyant during very difficult cases.

Then the "psi" journey takes on a terrifying aspect, because these mediums are not content to "see" the scene or find clues. They truly penetrate the deepest levels of consciousness of their interlocutors: witnesses, victims and murderer.

This is notably the case of Annette Martin, one of the most reputed mediums of the west coast, whose specialty is "psychic" criminal investigation. At first glance, there is nothing to distinguish this tall, blond woman of fifty, a mother and sweet-natured wife, from an other American woman. A former opera - singer, she is smiling and prepossessing. Yet, for her, this "gift" is a vocation.

"It was in 1975, I was already involved in the "psi" domain, but I had never put my gifts to the test in matters of criminology. Now, one day when I was in deep meditation in a yoga class, I distinctly saw a corpse suspended over my head, as well as the name of the street. It was like a flash of lighting streaking through the tranquility of my mind."

Annette immediately rushed to the sheriffs office in the county of Marin, to the north of San Francisco. There, she met Sergeant Richard Keaton, to whom she explained her "vision". Keaton, a Robert Mitchum look a like, toting a Walter PPK - the James Bond gun _ was rather the hard boiled type with a cool head. But Annette was describing to him, in the minutest detail, the corpse of an unsolved crime, over which he had been struggling for several weeks in conditions of strict secrecy. Intrigued, fascinated even, he carried out investigations with Annette in total discretion, until he managed to solve the case thanks to the clairvoyant's information. Since that day, this original couple have elucidated about 20 cases of murder.

Annette also helps other police services in other states. Some of her successes are amazing, such as the murder at Great Falls in Montana, which the clairvoyant solved more than thirty years after the crime took place, tracking down the assassin, old and ill, in a hospital far from there.

Or then again, in the case of a "serial - killer" that she was able to follow on a map of the United States as he committed his crimes. "Annette's powers are stunning," says Sergeant Keaton in a calm voice. "Of course, it doesn't work out each time, but taking into account the several successes we have had, we have no right to turn our backs upon this possibility."

So the police files bear witness and testify. Annette is capable of "penetrating" a case, according to a strict interrogation, led by an impartial police officer. By turn, Annette, in a state of trance, embodies each protagonist, her voice and face change...And everything takes on a terrifying aspect - because for a brief instant the blonde woman "becomes" the killer.

"Psychically, the mind of the murderer is the easiest to find," smiles Annette. "How can I explain this. For him, crime is a fixed idea, something very clear and very intense. And in the babble of consciousness, this obsession, this determination, completely straining towards it's goal, takes form with precision. I see him coming closer. I can "feel" him killing, assuaging his desire for murder!"

And concerning the victims, do you feel as though you are dying? "Yes, completely. My blood pressure drops sharply and I feel myself being swallowed into a sort of funnel of darkness."

Keaton confirms this: several times a nurse has had to save Annette in extremis, in the sheriff's office itself. Legally, such events are not receivable. For example, never once in a trail have the testimonies of Annette every played any part. But for the inspectors, Annette's visions are very useful: they permit new leads to be followed, which can be confirmed later in a rational way.

These days, a dozen or so mediums, for the most part women, work more or less officially with the American police, notably in New Jersey and Missouri. But this method does not find favor with everyone. The Los Angeles Police has carried out a very precise study on the use of mediums in criminal investigations. Finally the LAPD has abandoned the idea. "Too uncertain," concludes the report.

San Francisco

(CBS) Annette Martin says she's had unique psychic powers for more than 20 years. One of her specialties is finding missing people, something she says she does by looking at a map of where they were last seen.

As 48 Hours Correspondent Bill Lagattuta reports, her paranormal perception has been a driving force behind a multitude of police operations.

Martin says that all she requires is a victim's photograph: "I'm able to see what happened. I become the victim. I become the assailant. And I also become the observer."

Originally striving to be a famous opera singer, she currently runs a successful business just south of San Francisco, selling compact discs and movies over the Internet. But Martin's third career as a psychic is her real claim to fame.

"It's like being in a movie," she says in an effort to describe the psychic experience. "My hand gets very hot.…I can feel where they're going on the map."

In 1997, Martin was approached by Roberta Hauser. She was part of a search and rescue team in a state park near Pacifica, Calif., looking for a 71-year-old man who had disappeared from his home.

"I thought this was a needle in a haystack and I was just going to have to crawl through every section of this park to find him," Hauser says.

A 40-person search team had already spent several days combing the dense terrain and had given up, but Hauser pressed on by herself for nine more weeks.

"Pretty much every day after work I would come out here, my husband sometimes would come out here with me, and I would just slowly but surely cover sections of the map," Hauser continues. "The park is thickly shrubbed, and the probability of detection was very low."

As a last resort, a local police sergeant contacted Martin and gave her a photograph and a map.

"[I was] absolutely determined to find him," says Martin. "And I really felt like he was here. Well, my hand led me…over to where the area was. And I just followed the roads along, and I circled. He's in this area. That's where he is."

At first Hauser was skeptical:

Hauser went out one final time with a search dog. It was then that the corpse was found in very deep shrubs.

"The mound is exactly in the center of the circle that she had drawn on the map," says Hauser. "She was absolutely right on the money."

Martin has personally worked with more than a dozen police agencies over the years, helping them investigate crimes, she says. In fact, one survey shows that 35 percent of urban police departments have used psychics at one time or another. But don't expect them to talk about it publicly.

Rich Keaton is a retired detective with the Marin County Sheriff's Department that has relied on Martin's psychic insights in dozens of cases. He believes she has a gift.

"It's a fear. It's the unknown, and then they can't explain it," he says. "Then you don't want to deal with it....I would strongly put my belief, my integrity and my background in what Annette does and how she does it."

But Keaton is such a believer that he and Martin are going into business together as a psychic-detective investigating team. Their informal partnership started in 1975, when Keaton was a young detective, and Martin was at the height of her opera career.

And suddenly she had a vision of murder. "She started telling us specifics that only police officers knew," Keaton recalls. "She told us that the man who was responsible for killing this young lady had a very serious medical condition in that he had ulcers."

A 19-year-old girl had been murdered in a trailer park, her body left in a shed outside the suspect's trailer.

"I told them they would find [the suspect] about a year later," says Martin. "And they would find him wearing white. And that it was not going to be in California."

A year later, to the very week, he was taken into custody, arrested in the state of Washington.

"His occupation was that of a male nurse, or orderly in a hospital," Keaton recalls. "And he was wearing all white the time that he was employed there."

That made believers out of Keaton and some of his fellow officers.

But not Joe Nickell, who says he's been "underwhelmed" by the whole experience. He's a columnist for the Skeptical Inquirer, a magazine that investigates claims of the paranormal. He doesn't know Martin, but 48 Hours showed him tapes of her.

"She told us in this one case the guy was wearing white and he wouldn't be found in California. Was that all she told for several hours? Or were there lots of other things and those are being forgiven?" Nickell asks. "We call it retro-fitting."

What about her finding that missing man in the park by drawing a small circle on the map? Nickell listened to that particular tape.

"What she did was very shrewdly ask all kinds of questions of that police officer, who helped her even further and told her all kinds of things," says Nickell. "It's probably perfectly sincere, not an act. But it's just the facility of a highly imaginative and emotional person and doesn't mean anything scientifically."

Nickell says there have been several controlled studies of psychics claiming to help police solve crimes: "When we do actual scientific studies, comparing psychics, with say, college students, the difference is the psychics tend to make more guesses, but they're no more successful."

Still, Martin says that her psychic visions are real, and Rich Keaton and Roberta Hauser remain impressed with her skills. For maybe, in the end, the extent of any psychic's powers is largely in the eye of the beholder.

Martin says that as a result of the original 48 Hours broadcast in August 1999, another dozen police departments called for her help.

COSMOPOLITAN MAGAZINE
Published in November 1991

ANNETTE MARTIN TAKES THREE deep breaths and enters a trance. Unlike the stereotypical psychic, she's not weird, moody, or melodramatic. A sunny blonde from San Jose, California, with a down-to-earth practicality, Martin has done psychic consulting for police departments around the country for the last fifteen years. Today, wearing a snowflake-patterned sweater and black pants for warmth, she is in Great Falls, Montana, sitting in the office of Capt. Keith Wolverton, fifty-two, of the Cascade County Sheriff's Department. A slim, rangy man with a fine-boned nose and a beard flecked with red, Captain Wolverton is about to retire, but before he does, he wants to crack his last unsolved mystery, the Cottonwood Case, a thirty-five year old lover's-lane murder named for the tree where Patti Kalitzke, sixteen, and Lloyd Duane Bogle, eighteen, were shot.

Wolverton has worked with psychics on dozens of cases before and, despite the fact that psychically generated information is inadmissible in court, he is part of a growing trend on the part of police departments to take psychic seriously. "What the psychic does," says psychologist Jeffrey Blum, author of Living With Spirit in a Material World, "is put you in touch with your inner voice." Although Blum believes that some psychics have special powers that enable them to know things we cannot account for in rational ways, his main belief is that "any meaningful system, any story, any practice that leads to an awakening of new perceptions and new energies is supremely valuable. If you want to hear your inner voice, you must find a way to throw off the restraints of your history and the constraints of your ego."

"You have some evidence?" Martin asks Wolverton.

Wolverton hands her a worn blue coat with blood stains so old they've turned a rusty yellow, and places a battered brown wallet and some photos on his desk. "Whew," she says, stroking the coat. "The energy is very strong. Patricia was her real name?"

The previous August, a former Montanan named Robert Coxe* was arrested for raping and killing a woman in San Diego and is awaiting trial for that crime. The police department there asked Montana's Cascade County police for a background check. And as the police traced his movements over the years, they placed Coxe in the area at the time of the Cottonwood Case. Wolverton is scheduled to question Coxe the following week in San Diego to see if he can tie him to the Cottonwood case, but before he does, he wants to find out if Martin can give him the sort of "inside information" he needs.

Martin begins to speak: "These two kids were very much in love, There's a lot of heat coming off her. She feels very guilty. Very sad. It shouldn't have happened. And she doesn't understand why. You have a picture of their car? I'm getting a kind of dark color. Dark green or dark blue."

Wolverton: "A '52 Dodge."

Martin, eyes close, lapses into silence. "I'm in the car." She says. "They're both in the car. They're talking…something about his father… He doesn't seem to be happy about the two of them seeing one another. She's crying. He's holding her. She feels so poor. Her dress feels like cotton, light-colored on top. In summer, she goes around barefoot a lot. She is a free spirit, a child who is open to adventure, getting herself involved in situations she is extremely naïve about. They're driving down a road now. They had stopped, but they're now moving. He's kind of angry, upset, disturbed with her. What's his name?"

Wolverton: "Duane. Lloyd Duane. What are you feeling?"

Martin: "Anxiety- from him, from her. They're looking over something, maybe a valley. It feels like daylight still…getting dark."

Martin takes the wallet into her hands. She holds the picture. "Oh, there's someone coming. The word that came to me immediately was' drifter.'"

"Can you see him?"

"Yes. Oh, she's so scared. She saw his shadow, turned her head. Over on the right side there are these bushes. She saw something move. They didn't hear anything, but there's a card on the other side. He's…dark…hair. (Stoking chin) I'm getting some kind of facial hair. Scruffy-looking."

Martin takes a pencil and begins to sketch. "The face looks kind of long, cheekbones are high, and he hasn't shaved for a while. A mouth straight across, thin lips, with a wide are between lips and the nose."

"Did he come out of the car? Can you draw the location?"

"What I saw was this." She continues to sketch. "A little ravine and their car, and then there are the bushes where they're parked." She pauses. "He has an odor about him. He has some kind of fungus on his feet. He feels unclean, and he feels…desperate…There's some kind of a hat. (She strokes her head.) There are some straps, almost like the hats pilots used to wear… He's been around this area for a while."

"What's he doing?"

"He's pulling on the door handle. She's screaming. The boy doesn't know what to do. He's trying to lock the doors. He's holding her. He's trying to get the car started. There's something wrong with the car. The car won't start. Somehow or other, the drifter gets the door open. I'm seeing him pulling her out of the car; I'm seeing him knock her down. He's hitting the boy, beating on him. Was the wallet found away from the boy's body? It feels like it was flung away. He's looking for something in the car. He's tying heir hands."

Wolverton: "How is he tying their hands when he's all by himself."

"He's very strong. They're both out cold. He knocked them out very hard. I see her lying over here, and the boy is farther over there."

"The suspect has a motive at this point?"

"He feels trapped, kind of crazy. Like he's looking for something-it wasn't particularly them. He's found them; he's going to avenge his anger, his anxiety, and his craziness. He doesn't know why he's doing it. He's killed before. He's seeing someone else. He may have seen them, but he doesn't know them. He's tying the boy. He's unconscious. She's waking up. She's so scared." Martin's voice breaks, and she starts to cry.

Wolverton speaks soothingly. "See it as if you were watching it on TV," he says.

"He's moved her. There's a tree. He drags her by the feet. He sees a different person in her. He's shouting and screaming profanities and wants to mutilate her and rape her and get her out of his mind forever. Erase her."

"Does he have a weapon?"

"Yes. It looks black, brown on the handle."

"Does he strike her?"

Martin makes a bludgeoning movement. "She's awake and she's telling him. 'I haven't hurt you. What have I done to you? Please don't kill me.'

"I see him rushing up to her like an animal and banging her head on the tree and raping her, clawing into her back and wanting to destroy her. The target was the female, and she's so confused and she knows she's not supposed to be out there. (Martin's face is red, and a tear rolls down the side of her fact to her chin) 'Daddy is going to be so upset.'"

Wolverton: "Annette, take a deep breath. Relax. Don't hold on to the pain. Let it go. Just watch it as if you're watching a movie. What's happening now? You're doing very well."

Still sniffling, Martin cradles the coat. "He's holding her…carefully, so carefully. He lays her down, leaves her. 'Jane, Jane, Jane. I'm sorry, Jane…'"

"Who are we hearing?"

"He thinks she's Jane. 'I told you not to do it. I told you not to do, I told you. Jane…Jane….' He's wiping her face. He picks her up. He's going to take her somewhere. He's carrying her…' I told you. It's all over with. It's all over with…'"

Martin continues her reenactment of the crime, with he killer shooing Duane and Patti, putting the girl's body in his car, driving north, and dumping her out. She describes the murderer; "He goes from town to town, a gas station attendant. He's mechanical, can't hold a job very long. He also does farming, knows about horses. He's been drifting."

Wolverton takes out an atlas and opens it to the state of Washington.

Martin sweeps her hands back and forth over the map. "We have some other murders over here…Seattle, Portland, the next five, six, seven years. He's going to kill again. The anxiety, tension. His mind is warped. He comes across as being mild-mannered. He cannot be rehabilitated."

That afternoon, joined by Det. Ken Anderson, who has been investigating Coxe in connection with the rap and murder of the San Diego woman, for which he is now under arrest, Martin and Wolverton drive north to the fringes of town and take a side road along the bank of the Sun River. The road ends in a small grove of cottonwoods. At the time of the killing, a psychic had told Wolverton, "The answer you want is in that tree." But when Wolverton announced he was going to cut it down to find out what evidence it held, local citizens protested. Then a man who offered to X-ray the tree saw six bullets inside. A block of wood containing the bullets was cut our and sent to the FBI laboratory. The tree, a fat gnarled specimen with a rectangular hole a foot high and a foot-deep cut in it, is not particularly impressive. Martin walks around the site, repeating what she has seen.

On the way back, Detective Anderson fills Martin in on what he knows about Coxe. Passing an empty lot between two small frame houses, Anderson says, "Our suspect was living here with his parents in a trailer. They picked up and moved shortly after the Cottonwood murder. He resurfaced in Portland, Oregon in '86, in Bremerton, Washington, in '88. He picked fruit in the Willamette Valley area and worked with his father on a ranch in Cheyenne, Wyoming. On two occasions, he took his children along on rapes."

Anderson also tells Martin that Coxe married a woman named Jane when he was nineteen. She left him for another man, and then he married again, this time a woman named Agnes, who 'claims he divorced her because he found her parked with an ex-boyfriend."

Back at the office, Wolverton lays three photographs out on his desk, and Martin picks out the picture of Coxe. "This is the one, " she says. "Oh, yes. He's going to talk to you, fill in all the facts. His health is very, very poor, and he has little desire to stay alive. It's going to take awhile for him to remember. There's a pattern, like a piece of lace; he's waving in and out, but he keeps following the same pattern."

"When I take three deep breaths. I go into an altered state," Martin says. "My blood pressure drops. I'm totally focused on what I'm doing. If you ask me to spell something-forget it. I cannot spell or write a word out. I can draw and I can verbalize. It used to be emotionally wearing, but now it's exhilarating. I go on and on and on. I used to need sugar; now I drink lots of orange juice. I believe that in the next ten or twenty years, what I do is going to be commonplace as we make big strides in understanding how the mind works."

Martin first experienced her psychic powers at the age of seven. She was playing kick-the-can with the other children who lived on her dead-end street in downtown San Francisco when she saw, "with my eyes wide open, my friends throwing rocks and chasing me as if they were trying to kill me." Martin became frightened and started to run, and the other children did indeed run after her throwing rocks and sticks. When she made it to her house and ran up the steps, she heard a voice say, "Pick up that stick."

"I knew my life would be changed if I obeyed the voice," she says. "I picked up the stick and threw it, and the children ran away. I told my mom and dad, and they said, 'It's all right.'

"About a week later, my mother and I were walking down the street, and I said, 'See that lady over there? Something terrible is going on inside her tummy.' From that time on, something happened to me. I began to see inside people's bodies and what they thought and what they felt."

From the beginning, family support allowed Martin to develop her gift. Both her parents had psychics in their families. "My hypothesis is that it's genetic," she says. Her grandmother was a card reader and her father, at seventy-nine, still uses his psychic abilities in business and the stock market. "Unlike most psychics," says Martin, "I have never been told,' No, you're crazy' or 'No, you couldn't possibly believe that.'"

In her twenties and thirties, while married to an executive and raising two sons, Martin pursued a career as a singer and actress, but in 1970, her husband was transferred to Hong Kong. As she stepped off the plane, Martin heard the voice say," Now is the time." In China, she began reading palms and giving psychic readings.

On returning to California in 1975, Martin set up an office in Marin County doing psychic counseling and consulting to Gerald Jampolsky, a psychiatrist working on visualization techniques with cancer patients. Then, one day, while meditating in yoga class, she saw-suspended in her mind-a dead body and a street sign.

She drove to the Main Sheriff's Department in San Rafael, where she met Sgt. Richard Keaton. In sessions lasting several hours each, Martin applied her psychic skills to the case. She held the suspect's keys, identifying six out of seven. Using a map, she traced the suspect's flight, predicting that he would perform additional crimes and that ultimately he would be arrested, a year later, wearing white and working in an institutional setting.

When the man was arrested a year to date later, so many details matched Martin's predictions-from the way the suspect escaped to the fact that he was wearing white pants and a white coat for his job at a local hospital-that Sergeant Keaton was totally amazed. From then on, he consulted with Martin on difficult cases and acted as liaison to other police agencies when they wanted the help of a psychic.

A week later, I called Wolverton in Great Falls, Montana. When he and Detective Anderson went to California to question Coxe, they found that he wore a pacemaker, had tuberculosis, and had been placed in a prison-affiliated hospital so that his heart could be monitored, and is awaiting trial for the 1989 San Diego rape and murder. Although Coxe had refused to confess, he had placed himself in the vicinity of Montana's Cottonwood killings. "He said he used to go out there," explains Wolverton, "and he admitted that he followed Patti Kalitzke and Lloyd Duane Bogle out to the cottonwood tree, thinking they were his wife and her boyfriend, then left and went to a bar where he downed six Canadian Clubs and six beers. I feel pretty strongly that he did it."

After this article was published in Cosmopolitan, two witnesses who had held back information came forward and spoke to Captain Keith Wolverton.

Captain Keith Wolverton reports "In recent months, two witnesses have come forward independently to support my belief. A man who had known Coxe said he had seen him have a confrontation with Patti Kalitzke on the afternoon of the homicide and had asked him about it. "She thinks I'm not good enough for her," Coxe allegedly replied. "If she don't want to be with me, she's not going to be with anybody, especially that propeller head."

This same man witnessed Robert Coxe drive toward the murder site and two days later saw blood in his car. A second witness confirmed that Coxe had purchased the ammunition for a .45, an unusual gun at the time and the same caliber as the murder weapon. And although the Cottonwood case is not formally closed, for Capt. Keith Wolverton it has been laid to rest."

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 19, 1998

-Premiere Mini-series Explores the Real-life Possibilities of Doomsday, Alien Life, Consumer Space Transport, Super-Humans/Cyborg, Psychic Powers and Time Travel-

Did you ever consider that the bizarre, and often startling, futures predicted in science fiction could actually be closer to reality than we think or are they just the creative ingenuity from movie makers and sci-fi authors? Discovery Channel's new mini-series, SCIENCE OF THE IMPOSSIBLE, explores the real-life possibility of turning science fiction into science fact. Taking a number of science fiction premises from blockbuster movies, such as Terminator 2, Waterworld and Contact, SCIENCE OF THE IMPOSSIBLE investigates the latest scientific research - and learns what is within our grasp or not. Narrated by Michael Goldfarb, National Public Radio's London correspondent, this five-part mini series makes its U.S. television premiere on Sunday, July 12, from 9-11 PM (ET) and 1-3AM (ET), and Monday Wednesday, July 13-15, from 9_10PM (ET) each night. The mini-series repeats in its entirety on Sunday, July 19, from 1-6 PM (ET)

Episode Description

Invisible Forces - Wednesday July 15, 9-10 PM (ET) and Sunday, July 19, 5-6 PM (ET)

Reports of the supernatural are almost impossible to verify and phenomena such as ESP can be dismissed as a lucky guess. This program looks into purported claims of supernatural powers and talks with scientists who are tying to prove their existence. During the Cold War, the CIA used agents who claimed to have ESP to "see" military installations in the Soviet Union. Although the experiment had mixed results, there was enough information gathered to convince officials that remote sensing was worth further investigation.

The program also introduces a psychic investigator. Annette Martin, who helps the Marin County Sheriff's Department (California) apprehend criminals.

Some people with supernatural powers claim they can do more than just sense the world around them, they say they can influence the physical world as well. Scientist at the Princeton Pear Lab are currently testing subjects to see if they can influence a seemingly random occurrence by thought alone. The program also looks at scientists' claims that there are not just the three visible dimensions that humans can sense but at least seven more that we cannot perceive. These provide channels for psychic communication, time travel and even invisibility, acting like hyperspace radio frequencies.

January 23, 1995

It's wise to keep your mind blank when you approach Annette Martin or else risk the mental tapping of all those dark secrets you harbor deep inside your brain.

Martin is a psychic, considered by many the best in the country. But she assures me - as we sit in her meditation room at her office "Institute of Intuitive Research" in Campbell - that she does not snatch thoughts from unsuspecting minds.

I feel better, but then my devious side uncontrollably begins playing back scenes of death and destruction just to see if I can throw her off. The striking 56 -year -old grandmother is true to her word, her barely wrinkled face breaking into a warm smile as she talks about her ability to tap into her "sixth sense."

She claims her psychic powers come naturally and - here's the good part - that everyone else has the same innate ability.

"Every child that comes into the world is sensitive, but rarely is the child encouraged to recognize and enjoy the benefits of their sixth sense," she says.

Martin, who calls herself a "psychic counselor," will attempt to prove this during a local lecture Friday at Gavilan Hills Church. Details: 847-0772.

Author of the book, "Discovering Your Psychic World," Martin insists she can teach people to become intuitive, if not altogether psychic. "We've completely closed down our sixth sense," she said.

Strangely enough, in the forward to Martin's book is an endorsement from an investigative police detective. Martin has worked with law enforcement agencies throughout the country for nearly 20 years, breaking previously "unsolvable" cases along the way.

In one psychic session she pieced together a murder puzzle that authorities could not solve in 35 years. For Martin it's hard to describe the reward she gets when she finds a missing child or solves a murder. She takes no money for her tips, although a 45- minute personal session will cost you $175.00.

Currently she is the host of a monthly radio show, "Your Psychic World" on KEST 1450 AM. In her main practice she assists physicians and psychologists in diagnosing physical and psychological conditions.

Martin has appeared in two documentary films. She has taught classes in parapsychology at Stanford University and the University of Hawaii.

But with all her "credentials," she still couldn't quite explain to me, the kind of skeptics, how it all works. In her literature, she writes: "The adventure begins by showing the user how to perceive their inner light. The master key being self-awareness through creative relaxation. Users learn to see auras, feel the emotions of others, practice telepathy and interpret their dreams."

She tried the simple approach with me. "There is a conscious mind and a subconscious mind. I have developed an arch that connects the two."

The way I understood it, she translates electromagnetic fields into images. "I hear it, I see it, I taste it. Like a 3-D movie in color."

During our visit, she never tried to show off her abilities, although she somehow knew I had a 3-year old daughter. I left intrigued but still on the side of skepticism.

But driving home, I recalled a flight I took to New York three years ago. The night before my departure, I had a vivid nightmare in which my plane exploded and crashed.

The next night I arrived at the airport alone and waited for the red-eye to Rochester. The airline suddenly delayed the flight and the passengers grew alarmed to see uniformed policemen and dogs board the aircraft.

There was a bomb threat, we were told, and the flight would be delayed at least an hour. For some reason I boarded the plane anyway and flew without incident (unless you call six gin and tonics an incident).

But it got me thinking. Was that just a weird dream or a psychic experience? Do I have intuitive power? A sixth sense? For $7.50 you can find out more by attending her lecture.

by
Patrick Marsolek

Behind closed doors in science, business, and academia, clandestine meetings are taking place. A large university has problems with its computers. Normal troubleshooting procedures don't solve the problem. A person considered to possess extrasensory perception, usually referred to as a "psychic," is called in. She intuitively locates a break in a sealed cable where one was neither seen nor suspect. In another case a doctor sends samples of blood, hair and saliva to an intuitive for help in diagnosing a patient's illness.

Professionals generally take great care not to discuss these developments in public. They do not want to be ridiculed. So why do they do it? Because, in many cases, it works. Out of the sight of the public, intuitives are being hired by topnotch companies to do all sorts of things, such as locating geological faults in the earth to help predict earthquakes, helping to diagnose illness for physicians, financial forecasting, and assisting corporate managers make business decisions, for instance. The cutting edge of science is moving ever closer toward matters of the mind and subjective experience, as seen in such areas as field mechanics and quantum physics. Researchers are probing possibilities and realities that, in an earlier era, would have fit better in the National Enquirer than a scientific journal. Science is edging closer to Einstein's unified field theory and a world that is increasingly being seen as made of consciousness rather than matter.

A revolution is afoot in the scientific world concerning subtle energies which seem to take two different paths -- and meet in the middle. The first is represented by a large number of people who are beginning to recognize the value of intuition in their everyday lives and who actually use intuitives. This is what could be called the working path. On the other path, the path of knowledge, are scientists in active research and investigation on the leading edge of science, including fields like chaos theory, field theory, and the aforementioned quantum physics. Many of these leading edge fields are finding themselves forced to include consciousness and its interaction with the world.

An example of the working path is Raymond Worring, director of the Investigative Research Field Station in Helena, Montana. Worring, co-author of Psychic Criminology, has spent thirty years developing an extensive body of knowledge on using intuitives for practical purposes. He's worked with several hundred psychics from all walks of life on murder investigations, finding missing persons and assisting in archaeological investigations. Worring and co-author/researcher Whitney Hibbard, have worked extensively with George McMullen, one of the foremost intuitives operating today. McMullen, author of One White Crow, Red Snake, Running Bear and Two Faces, has worked on Native American archaeological sites in North American and Canada. McMullen joined forces with the late Canadian archaeologist and anthropologist Dr. Norman Emerson from the University of Toronto. He assisted Emerson in revealing the location of ancient Iroquois and Huron villages, including the remains of long houses, the post-hole indications of palisade fortifications and ancient burial sites. Dr. Emerson risked his reputation by endorsing intuitives in Archaeology and Anthropology. He wrote in a paper to the Canadian Archaeological Association, "By means of the intuitive and parapsychological a whole new vista of man and his past stands ready to be grasped. As an anthropologist and as an archaeologist trained in these fields, it makes sense to me to seize the opportunity to pursue and study the data thus provided." Since starting with Dr. Emerson, McMullen has put his archaeological skills to use at sites around the world, including Ecuador, Israel, Egypt and many sites in the United States. One trip to Egypt with Hugh Lynn Cayce was made to try to confirm Edgar Cayce's readings indicating the existance of a "Hall of Records" on the Giza plateau. Some of the information that McMullen told them was that "the Sphinx had a crown on it at one time and that they would find the hall of records where the crown of the sphinks made a shadow at sunrise on the ground."

Worring and Hibbard also have worked with McMullen in the area of criminology, in conjunction with several law enforcement agencies. McMullen's skills were applied to murder investigations and missing persons. Worring and Hibbard's research with McMullen and many other intuitives led to the publication of Psychic Criminology, a training manual for the use of intuitives in law enforcement. A private detective in St. Louis, Missouri, Rich Brennen, explains the pragmatic value of intuition, "I use psychics, the pendulum, and remote viewers as tools of my profession. It is just like any other investigative tool, like computer databases and video surveillance..." Worring and Hibbard also collaborated with intuitive Francis Farrelly on criminal and archaeological cases and specifically for developing intuition as an investigative technique for private detectives. Farrelly's long career has included using intuition in criminology, medicine, computer troubleshooting, archaeology, and stock market predictions. She worked as an agricultural consultant in using radionics, the controversial technique developed by Dr. Albert Abrams which utilizes the radiations specific to individual organisms, to effectively curb Spruce Bud Worm infestations.

Another psychic who is drawing considerable attention is Annette Martin, the 'radio psychic' from the San Francisco Bay area, whose intuitive work includes diagnosing disease and conducting psychic hearings, assisting in criminal investigations, "ghost busting," and consulting with corporations, such as Hughes Aircraft and Sun Microsystems. She also trains psychics at her Institute of Intuitive Research in Campbell, California. Both the Discovery and History television cable channels will air documentaries about her in 1998.

While some intutitives use their abilities in a variety of ways, some excel in specific areas. Some psychics will specialize on one type of victim, such as dead bodies, or drowning victims, missing persons, or missing animals, for instance. While other intuitives, such as Uri Geller, Ingo Swann, and Ron Warmouth, seem to have wide ranges of skills, they excel when they use their talents for prospecting oil and precious metals. Geller runs a business that also consults with engineers and geologists from mineral prospeciting. Beverly Jaegers and her group, US Psi Squad based in St. Louis, Missouri, work extensively in criminology and missing persons. Jaegers is also conducting trainings in Remote Viewing and developing psychic abilities. Her group currently is building a formal network of Detectives/Police/Psychics to work together in crime solving.

Despite the fact that these non-verifiable phenomena are largely unacceptable to mainstream science, more and more professionals from many fields are seeking the help of intuitives. Attorneys use intuitives in negotiations, high-level executives turn to them for help in management and decision-making, financial forecasting, and detecting problematic situations before they arise. Not only are professionals working with intuitives but many are pursuing training for themselves in order to enhance their own intuitional capabilities.

The use of intuitives still is highly controversial. Many professionals will only use psychics as a last resort, while keeping it a secret if possible. Many psychics also desire confidentiality as a result of harassment they've experienced.

One conservative group has printed pictures of psychics on posters alongside neo-Nazi propaganda, labeling them "devil worshipers." As Annette Martin says that although negative responses in her case are low she nevertheless tries to "keep a fairly low profile with police work;" this helps to gain agencies' confidence in her work and provides a buffer of protection from extreme opponents. An added complication, organizations have had to learn to be careful about utilizing psychics whose main, or only interest is publicity.

When intuitives are called in, they are often not acknowledged for their help, especially if they are working in tandem with other, more acceptable procedures. While collecting information for this article, most psychics and investigators that I contacted would not divulge specific names and circumstances due to "restrictions of confidentiality." The police chiefs, administrators and doctors that they had worked with would find their jobs at risk if it were generally known they had utilized these valuable resources, in spite of the sometimes remarkable results that were obtained. On one case the practitioner was arrested when his results were to successful and threatened the structure of the system.

The U.S. government's documented use of intuitives in the area of remote viewing has helped considerably to bring intuition more into the mainstream. There are many opportunities to learn the various methods of Remote Viewing; in addition to Bev Jaegers group, there are also Ingo Swann, Lyn Buchannon, Major Ed Dames, Uri Geller, Angela Thompson and the Monroe Institute to name a few different groups each teaching their own versions of RV. The popularity of remote viewing, with its structured protocols, may be one indication of greater acceptance of "psi-phenomena." Virtually all of the world's cultures -- with the notable exception of Western industrial civilization -- have held these extrasensory channels of information in high regard and have spent much time accessing states of consciousness which facilitate the intuitive process. New scientific discoveries in the human psyche and body are revealing that a high degree of correlation exists between states of consciousness and the experience of reality, something many non technological cultures simply took for granted. This leads us to the path of knowledge which is drawing close to the realms of intuitive, subjective experience.

Research into hypnogogia, the state of consciousness between waking and sleep that each of us experiences every day, is shedding light on the intuitional process. Andreas Mavromatis, in his book Hypnogogia, states that intuitional experiences are only distinguishable from hypnogogia "by the subject's set of beliefs and the setting in which the experiences take place." Many scientists might be surprised to learn how often the intuitional process contributes to scientific insights. This similarity is illustrated by Thomas Edison's use of catnaps. When Edison reached a creative impasses he often would take a nap, if only for a few moments, and often would have a creative insight relevant to his talk at hand. An example of the intuitional scientific insight is Kekule von Stradonitz's discovery of the ring of the benzene molecule.

I was sitting, writing at my text-book,, but the work did not progress; my thoughts were elsewhere. I turned my chair to the fire and dozed Again the atoms were gamboling before my eyes. This time the smaller groups kept modestly in the background My mental eyes, rendered more acute by repeated visions of the kind, could now distinguish larger structures, of manifold conformation: long rows, sometimes more closely fitted together,- all twining and twisting in snake-like motion. But look! What was that? One of the snakes had seized hold of its own tail, and the form whirled mockingly before my eyes. As if by a flash of lightning I awoke; and this time also I spent the rest of the night working out the consequences of the hypothesis. (Pg. 192, Hypnogogia, by Andreas Mavromatis)

On the physical level, researchers recently have discovered cells in the brain containing magnetite, indicating an ability to sense energy fields. The proximity of these cells to the pituitary and pineal glands has led Richard Lawlor, author of Voices of the First Day, to propose that these glands may use information from earth's magnetic field to regulate the release of hormones in the human brain which directly control levels of conscious awareness. Other research is indicating the evidence of organic crystalline structures in the body, the rhodopsin molecules in the cone and rod cells of the retina are assembled in crystal-like plates.

The presence of these specialized organic structures within our bodies indicates an ability to interact with different kinds of energy fields that exist all around us in the atmosphere. Researchers exploring the frontiers of field theory such as neurochemist Glen Rein, at Stanford University, and the nuclear engineer Col. Thomas Bearden are revealing to the world the potentials of scalar fields, a phenomena that may shed some light on what information field intuitives may be accessing. Scalar refers to a quantity that has magnitude or size, but no motion. An example of a scalar quantity is pressure; the pressure of a gas has a value and we can measure it, but pressure doesn't include motion of that energy, it has no motion. When applied to field theory scalar refers to fields of potential, energy, and information that lie outside of the usual spectrum of electromagnetic energy. Although this can be confusing because scalar fields may be coupled with elecromagnetic phenomena. Glen Rein has said, "Scalar fields... are distance and time independent, (unlike electromagnetic fields..); they act at a distance; they can have negative energy; they even have the characteristic of being able to travel backwards in time!"

The highly controversial nature of these often undetectable fields is largely due to the difficulty of studying them. They exist, invisible and unseen, until triggered by some other form of energy, much like the holographic image appearing when a laser beam is applied to the photographic plate. Recognizing these scalar potentials around us in our environment may give validity to such theories as the Zero Point energy postulated to exist within all matter in the universe, or to Rupert Sheldrake's morphogenetic fields created by living species, or even Jung's collective unconscious. The fields themselves are still mysterious and difficult to understand, but their existence is apparent from their undeniable effects, such as those of the gravitational and magnetic fields, and some might even say the phenomena of psychic information. Toward the human experience of these fields, Glen Rein proposes a theory of "crystalline transduction" to explain the mechanism of action of scalar waves within biological systems. He proposed "that scalar energy is transduced into linear electromagnetic energy in the body by liquid crystals in the cell membrane and solid crystals found in the blood and biological tissues." These fields of information may be transmitting information by our very interaction with them. Understanding subtle energy fields and subjective states of consciousness is shedding some light on methods by which information is obtained outside rational or direct sensory processes. Science is beginning to understand better the subjective experience of the intuitive.

Science is ideas and ideas often originate in the same place for both the scientist and the psychic, in the medium of the higher mind, the quantum field, or higher consciousness, whatever term you wish to employ. Once an idea is obtained the rest is simply footwork -- clarifying, substantiating and exploring the possibilities. This is an essential process common to everyone, not just scientists or intuitives. Humankind is poised at the edge of a new millennium. One of the revolutionary benefits of developing a working understanding of these subtle energies in our lives lies in the transformation of our consensual belief systems regarding the structure of the world and our place in it. We may regard our world as the experimental physicist, Nick Herbert, proposes, "That all the stuff that physicists can explain is just a tiny amount of the real world... There's a lot of mind, at least as much as there is matter, and we just aren't aware of it." Humankind is now grappling with ideas and information traditionally given religious sanction, using them to forge a new vision of what it means to be alive and creative. When I talked with Annette Martin, she said, "You would be amazed at how many people really believe that there is something beyond themselves and this beautiful planet we live on."

Patrick Marsolek-Is a researcher with the Investigative Research Field Station

BY LOYD AUERBACH

ANNETTE MARTIN PROVIDES clues to past events and the conditions of her clients' bodies by connecting with her targets and perceiving psychically what others tend not to see.

SEEING PAST AND PRESENT THROUGH CLOSED EYES

Annette Martin stood in front of the April gathering of the California Society for Psychical Study in Berkeley, California. In front of her was a woman who had volunteered for a demonstration of psychic diagnostics. Martin was going to psychically look into the woman's body and try to determine the status of her physical health.

Martin took a few deep breaths and exhaled, making a sound that seemed like a wind moving swiftly through dense trees, a sound that seemed to be coming from all around me rather than from the down - to - Earth psi practitioner.

She then spoke to her volunteer about specific health issues. What impressed me most, however, was that Martin continually suggested that the volunteer see her doctor. The target of the psi scan thanked Martin profusely and sat down. Martin commented on the diagnosis briefly before calling for another volunteer.

This demonstration capped an interesting lecture by Martin, who described just how she had realized she was psychic. Martin described a seven - year- old girl whose friends suddenly and viciously turned on her (though she bravely fought back and even broke the nose of one of her attackers). She had seen the incident in a vision just minutes before it happened to her. Three days later, the friends wanted to play with her, even the boy whose nose she had broken, as though nothing strange had happened.

Two weeks later, Martin's mother's friend Pauline came for a visit. The little girl sensed something about Pauline's right big toe that was not obvious from Pauline's behavior: She was in pain from something wrong with the toe. Later, Pauline learned it was infected.

These two incidents occurred at the start of Martin's path toward psychic diagnostics, though it wasn't until years later that she did anything overt with her psi talents.

It probably didn't hurt that her paternal aunt, who was a nun in France, was clairvoyant (a vision warned her of an impending invasion of the Nazis into the nunnery, allowing everyone to get out in time). Her maternal grandmother also seemed very intuitive, using ordinary playing cards to do readings for others.

In 1970, Martin's husband was transferred to Hong Kong. When Martin and her husband arrived there and stepped off the plane, Martin heard a voice say, "Now is the time." She knew her life was about to change.

A week later her phone started ringing. The callers claimed they had heard she was a psychic, even though Martin says there is no way they could have heard that from anyone, at least at first. From that point on, she began giving readings. Her clients learned of her by word of mouth, and at first she didn't charge for her readings. But she got so busy she decided to charge a fee, thinking this would keep the client list shorter and free up her schedule. But people still came in droves.

From Hong Kong, the Martins moved to Mexico and finally back to northern California in 1975. Martin set up an office in Marin County, where she did readings and psychic consulting. She was interviewed by Dr. Gerald Jampolsky, a psychiatrist working on visualization techniques for cancer patients. Martin demonstrated her diagnoses using psi, and Jampolsky was impressed enough to continue working with her for years, even making a film about her work to show other doctors.

It was during the period she work with Jampolsky that Martin headed off in another psi direction.

While she was meditating during a yoga class, she got a clear vision of a dead body and a street sign - a murder. Her secretary convinced her to go to the Marin Sheriff's Department, where she spoke with Sgt. Richard Keaton - for five hours. Apparently, she had picked up on a murder that had occurred during her class time. The police drove her around, searching for what she had seen in her vision. She described "beads of water spurting out of my hands" as they drove by a trailer park. They took her back to the sheriff's department, got a warrant, and returned to find the body.

In subsequent sessions, Martin described several key pieces of information about the suspect and his whereabouts, though none were specific enough to allow the capture of the man.

A year later, however, he was caught in an area Martin had described. Keaton was impressed enough by the details Martin supplied that he has continued to consult with her on cases and has acted as liaison for her with other law enforcement agencies.

Over the years she has worked with law enforcement officials all over the U.S. and beyond, from Montana, Utah, Wyoming, Nevada, and New Mexico to Hawaii and Hong Kong.

While her psi abilities have come to seem normal to her, from time to time Martin has been surprised. Back in her Hong Kong days, while doing a body scan of a client, the woman's eyes suddenly widened as Martin felt a hand on her shoulder. Her poofy blouse was pushed down as if a real hand were there. The client, her husband, and Martin's husband all saw the fabric depress. Martin learned that the invisible hand belonged to Edgar Cayce.

She was confused because she had no idea who Cayce was until her client told her about Cayce's life as a psychic and medium who had conducted thousands of psychic diagnoses. Martin believes Cayce often comes to help her with her own diagnoses.

In the case of diagnosing a client, she uses her psi to scan inside and outside the body. She travels up the body with scan to look for the cause of illness, for what part of the body is actually responsible, and where the doctor has to go to fix it. She believes that treating symptoms is not good enough, because a pain in the foot may be a symptom of a deeper problem. Putting a Band-Aid on the part that hurts is a treatment, not a cure.

Police work also may involve medical aspects, ranging from the health of the suspect (including whether he or she is taking drugs) to what an actual cause of death may have been. Martin may go to a murder scene and diagnose it, reaching back into the past to replay the events in her mind, "to see a movie of what happened," she says.

She has also applied this technique to help locate missing people and items and to aid fire departments in the greater Bay Area, helping identify how the fire started and, if started by a person, who that person might be.

I have been impressed by Martin for several reasons. She is different from the majority of self-professed psychics. First, she is very normal, the kind of person you'd be very surprised to learn was psychic. Many psychics "see themselves a lot bigger than they are," Martin says. "There's often a theatrics to (psi) and people get caught up in that." While such theatrics and ego-involvement may help insure themselves a place in the media, it tends to create doubt about their credibility, and it certainly helps make them targets for the skeptics.

I was also impressed by her persistence in advising people to see doctors. Martin, like few others I know, sees herself as a tool for doctors, albeit a non-traditional one. Let's face it, if someone like Martin can help a doctor pinpoint where to start testing for illness or damage (rather than relying on the typical hospital battery of tests), time and money are saved and the patient has a shorter period to be hurt or ill.

Something else that has impressed me about Martin is her attitude toward working with law enforcement. Unlike some of the psychics you see or read about in the media, Martin does not make any claims about solving crimes.

Unfortunately, too many self-professed psychic detectives do claim to have solved crimes. Is it any wonder police often deny having consulted these people? In fact, Martin does little in the way of promoting her police work to the media, though she does talk about it when asked. She can only talk about specifics of a case after it is resolved, however.

By keeping a low profile, at least on active cases, Martin and a few others like her can work unobstructed by public attention and intrusion by the media. This helps the police work better on cases and improves working relationships that develop between people like Martin and law enforcement contacts. By not claiming credit for solving the crime, Martin allows the police to get the attention truly due them, and this frees them to honestly cite any aid given to them by consultants (psychic or otherwise).

Finally, what has helped clinch my good feelings toward Martin is her attitude towards psi in general. Martin believes everyone is psychic to a certain degree, and she has designed a book to help others recognize and develop their own psi abilities.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- PSI WORKBOOK

Discovering Your Psychic World is a well-planned workbook that addresses both psi functioning itself and some human faculties necessary for improving psi.

Focusing on the extended perception abilities (ESP), Annette Martin's workbook takes the reader step-by-step through exercises designed to help them understand the conscious and subconscious mind, improve creativity, and aid in decision making. These things are extremely important if one is to sort psychic information from normal perception and improve upon what one recognizes as psi.

This is truly a working workbook. It will help readers understand past experiences, and maybe even help them recognize new psi experiences when they happen spontaneously. Unless the exercises are practiced, however, improvement may be minimal.

Martin provides exercises to improve telepathic connections with others, to pick up information from objects, locations, and even people, and to do remote viewing. In my experience with a wide range of development techniques, as well as in looking at spontaneous psi experiences and laboratory studies, Annette Martin really has a handle on things. Her book in available from better book stores and from her publisher (Artistic Visions, Inc. 2075 Winchester Blvd. #107, Campbell, CA 95008, (408) 379-1066.