Speaker 1: Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio, Zarin Elizabeth.
Speaker 2: I'm doing Wow. How about you good?
Speaker 3: I'm hanging in there. Tell you do you know what's ridiculous?
Speaker 3: Oh girl?
Speaker 2: Do I imagine taking a Ford Taurus okay and a
Speaker 2: Volkswagen passaty filling them with like foam, like you know,
Speaker 2: like industrial pham or like you know, the stuff you'd
Speaker 2: put in like say, like that phone exactly like really.
Speaker 3: Highly the kind of fans and.
Speaker 2: Exactly now, in nineteen ninety nine, the Amareadi brothers did
Speaker 2: exactly that, and they brought a friend with them. So
Speaker 2: two brothers and their friend, They're filled up cars with
Speaker 2: this foam and also like you know, I don't know,
Speaker 2: a bunch of other types of phone, maybe a couple
Speaker 2: for ballast.
Speaker 3: And uh.
Speaker 2: They decided to cross from the Canary Islands and then
Speaker 2: they said, we're gonna go to the Caribbean and you know,
Speaker 2: you can kind of float across the Atlantic and part.
Speaker 3: Of the world. I suppose, well they did that.
Speaker 2: It took them one hundred and nineteen days, and they
Speaker 2: floated across the Atlantic in four taurists and folks back
Speaker 2: and filled the phone.
Speaker 3: And they made it and made it.
Speaker 2: Yes, they they They said that there was all sorts
Speaker 2: of mental strain on this because they had they had
Speaker 2: leave part of the car for them to be inside
Speaker 2: of the wise that they die of exposure.
Speaker 3: And nineteen days. They had to have some room too
Speaker 3: for Yeah, they had some.
Speaker 2: They had mechanical issues too, because you need to navigate
Speaker 2: a little bit right, so they had basically an inboard engine,
Speaker 2: if you will. Generated they got exhausted from like paddling
Speaker 2: and trying to fish along the way.
Speaker 3: They got sick.
Speaker 2: They had all sorts of issues that one would have
Speaker 2: when you're trying to drift across the Atlantic.
Speaker 3: But these three idiots, why did they say? Why? Now
Speaker 3: were they said? Were the cars connected to each other? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Yeah, they were like running together like a big raft. Yeah,
Speaker 2: so nineteen ninety nine things were different.
Speaker 3: It was a difference.
Speaker 2: I've my friends that I come up with dumb ideas,
Speaker 2: like you know about me, like making my friend let
Speaker 2: me fly off the top of his Like we see
Speaker 2: a ton of dumb. We never said, you know, we
Speaker 2: should do trying to cross this in a foam filled Volkswagen.
Speaker 3: Wow, So there you go, that's ridiculous.
Speaker 2: Mad ridiculous.
Speaker 3: I just don't know. I don't know why.
Speaker 2: Because they were boys, That's why they could do it.
Speaker 2: They're like, I've got the foam, I've got the Volkswagon.
Speaker 2: He's got a four tourists.
Speaker 3: Let's do this. We got time off, Bob, don't gotta work,
Speaker 3: my god.
Speaker 2: So there you go, Elizabeth.
Speaker 3: That's ridiculous in my world. Don't know what else is ridiculous.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I would love to.
Speaker 3: I'm getting a vision. Yes, I can see that you're
Speaker 3: going to be going to Mars in the next five years. Yes,
Speaker 3: I'm sure of it. What this is Ridiculous Crime A
Speaker 3: podcast about absurd and outrageous caper's heists and cons It's
Speaker 3: always ninety nine percent murder free and one hundred percent ridiculous.
Speaker 3: Do you always leave and then have to come back?
Speaker 3: So I made it?
Speaker 4: You did.
Speaker 3: We've talked about psychics here before.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and psychic detective yeah.
Speaker 3: Con artists like that French lady whose name escapes me, Yes,
Speaker 3: and then the other French lady, remember there were two,
Speaker 3: there's two, yeah, and then the TV evangelist guy who
Speaker 3: was sort of like in the making of a psychic,
Speaker 3: And then there were all the ones that you talked
Speaker 3: about who were hunted by the chief hunter of fraud psychics,
Speaker 3: Bob night Guy totally and then also the Psychic Horse,
Speaker 3: the psychic Horse. And I've talked out a skeptic King
Speaker 3: of the skeptics, James Rand.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, amazing Ran, truly the King of Skeptics.
Speaker 3: I can't remember if I said before that I would
Speaker 3: like to be psychic or if I would not want
Speaker 3: to be psychic. I don't remember which one.
Speaker 2: Make your opinion changes on any given day.
Speaker 3: Well, right now I think I want to be psychic. Yeah,
Speaker 3: because like, I'm so rocked and damaged that I don't
Speaker 3: think there's news that the other realms could deliver to
Speaker 3: me that would be so upsetting as to destroy me.
Speaker 3: I've reached that point.
Speaker 2: So wait, that's what you were worried about being psychic?
Speaker 3: I think so probably. I don't know. I don't remember,
Speaker 3: I don't remember what happens. But right now I'm saying,
Speaker 3: bring it, tell me everything before it happens. And I
Speaker 3: feel like I would I would like to feel like
Speaker 3: I dwell in the liminal space between this world and another.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, Like I like knowing things that other people
Speaker 3: don't know.
Speaker 2: I got a friend is like that, although that's.
Speaker 3: Sort of the delusion behind QAnon. No, like we all
Speaker 3: feel like we know more than others.
Speaker 2: Or that you know, those are slightly different things knowing,
Speaker 2: like what's like between you and the other dimensional realms
Speaker 2: versus inside.
Speaker 3: I like to be behind the curtains. I like to
Speaker 3: know what other people know. And that's kind of like anyway, so.
Speaker 2: You just generally want to know everything. Everything pretty what
Speaker 2: I'm hearing.
Speaker 3: I mean, I kind of already do you know, how
Speaker 3: Like I'm always right because even when I'm wrong, I
Speaker 3: know I'm wrong, therefore I'm right. Yeah, well put that's
Speaker 3: how that works. So anyway. Psychics, My current favorite psychic
Speaker 3: is ritasonte Oho Rita is yigonte Rita's gigante. She's on
Speaker 3: Instagram and I highly recommend following her. She's got some
Speaker 3: like psychic self help, scammy feeling stuff. But the best
Speaker 3: of these excursions to places in like the old neighborhood.
Speaker 2: Is her name like Giant Rita Giant. Im just wondering
Speaker 2: I saw.
Speaker 3: Speaking of Instagram, I saw the worst one the other
Speaker 3: day where this lady was making hot dog tacos. But
Speaker 3: aside from that she was wearing a shirt, you know,
Speaker 3: Little Debbie's snack cakes, but it was like an inflated
Speaker 3: version of the goal and it said Big Deborah. And
Speaker 3: I was like mad at myself eating sucked into watching
Speaker 3: her make hot dog tacos. But I was so captivated
Speaker 3: by Big Deborah anyway, So this is a giant Rita.
Speaker 3: So she does like Okay, so she has there's this
Speaker 3: one where she makes morning coffee with a raw egg
Speaker 3: yolk in it. Yeah, I'm a little obsessed with that one.
Speaker 3: I don't what is that she like, she whips up
Speaker 3: an egg yolk sugar in a cup. Yeah, gets it
Speaker 3: like a real light colored right.
Speaker 2: Sure.
Speaker 3: Then she brews coffee on the stovetop and then pours
Speaker 3: coffee in it. She drinks it and she's like mad
Speaker 3: and she throws the spoon. Oh yeah, she throws the
Speaker 3: spoon in the sink. It's so good.
Speaker 2: Vanish with the no no no no so uh Italian.
Speaker 2: That changes things.
Speaker 3: So like, I don't know much about her psychic readings,
Speaker 3: Like you can.
Speaker 2: Book this is the psychic that she drinks the egg yo.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you can book a thirty minute private reading and
Speaker 3: spiritual mentorship with Rita for one hundred and fifty dollars.
Speaker 3: Uh huh, so like a book. My birthday's coming up.
Speaker 3: I feel like she's harmless, right.
Speaker 2: At least be fun that's.
Speaker 3: My psychic reading of the situation. Good. But do you
Speaker 3: know what another fun fact about her?
Speaker 2: Elizabeth, I'm gonna be honest with you. I know zero fun.
Speaker 3: Facts about her. Do you know who her dad is?
Speaker 2: I don't know. Frank Gagante, Vincent the Chin?
Speaker 3: What the mobster?
Speaker 2: You used to go around in a bathroom to tell
Speaker 2: the feds he was too crazy to.
Speaker 5: Be able to go to court.
Speaker 3: Yes, that somehow puts pathectally and I ordered into the chin.
Speaker 2: Gagante is one of my heroes, like he beat the
Speaker 2: Feds by for decades walking around his New York neighborhood
Speaker 2: in the bathroom. And daughter, of course she is. That's amazing.
Speaker 2: Scam on scams on scams.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, I love it so much.
Speaker 2: Tell his story?
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, I've got I'm going to read the book
Speaker 3: her her tales of her dad. Yes, I ordered it
Speaker 3: and I'm going to read it before you.
Speaker 2: Why doesn't she have a reality show's daughter?
Speaker 3: She's got Instagram. She's amazing. She wears like a house dress.
Speaker 2: So she streams on Instagram.
Speaker 3: She's so good and where's house dress? Oh yeah? But
Speaker 3: then other time she dresses like lou Read in New
Speaker 3: York or New Jersey. I think she's in New York.
Speaker 3: She walks around like she goes. They go to like
Speaker 3: Little Lily and go to restaurants, and then like she
Speaker 3: and all her pals and her girlfriend, they sit there
Speaker 3: and they order a bunch of food, and she's like
Speaker 3: this place based vescirl. They do it right. She's fantastic anyway,
Speaker 3: So she's harmless.
Speaker 2: In my book, she's a harmless psychic.
Speaker 3: Car but there are some psychics who are harmful. By
Speaker 3: the way, I'm totally getting you a reading with her
Speaker 3: for your birthday. Oh my god, I'd be like Rida,
Speaker 3: what's gonna happen with my life?
Speaker 2: You can FaceTime her there right, not like you send
Speaker 2: her a question and.
Speaker 3: I don't know, I don't know how it works.
Speaker 2: I don't want one of those tarot card things were
Speaker 2: they like, I can hear this from an instance. I
Speaker 2: want you, guys to have.
Speaker 3: I want her to get all upset and go mad on. Yes,
Speaker 3: I love it.
Speaker 2: I want that for you too.
Speaker 3: You know. So the harmful psychics, right, they take people's money,
Speaker 3: but worse is they give them false hope or sometimes
Speaker 3: dash the hopes they had.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they were. They just straight up lie to them
Speaker 2: either way.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and when people are desperate, they're looking for any
Speaker 3: comfort or certainty that they can find, and that's when
Speaker 3: the crimers swoop in and take advantage. Some people won't
Speaker 3: go to therapy, they will go to a psychic exactly.
Speaker 3: So people like old Gal I'm going to tell you
Speaker 3: about today, lady by the name of Sylvia Brown.
Speaker 2: Why is that name familiar?
Speaker 3: Well, Sylvia Brown was absolutely everywhere. She'll ring a bell.
Speaker 3: She was born Sylvia Celeste Shoemaker in nineteen thirty six.
Speaker 2: Like Willi Shoemaker's kid, tell me her father's famous too.
Speaker 3: She made shoes for a living a baby, you know,
Speaker 3: the jockey, Yes, yes, but that was not she was
Speaker 3: not a jockey baby Kansas City, missoo. Okay, So she's
Speaker 3: raised Catholic, but she told people that she had an
Speaker 3: Episcopalian mother, a Lutheran maternal grandmother, a Jewish father, and
Speaker 3: relatives from all these fates. That's a heck of a
Speaker 3: still dead with an episcopalian mom and a Jewish father.
Speaker 3: I'm not sure how we get a Catholic but go off.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, I mean unless you want to say, like,
Speaker 2: if it weren't for Henry the Eighth, I would have
Speaker 2: been right.
Speaker 3: But it's like she was born in nineteen thirty.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's not happening.
Speaker 3: So she said, maybe she's want to be like a
Speaker 3: mainline Pierson.
Speaker 2: She's like, you know, I want to be rich.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's basically I'm episcopalian. That's the thing like if
Speaker 3: you yeah, if you're Catholic, but you want to be rich, Yeah, exactly,
Speaker 3: you wear a boiled old jacket. You just head of
Speaker 3: off to Talbot's. So she said that she became aware
Speaker 3: of her psychic abilities very early in childhood. She's three
Speaker 3: years old.
Speaker 2: Wow, look at her.
Speaker 3: And apparently her grandma is also a.
Speaker 2: Psychon see a nap in my future.
Speaker 3: If you don't give me a lollipop. Her grandma's a
Speaker 3: psychic naturally, and she guided young Sylvia and understanding her powers.
Speaker 2: You know, it skips a generation. I'm just making that.
Speaker 3: Out for sure. There was another psychic in the family,
Speaker 3: her great uncle. He was a psychic medium and also
Speaker 3: super into UFOs.
Speaker 2: They do kind of go hand in hand.
Speaker 3: She leaned a lot on this lore of family psychic ability.
Speaker 2: By the way, just real quick, since the uncle likes aliens, right,
Speaker 2: and isn't this being a psychic. Do you think he
Speaker 2: believed that aliens had angels too, So there's like alien angels. Oh,
Speaker 2: probably he's just got a full like almost like a
Speaker 2: Hindu level of dt supernatural.
Speaker 3: Yes, that must be fun. Sure, just having such a
Speaker 3: big world, it's just boundless and anyone can take you
Speaker 3: in the night. So she would tell everyone went about
Speaker 3: like this family history. I bet to prove that she's
Speaker 3: the real deal. But the spirits had chosen her at
Speaker 3: a young age. She comes from this long line of seers.
Speaker 3: At some point she moved to California, because we attract
Speaker 3: all the cooks down to California. We are cooks, the
Speaker 3: weirdos at the edge of the continent. So she married
Speaker 3: a couple of times. She had two sons. One of them, Christopher,
Speaker 3: grew up to be a psychic too. Naturally, Christopher, and
Speaker 3: it was sometime early in the nineteen seventies that she
Speaker 3: started working professionally as a psychic. To be exact, it
Speaker 3: was May eighth, nineteen seventy three. Wow that when she
Speaker 3: did a small reading in a private home. Boom, psychic done.
Speaker 2: So she's doing like psychic tupperware parties in the seventies.
Speaker 3: Yes, chef, pamper chef. You have to get at least
Speaker 3: one reading and bring a friend. She grew her brand,
Speaker 3: as they would say, and she did these paid readings,
Speaker 3: she did lectures, she published books, she gained more notoriety,
Speaker 3: she held larger events and got like bigger book publishing deals.
Speaker 3: Good for her, I know. So she starts this business
Speaker 3: called Nirvana Foundation for Psychic Research in nineteen seventy four,
Speaker 3: just one year after she went pro fast. Yeah, so
Speaker 3: she established it to provide professional licensed framework for her
Speaker 3: psychic clairvoyant and counseling services.
Speaker 2: But if she established it, who's doing the licensing. She's
Speaker 2: licensing just the Licensing Bureau, licensing registered bond.
Speaker 3: I've heard on one thing how they were saying she
Speaker 3: was like as one of her bona fides, she's a
Speaker 3: member of the Better Business Bureau. So take that, okay, chamber,
Speaker 3: watch out, buddy BBB. So totally, so she she's like
Speaker 3: keeping it on the up and up. This Nirvana Foundation.
Speaker 3: They held meetings, they had a newsletter, and basically legitimized
Speaker 3: her work from private homes to public events. I took
Speaker 3: a look at the March nineteen seventy eight newsletter for
Speaker 3: the Nirvana Foundation Please Share. The cover says, the way
Speaker 3: of all peace is to scale the mountain of self.
Speaker 3: The love of others makes the climb down easier. That's
Speaker 3: actually not that's easier just to fall down the hill.
Speaker 2: But that's actually not bad. Sure, I mean, like, master
Speaker 2: yourself and then you can easily walk down to.
Speaker 3: Others and you can step on people. We're here in
Speaker 3: the valley, I love you.
Speaker 2: Our mountains are much lower.
Speaker 3: Then then there's like so it's this mimeograph like blurry
Speaker 3: black and white photo of Sylvia and her husband dal Oh, right,
Speaker 3: that's short for Kenzil Dalzel brown. What kenzled Kenzil Dalzel brown.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 3: And at the end of their names at this point, it's.
Speaker 2: Just brown brown, like the color.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but they're both white. I guess that it's.
Speaker 2: So even though I had kenzl whatever. But I was like, no,
Speaker 2: that's that's that's still a white name. I can tell.
Speaker 3: So it's a twenty page booklet with a message from Sylvia,
Speaker 3: notes from Dal because he's the president. There's some data
Speaker 3: on ESP test scores from the staff what, and then
Speaker 3: some stuff about pyramids.
Speaker 2: How do you even compare test scores?
Speaker 3: I don't know, it's I couldn't. I started seeing charts
Speaker 3: and numbers, and like my I just I fell asleep
Speaker 3: and I woke up and it was sixties.
Speaker 2: I guess you got a certify it somehow.
Speaker 3: You do the pyramid stuff. Yeah, a poem by Sylvia
Speaker 3: that I really want to read to you in its entirety,
Speaker 3: but I won't. But let me just give you a
Speaker 3: couple of stanzas. Yeah, it's called Soulmate, Waiting and Boiling
Speaker 3: your Love over a shut up. Let me read this
Speaker 3: beautiful piece of literature, and I'm going to read it
Speaker 3: like as if it's a you know, I'm going by
Speaker 3: the line breaks and everything. I'm putting my all into
Speaker 3: this buckle up. I'm doing it for the spirits and
Speaker 3: the angels.
Speaker 2: You didn't let me know.
Speaker 3: Waiting and boiling your love over a cauldron of dying embers,
Speaker 3: fragmented images come back in the hallowed halls of my mind,
Speaker 3: belonging to the you and I of us a small
Speaker 3: glimpse of what it was before the world beyond a
Speaker 3: reflection that is not a reflection. The glass shatters, and
Speaker 3: you and I move on towards the permanency of togetherness.
Speaker 3: Here we are like fragile butterflies caught in a hand
Speaker 3: of time, beating wildly to be free in thee. Write
Speaker 3: that in a card and try and go woo, some fella.
Speaker 2: That is really what that's like. You get fired at
Speaker 2: a gift card company.
Speaker 3: We love over a cauldron. I'm dying, embers, I'm gonna
Speaker 3: boil your loves oil. Careful, lookt sir. I don't know
Speaker 3: about you, but I just can't take it. So anyway,
Speaker 3: there's membership information on the back of the newsletter. An
Speaker 3: individual lifetime membership was three hundred and fifty bucks and
Speaker 3: twenty twenty six dollars. That's a little over seventeen hundred
Speaker 3: dollars annually fifty bucks, which is like two fifty today.
Speaker 3: So it's not cheap as far as subscriptions or memberships go.
Speaker 2: None at all.
Speaker 3: It's good for them, I say, right, that's so good.
Speaker 3: So she's got that going on. And this is the
Speaker 3: beginning of when James Randy started looking into Sylvia Brown
Speaker 3: in her work.
Speaker 2: He was done with Uri Geller. He's like, I need someone.
Speaker 3: Else fresh meat. Much more on that later. So a
Speaker 3: decade after starting the Nirvana Foundations, she got wise. I
Speaker 3: think she figured out that there was a better, more
Speaker 3: tax exempt way to do things, so she started a
Speaker 3: church for In April of nineteen eighty six, she founded
Speaker 3: a gnostic church called the Society of Novus Spiritus A gnostic. Yes,
Speaker 3: of course she picked that up. Yes, so this is
Speaker 3: like the center point of her identity as a spiritual teacher,
Speaker 3: not just like a TV psychic. The church is still
Speaker 3: around from their website.
Speaker 2: Good Churches Never die.
Speaker 3: Elizabeth Novus is Sylvia's monument to God, a forum to
Speaker 3: express the joy and love that is God, with no fear,
Speaker 3: no guilt, no sin, no hell, and no Satan.
Speaker 2: No taxes.
Speaker 3: Through Novice or Novs whichever, Sylvia gives the world a
Speaker 3: means to understand God, life and the reason for being
Speaker 3: all right. So there are twenty one tenants of the church.
Speaker 3: I will not read all of them.
Speaker 2: Do you have any highlights?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Tenant one quote, the way of all peace is
Speaker 3: to scale the mountain of self. I still like that
Speaker 3: loving others makes the climb down easier, but then it
Speaker 3: keeps going. We see all things darkly until love lights
Speaker 3: the lamp of the soul poetry. Yeah, it's a crotch tingler.
Speaker 3: You get the picture. Do they they do dream analysis
Speaker 3: via a phone or Skype? Is that still a thing? So?
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 3: Twenty minute sessions start at forty nine dollars. There's an
Speaker 3: online shop that only accepts paypaler Venmo, and you can
Speaker 3: donate money to them on the website and they take
Speaker 3: zel for that.
Speaker 2: I figured they maybe must also take crypto, like we'll
Speaker 2: take a stable coin or bitcoin.
Speaker 3: Maybe not yet though, these guys are operating in the
Speaker 3: PayPal Oh wow. Okay, So now she's got the foundation
Speaker 3: in the church and she and her husband decided to
Speaker 3: do some non psychic scamming. So, according to a detailed
Speaker 3: case summary published by the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, Sylvia
Speaker 3: and dal were involved in selling interest in a gold
Speaker 3: mining venture in the late eighties. So the venture failed, no,
Speaker 3: and bankruptcy was declared in nineteen eighty eight. So I
Speaker 3: guess it didn't pan out. Oh oh you do it?
Speaker 2: Are psychics? Good at finding gold? Is that like a
Speaker 2: thing that is that more likely you're a diviner and
Speaker 2: you're like, fine, gold, Well.
Speaker 3: Let's let's take a break because we're not done with
Speaker 3: the gold thing.
Speaker 2: I didn't think so.
Speaker 3: We never would be be right back, Zarenizabeth. Okay. So
Speaker 3: Sylvia Brown and her husband Dal, they sold interest in
Speaker 3: a gold mining venture. It fails, they declared bankruptcy. That
Speaker 3: was nineteen eighty eight. In nineteen ninety two, Sylvia and
Speaker 3: Dal were accused of illegally selling securities that had not
Speaker 3: been registered at the State of California, and there were
Speaker 3: charges of misrepresentations grand theft. Dal caught an additional fraud
Speaker 3: chart charge. So, according to the criminal complaint, the Browns
Speaker 3: hustled a twenty thousand dollars investment in their gold mining
Speaker 3: venture by misrepresenting the financial status of the company. And
Speaker 3: we've seen that many times. It's going the financials. Yeah,
Speaker 3: it's happening as we speak. However, they weren't just trying
Speaker 3: to inflate the value of a company that they knew
Speaker 3: had legs and just needed to get off the ground.
Speaker 3: And we're looking for like an angel investor. No, yeah,
Speaker 3: so they picked a hit or miss industry on purpose,
Speaker 3: I think, and instead of using the money for operating expenses,
Speaker 3: they used most of it to pay off their personal
Speaker 3: and corporate debt corporate meaning Nirvana Foundation, not the mining interest.
Speaker 3: So a few weeks later, back in eighty eight, after
Speaker 3: they declared bankruptcy, they they didn't tell the investor ever,
Speaker 3: So it's a big nope on that, yes, yeah, and
Speaker 3: so you have to give your list of creditors. Yeah.
Speaker 3: They also told the investor the his money would be
Speaker 3: recovered when the mining equipment was sold. That was false.
Speaker 3: In ninety three they so you flash forward when all
Speaker 3: this goes through legal they plead no contest to a
Speaker 3: felony violation of sale of securities without permit. So they
Speaker 3: paid restitution. They get sentenced. Both have to serve a
Speaker 3: year on probation. Sylvia has to do two hundred hours
Speaker 3: of community service as probably that's probably what she did
Speaker 3: well through her church. Dal he gets sentenced to one
Speaker 3: hundred days in county jail. I should note that Sylvia
Speaker 3: divorced Dal in eighty eight around the time of the bankruptcy,
Speaker 3: kept his last name but added an E at the end.
Speaker 3: Who knows whatever, but yeah, so she's Sylvia Brown.
Speaker 2: Upgrade it now.
Speaker 3: Yeah, She's like, I just want a little bit of
Speaker 3: the on the end. But so by the nineteen nineties,
Speaker 3: Sylvia Brown is this recurring fixture on major TV talk shows,
Speaker 3: especially The Montel Williams Show and Larry King Love Yes, Yes, Okay.
Speaker 3: She's really popular for her like dead pans, smokers, gravel voice,
Speaker 3: no nonsense. So I watched an episode of Montel with
Speaker 3: her on it, and it was really, I have no idea,
Speaker 3: you know how. I don't like watching videos I watched.
Speaker 3: I watched so many videos for this, and I listened
Speaker 3: to so many radio shows. Really it gets worse. So
Speaker 3: but the episode was interesting because like audience members would
Speaker 3: ask questions and it felt like she would just say
Speaker 3: whatever came into her head okay, And I was like,
Speaker 3: she's just she's just riffing. She's jazz and I could
Speaker 3: do this and that smoker's croak yeah, because a lot
Speaker 3: of it's like you take a look at the person,
Speaker 3: You're like, oh, I totally know what I can do.
Speaker 3: A lot of times though the reaction of the person
Speaker 3: asking her the question made it clear that she was
Speaker 3: off the mark. So like a woman was like you know,
Speaker 3: I've lost some people recently and I want to know
Speaker 3: if they're okay. And Sylvia Brown's like, it was the
Speaker 3: woman who was very round, and the lady just looks blank,
Speaker 3: like I don't have no idea which talk about. And
Speaker 3: so she's like, you know, the woman who always wore
Speaker 3: an apron. The lady's just like, okay, no, and she's like,
Speaker 3: you the round woman. She smells like talcum powder or lavender, nothing,
Speaker 3: and she's like, well, she's not like round round. She
Speaker 3: just has a soft face. And then the lady like
Speaker 3: kind of slightly reacts, and then they cut to the
Speaker 3: next person. Really oh yeah, and she's like, she's fine,
Speaker 3: she loves you.
Speaker 2: Turns out she lost like three guys who.
Speaker 3: Are all I think. So she's like, I've never met
Speaker 3: another woman in my life, and I have no mother.
Speaker 3: I was grown in a lab and so anyway, I
Speaker 3: may have been born at night, but it wasn't last night.
Speaker 3: So it's obvious this woman's just winging it, right. So
Speaker 3: they they had taped segments with people who had questions
Speaker 3: but were also in the audience, but it was like
Speaker 3: a longer like backstory thing. One young woman said that
Speaker 3: a spirit that looked like a giant monster man threw
Speaker 3: her against across her dorm room and held her down
Speaker 3: and then tossed her onto the other bed and she
Speaker 3: was able to get the light on, but there was
Speaker 3: no one there, like Exorcistyle Well, and I'm like, okay,
Speaker 3: you had sleep paralysis and you might have a seizure disorder.
Speaker 3: Oh but you know, like the sleep paralysis thing, like
Speaker 3: being held down. I'm like, if anyone's ever had that,
Speaker 3: that's what that is. I'm unfamiliar the worst with ghosts,
Speaker 3: you know. Yeah, And because like the first thing Sylvia
Speaker 3: Brown says is like go to a doctor. She's like, oh,
Speaker 3: it's the you know, it's your great grandfather exactly. The
Speaker 3: first thing was like go to a doctor. And like
Speaker 3: her explanation though, was that spirits don't physically throw people.
Speaker 2: That was my thought.
Speaker 3: But here's my favorite. Montel backs that statement up by
Speaker 3: saying that, you know, if they could throw people, the
Speaker 3: victims of nine to eleven would throw Osama bin Laden
Speaker 3: down the stairs.
Speaker 2: Wow, the former marine really jumped out there.
Speaker 3: Yeah. But Sylvia's advice is like spot on, and she's like,
Speaker 3: I think you might have PTSD from something so okay,
Speaker 3: you know, harmless and only mildly entertaining, Like it was
Speaker 3: basically everyone in the show is asking about family or
Speaker 3: friends who had died in car accidents. The time period,
Speaker 3: it was weird, like I guess everyone's having car accidents
Speaker 3: and saying like, are they okay, well they're dead people
Speaker 3: like you know, but do they want to tell me anything?
Speaker 3: And every single time she's just like, they love you,
Speaker 3: and they're they're happy for you, and they're proud and
Speaker 3: they didn't want to leave. But it was depressing because
Speaker 3: there's all these like poor suffering people and she just
Speaker 3: shuffles around and the answers until she hit something that works.
Speaker 2: She ever goes to anything specific, like they missed the
Speaker 2: bowling leave Yeah, no.
Speaker 3: No, And she's it's just you're just watching someone bs people.
Speaker 3: And if you want to see that, watch me at
Speaker 3: a party where I don't know anyone, but I still
Speaker 3: have to make small talk. That's me.
Speaker 2: I'm still browned a party.
Speaker 3: So like apparently though, right now she's having a bit
Speaker 3: of a renaissance online on TikTok. Yeah, they've stumbled these
Speaker 3: clips of her on Montel and stuff. Mystified by the
Speaker 3: brusque delivery because she's cold blood. She's like, he doesn't care,
Speaker 3: like she just says, you know, and is she smoking
Speaker 3: on the no, But it sounds like she just stubbed
Speaker 3: one out. So I told you how she went on Montel.
Speaker 3: She was also a frequent guest on that AM radio
Speaker 3: show Coast to Coast with Art Bell. Yeah, that's back
Speaker 3: when it was hosted by Art Bell. George Norri took
Speaker 3: it over in two thousand and three, and she was
Speaker 3: on then too, or on that later I like George.
Speaker 3: Her publishing career scaled alongside this visibility publishing career. Yeah,
Speaker 3: so she had all these big best sellers, Adventures of
Speaker 3: a Psychic The Other Side and Back. So both of
Speaker 3: those did.
Speaker 2: She got into our you know, I'm a Convict book club,
Speaker 2: but only off of probation.
Speaker 3: She didn't even have to go to jail and the
Speaker 3: community service. Good for her, Good for her. So those
Speaker 3: those two books outlined her abilities the spirit guide system cosmology,
Speaker 3: and they did, you know, they did really well. I
Speaker 3: bet they were published by hay House and her author
Speaker 3: biography there describes her as a New York Times best
Speaker 3: selling author with quote numerous popular books. They said that
Speaker 3: she twenty two of which have appeared on the New
Speaker 3: York Times bestseller list. Twenty two.
Speaker 2: Does the New York Times ever sue anyone for saying
Speaker 2: I was on New York Times bestseller.
Speaker 3: Telling people all ninety seven books of mine.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so the swores wrote a postcard that was on
Speaker 2: the New York Times bestseller list.
Speaker 3: The more she got out there, the more she was
Speaker 3: asked about high profile stuff. Oh and like you can
Speaker 3: only watch her talk about people's dead grandmas for so long,
Speaker 3: he asking her, did do it? Yeah? Well, they're like what,
Speaker 3: like they wanted to know about the missing folks that
Speaker 3: the public knows about and that are like being searched for,
Speaker 3: like use them powers to find them? Yes, find the
Speaker 3: kids in the well. Yeah. So she she talked about
Speaker 3: how she and that's the thing she's on all these shows.
Speaker 3: She talks about how she works with the cop the
Speaker 3: FBI on all these cases which would later be found
Speaker 3: to be untrue. No, so imagine her bs game like
Speaker 3: on Montel, but with folks people have heard of and
Speaker 3: are like following. So she's gaining fame and she's gaining critics,
Speaker 3: and those critics increasingly framed her not simply as like
Speaker 3: wrong sometimes, but repeatedly wrong in high stakes contexts, especially
Speaker 3: missing person's case. So like the family goes to her
Speaker 3: and then they waste time looking wrong. Us yes, And
Speaker 3: so she's making these like confident definite on air pronouncements,
Speaker 3: and she is like this comes out. She had a
Speaker 3: couple big boners right in a row. Like you can
Speaker 3: call a mistake a boner, right, it's early nineteen hundred slang.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, its always nineteen thirty two.
Speaker 3: She had some blamo boners in the early odds. So
Speaker 3: the first The first was in two thousand and two. Okay,
Speaker 3: and eleven year old boy named Sean Hornbeck went missing
Speaker 3: while he was riding his bike to a friend's house
Speaker 3: in Missouri, in Richwood's, Missouri. So when he never turned up,
Speaker 3: parents call the cops. The bicycle is later found abandoned
Speaker 3: near a wooded area not far from his house, and
Speaker 3: the location suggested a possible abduction rather than like him
Speaker 3: running away. So search efforts begin immediately, just expand local
Speaker 3: law enforcement volunteers, search teams they like comb through all
Speaker 3: these wooded areas, tracking dogs, helicopters. Everything they search and search.
Speaker 3: There's no confirmed trail. They can't find anything. They have
Speaker 3: no suspects. So the case first draws regional and then
Speaker 3: national media attention because of his age. You know, he's
Speaker 3: like eleven and this lack of evidence, he just vanished.
Speaker 3: So his parents maintained a really visible public campaign. They
Speaker 3: handed out flyers, they were working with all these search
Speaker 3: organizations that were focused on finding kids missing kids. Law
Speaker 3: enforcement was like following all these tips, every tip that
Speaker 3: comes in, but they have no viable suspects. So the
Speaker 3: case starts to grow cold in terms of, like, you know,
Speaker 3: any action that they can take, but it's open and
Speaker 3: they keep reviewing it periodically. So during this period, his
Speaker 3: parents go on national television programs looking for help and
Speaker 3: like seeking exposure. And so his parents went on the
Speaker 3: Montell Williams Show.
Speaker 2: Just about asked.
Speaker 3: Sylvia Brown is on there to do a reading about
Speaker 3: the case. So Brown tells them that their son is dead,
Speaker 3: and she talks about the circumstances and the perpetrator is
Speaker 3: he did in that Smoker Croke. She's like, your son
Speaker 3: is dead. She said he was a Hispanic man with dreadlocks.
Speaker 3: It took him and she said that his body was
Speaker 3: twenty miles from their house in a wooded area near
Speaker 3: two jagged boulders.
Speaker 2: I think was a New Yorkan.
Speaker 3: So you're hearing that his parents are hearing this, and
Speaker 3: like the truth is basically the opposite. This guy, Michael J. Devlin,
Speaker 3: who is a pizza parlor manager from the Saint Louis
Speaker 3: suburb of Kirkwood, Missouri, approached Hornback during his bike ride,
Speaker 3: subdued him, took him away from the area, takes him
Speaker 3: to his apartment in Kirkwood that's like sixty miles from
Speaker 3: his home, and Devlin held him there for more than
Speaker 3: four years. What yes, so Sean.
Speaker 2: Was having his own bedroom or like he's like now
Speaker 2: his son.
Speaker 3: He's now yeah, and well yeah, And so Sean is
Speaker 3: held in the apartment, kept under tight control, given a
Speaker 3: false name, has to present himself as Devlin's child in
Speaker 3: public Saturday school. He's abused, he's restricted in his movement,
Speaker 3: he has these threats against him if he reveals his identity.
Speaker 3: And so he's living in plain sight for years. Oh god.
Speaker 3: And then January eighth, two thousand and seven, Devlin abducts
Speaker 3: another boy, Ben Ownbe from Missouri. Owned b disappeared while
Speaker 3: walking home from school from a bus stop. So witness
Speaker 3: descriptions of a white pickup truck led Lease to focus
Speaker 3: on Devlin. The police located the truck traced it to Devlin.
Speaker 3: January twelfth, two thousand and seven, officers go to his
Speaker 3: apartment with a search warrant. They find ben Ohenby alive
Speaker 3: and Sean Hornbeck alive. Good. He's been missing for you know,
Speaker 3: five years. So everyone came down on Sylvia Brown because
Speaker 3: she was so cold about it, just like flat the
Speaker 3: boys dead and this really.
Speaker 2: The odds because it was completely parents believed her, but
Speaker 2: they kept searching.
Speaker 3: But it's like you hear this, and so they're going
Speaker 3: and looking for these two jagged boulders. Horrible. Everyone starts
Speaker 3: to kind of sour for a bit. On TV, cyched
Speaker 3: she wasn't done. So two thousand and four, two years after,
Speaker 3: she declares Sean Hornbeck dead and three years before he's
Speaker 3: found alive. Oh no, she's on the Montel Williams Show again.
Speaker 2: Why does he keep bringing her back?
Speaker 3: Makes TV? Also on the show was Luwana Miller and
Speaker 3: her daughter Amanda Barry disappeared on April twenty first, two
Speaker 3: thousand and three, at the age of sixteen. She had
Speaker 3: a job at Burger King in Cleveland, Ohio. She was
Speaker 3: you know, left work to go home. Disappears. Her case
Speaker 3: got regional and then national media attention. Her mother was
Speaker 3: on Montel in an effort to get media exposure keep
Speaker 3: the case visible. So during the segment, Brown tells Miller
Speaker 3: that Amanda Berry's dead. She's like, she's not alive, honey, Like,
Speaker 3: I mean, it's just so flat out and all these
Speaker 3: all these mainstream news outlets just keep playing that line
Speaker 3: from the broadcast. Really yeah. According to CNN's transcripted coverage
Speaker 3: and CBS News reporting, Brown was like that the transcript
Speaker 3: says she's not alive, honey, because I couldn't find the
Speaker 3: episode anyway.
Speaker 2: I love that she just kind of hit the perfect
Speaker 2: like rhyme or meter her or whatever. Everyone just sees
Speaker 2: on that one line.
Speaker 3: So Miller is the mom is just absolutely broken and distressed,
Speaker 3: and like she's like, but you know what, she's in heaven.
Speaker 3: She's at peace, and like she but she's totally like
Speaker 3: this is it. I'm not speculating like I feel like
Speaker 3: it or like odds are She's like, no, this is
Speaker 3: the facts. And so she also kind of goes into
Speaker 3: like the circumstances of how the daughter died. Oh no, yeah,
Speaker 3: so obviously the mother's devastated. The clip shows her crying,
Speaker 3: She's visibly shaken. Miller continues searching for her daughter afterward,
Speaker 3: but family members later said that that like psychic pronouncement,
Speaker 3: caused this horrible grief for her. She died in two
Speaker 3: thousand and six, like holding the pain of the loss
Speaker 3: of her child. In May of twenty thirteen, Amanda Berry's
Speaker 3: found alive. She escaped from a Cleveland house where she'd
Speaker 3: been held captive for a decade by Ariel Castro. That
Speaker 3: guy has Two other women were rescued her. The McDonald's right, yeah,
Speaker 3: And it turns out she watched Montelle in captivity? Does
Speaker 3: she see that? And she used to wish that her
Speaker 3: mom would go on there so that Sylvia Brown could
Speaker 3: be like, she's okay, she's alive, She's gonna be okay. No,
Speaker 3: Sylvia tells her mom that she's dead, and Amanda said, quote,
Speaker 3: I just broke down crying because I can't believe she
Speaker 3: said that, and my mother episode Yeah, then my mom
Speaker 3: broke down crying, so that hurt even worse.
Speaker 2: Oh, my God, this mother goes to her rest with
Speaker 2: ever's own yes.
Speaker 3: No, yeah. So after the rescue news organizations rediscovered and
Speaker 3: rebroadcast that Montell segment, the clip just spreads everywhere national
Speaker 3: international media online platforms as this example of like a
Speaker 3: high confidence psychic claim that's proven false, so she's found alive.
Speaker 3: The clip resurfaces, Montell Williams is like starts publicly distancing
Speaker 3: himself from her. In public statements reported by all these
Speaker 3: major outlets, he said that Sylvia Brown had not been
Speaker 3: on his show for several years, and he didn't rely
Speaker 3: on or endorse psychic determinations in criminal matters. So I
Speaker 3: think you and I have mentioned briefly in passing the
Speaker 3: radio show Coast to Coast Amy. It's a late night
Speaker 3: radio talk show that goes heavy on discussions of the
Speaker 3: paranormal conspiracy theory.
Speaker 2: Oh yes, the supernatural. The Kennedy assassination at all times
Speaker 2: was sood from the sea, from the sky everything.
Speaker 3: It was hosted by Art Bell, who created it from
Speaker 3: nineteen eighty eight to two thousand and three and then
Speaker 3: hosting duties transferred over to the current host, George Neuri.
Speaker 3: Now it existed pre nineteen eighty eight on like radio
Speaker 3: stations in like the Southwest. Yeah, he was coming out
Speaker 3: of Peru and exactly. And so Sylvia Brown was a
Speaker 3: frequent guest, and they'd talked to her about prognostications for
Speaker 3: the coming year or like the ins and outs of
Speaker 3: dealing with the spirit world. And that the show goes
Speaker 3: on for like four hours.
Speaker 2: It's a long time.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So the first hour or two, the host chats
Speaker 3: with the guest, and then they go to the phones
Speaker 3: and take calls for the rest. So January second, two
Speaker 3: thousand and six, an explosion occurred at the Sago mine
Speaker 3: in Upshur County, West Virginia. Thirteen miners were trapped underground.
Speaker 3: So in the first hours after the blast, information was
Speaker 3: like muddled and confused and inconsistent, and the families gathered
Speaker 3: at this church near the site awaiting news. Yeah, and
Speaker 3: so in the early morning of January fourth, all these
Speaker 3: news outlets briefly and incorrectly reported that twelve miners had
Speaker 3: been found alive, and that was false. In reality, only
Speaker 3: one had survived and twelve others had died from carbon.
Speaker 2: Monoxide plays they flipped.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So Sylvia Brown appeared overnight on coast to Coast
Speaker 3: between when the disaster happened and when the tragedy was revealed,
Speaker 3: and so during this specific appearance, she was asked about
Speaker 3: the face to the trapped miners while rescue efforts were
Speaker 3: still underway, and like the facts weren't confirmed. I listened
Speaker 3: to this almost the whole episode, and then the next
Speaker 3: day the thing for this show, I know, I care
Speaker 3: too much. And so she she says with confidence that
Speaker 3: the trap miners are alive, and like her comments are
Speaker 3: framed as psychic insight rather than speculation. So saren it
Speaker 3: was like the longest four hours of my life listening
Speaker 3: to this thing. So there are ways to parse what
Speaker 3: she said if you look at it solely the words
Speaker 3: of it, but it's the way that she says it
Speaker 3: like that leaves well, like she's like, oh, yeah, I
Speaker 3: knew they'd be found, And so then she tries to
Speaker 3: play it found no, like their bodies would be found. No, no, no,
Speaker 3: the way you said it found alive.
Speaker 2: Oh I got you.
Speaker 3: So there's no doubt that she was positive they were alive,
Speaker 3: and as a result of her blowing this, they got
Speaker 3: really upset. On Coast to Coast, George is like, really
Speaker 3: pissed off towards the end of that episode, and then
Speaker 3: the next day he's talking about it, and as a result,
Speaker 3: she gets banned from coast to coast. Good for you,
Speaker 3: George exactly.
Speaker 2: I interviewed him once and I got a sense it
Speaker 2: was a good guy. Even though he's really curious and
Speaker 2: open minded and entertain things a lot of people won't,
Speaker 2: he still seems decent.
Speaker 3: One of the things I realized in listening to these episodes,
Speaker 3: like some of the old Art Bell ones with her
Speaker 3: in these, is that they really like the stuff they're
Speaker 3: talking about in terms of environmental issues and like global
Speaker 3: climate change. They sounded kooky at the time, but they're
Speaker 3: right now. You know, we start looking at like weird
Speaker 3: like conspiracy rings of high powered people, and it's like
Speaker 3: we brush them off, and.
Speaker 2: Oh man, Art Bell is gonna be right about the aliens.
Speaker 3: Too, Like wait a second, pyramids, Okay, so she's out
Speaker 3: of there. Don't darken our doorway again. Eighty six. Because
Speaker 3: her Coast Coast AM statements were made close to like
Speaker 3: the peak of uncertainty, you know, critics were like, well maybe,
Speaker 3: but at the same time, like, no, she could have
Speaker 3: said if she really knew if she really was a psychic.
Speaker 3: So this and a bunch of other bad predictions and
Speaker 3: false statement like sent up a red flag for the
Speaker 3: eighteen And that's the Committee for Scientific Investigation of Claims
Speaker 3: of the Paranormal, helmed by none other than James Randy.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, engines pumping. Let's take a break and when
Speaker 3: we come back, Sylvia Brown versus the amazing Randy.
Speaker 4: Yes, all right, Zaren Darren, you're going to say that
Speaker 4: I've been working on my psychic powers during a break.
Speaker 2: It's like, say my name, how did you know I'm so.
Speaker 3: Good at you're so good at that? James Randy he
Speaker 3: was a Canadian American magician, a scape artist, and scientific skeptic,
Speaker 3: best known for investigating and publicly challenging paranormal and pseudo
Speaker 3: scientific names.
Speaker 2: A skeptic with a good sensation, and he used.
Speaker 3: To say, I'm not He didn't call himself a magician.
Speaker 3: He called himself a conjurer because he's like, there's no
Speaker 3: magic involved.
Speaker 2: I was going to correct you, but I didn't want
Speaker 2: to thank you.
Speaker 3: So he started his career as like a stage magician
Speaker 3: slash conjurer escape artist. In the forties and fifties and
Speaker 3: he performed under the name the Amazing Randy, and he
Speaker 3: was inspired by Harry Houdini. He did these like specialized
Speaker 3: like escape acts, illusion work, and then he got, you know,
Speaker 3: work on TV. He did a lot of live performances.
Speaker 3: By the sixties and seventies, though he shifted focus toward
Speaker 3: investigating paranormal claims, and he used his knowledge of conjuring
Speaker 3: techniques to explain how all these like supposed psychic feats
Speaker 3: could be simulated by trickery, yeah, slight of handstype, and
Speaker 3: he talked about cold readings and hot readings for psychics.
Speaker 3: And so he became really widely known for scrutinizing high
Speaker 3: profile paranormal figures faith healers, most notably as you mentioned
Speaker 3: Uri Geller, Yeah, the spoon Bender, and then Peter pop
Speaker 3: Off I talked about him, Yes, that's right. So he
Speaker 3: would demonstrate through controlled tests and media investigations how their
Speaker 3: effects could be duplicated or explained, and then he all
Speaker 3: his investigations were in books, TV appearances, lectures. Johnny Carson
Speaker 3: loved to.
Speaker 2: Have Johnny Carson loved him. Then later on the magician
Speaker 2: Ricky j and Pennin teller who kind of just inherited
Speaker 2: his traditions exactly.
Speaker 3: So in nineteen ninety six he founded the James Randy
Speaker 3: Educational Foundation, which created the Million Dollar Paranormal Challenge, and
Speaker 3: the challenge offered a million bucks to anyone who could
Speaker 3: demonstrate paranormal ability under agreed controlled conditions, and the challenge
Speaker 3: rules and the purpose were widely published and repeatedly covered
Speaker 3: in mainstream media, so everyone knew about this. During this
Speaker 3: same period, Sylvia Brown, She's coming up through the media ranks,
Speaker 3: and because she made specific, testable paranormal claims on national television,
Speaker 3: she became one of Randy's most frequent examples when he
Speaker 3: was talking about why controlled testing is necessary. So throughout
Speaker 3: the nineties in the early two thousands, Randy repeatedly criticized
Speaker 3: Sylvia Brown's claims in interviews, lectures, all his published commentaries.
Speaker 3: He said that her claims were empirical and testable, but
Speaker 3: she was avoiding these controlled tests, and that her televised
Speaker 3: readings used common cold reading techniques. So that's when you're
Speaker 3: just like phishing basically.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and then you wait to sew they react.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Hot reading is when you do a little bit
Speaker 3: of background information ahead of time and then you can
Speaker 3: kind of, you know, to reach research them to know
Speaker 3: what you're going into.
Speaker 2: Someone's feeding.
Speaker 3: Yeah, or his example, there was one example from some
Speaker 3: TV psychic that I think was on This was a
Speaker 3: John Oliver special about TV psychics, but he was explaining
Speaker 3: how there's this reality show psychic who gave Matt Lauer
Speaker 3: a reading and was like, you know, I'm seeing something
Speaker 3: with phishing and that's important. He's like, it was really
Speaker 3: important my dad and I fishing, And then they were
Speaker 3: demonstrating that the hot reading on that is that the
Speaker 3: guy could have googled Matt Lauer and there's a ton
Speaker 3: of articles where he's like.
Speaker 2: I love fishing with.
Speaker 3: Totally. So Sylvia Brown, like she's using these cold reading
Speaker 3: techniques and her track record on verifiable cases was terrible.
Speaker 3: So like, you know, is my grandma okay? On the
Speaker 3: other side, Yeah, she loves you and she's looking down
Speaker 3: on you and she's happy. That's one thing, But like
Speaker 3: you know, Amanda Barry dead, honey, he's yeah. So the
Speaker 3: criticisms appeared in skeptical Inquirer articles like his publication. In
Speaker 3: his lectures, he and other skeptical investigators also pointed to
Speaker 3: all her felony, securities, convictions, and for the saying they're like,
Speaker 3: she's not credible, look at that like that, you know,
Speaker 3: speaks to her lack of integrity. Credible. It's the convictions exactly.
Speaker 3: So both James Randy and Sylvia Brown were regular guests
Speaker 3: on CNN's Larry King Live, so it was only a
Speaker 3: matter of time before they collide. There matadoran bull meeting
Speaker 3: in the arena. Zaren, close your eyes. I want you
Speaker 3: to close. It's September third, two thousand and one. You
Speaker 3: work at CNN Studio in Los Angeles in a very
Speaker 3: specialized position. You are Larry King's spe archivist. You catalog track,
Speaker 3: acchoire and maintain the hundreds of pairs of suspenders Larry
Speaker 3: King has in his stable of braces. You've chosen for
Speaker 3: him today, a pair in aubergine, but an aubergine's so
Speaker 3: dark it reads as black. They pair nicely with his
Speaker 3: salmon colored shirt and green and black striped tie, or
Speaker 3: so you are telling yourself. You watch him in the
Speaker 3: monitor and you're thankful you are only responsible for the suspenders.
Speaker 3: You're in a commercial break right now. Studio staff whisper
Speaker 3: and make adjustments to lights or microphones. Larry's guest tonight
Speaker 3: is that psychic Sylvia Brown. She's unassuming in her blonde
Speaker 3: page boy bob black sweater and dangling earrings. She sits
Speaker 3: in her chair and looks at her nails. Larry takes
Speaker 3: a sip of coffee from his mug on a huge
Speaker 3: monitor facing Larry and Sylvia and broadcast of viewers. When
Speaker 3: you come back from commercial is James Randy. He's appearing
Speaker 3: from Miami via satellite. You love this guy, no nonsense.
Speaker 3: He's wearing a suit and his white beard is fluffy
Speaker 3: and neat. You can't tell if he's got on suspenders
Speaker 3: under that suit jacket. God, you'd give anything to find out.
Speaker 3: You'd love to know what he's working with. Is there
Speaker 3: any stretch to the material? Maybe silk leather? Is he
Speaker 3: a y back guy or an xback? Maybe one day
Speaker 3: you'll get to meet him in person and ask. The
Speaker 3: producer gives a signal that the ad break is ending
Speaker 3: and you're about to go on live, and in five
Speaker 3: four three that's your cue to step out into the hall.
Speaker 3: You lean against the wall and stare off into the distance.
Speaker 3: People walk back and forth, guy drops a big stack
Speaker 3: of books and you help him pick him up. Above you,
Speaker 3: the on air light glows red against the ceiling. You
Speaker 3: look through the window into the soundproof studio. There seems
Speaker 3: to be a tense exchange between Randy and Brown. You
Speaker 3: usually tune the stuff out because so much of it
Speaker 3: is just manufactured for TV, but Randy is serious. He's
Speaker 3: not one for stunts. You really wish you were in there. Finally,
Speaker 3: they wrap and you head back into a company Larry
Speaker 3: and his suspenders to his dressing room. The two of
Speaker 3: you walked down the hall and you ask how it
Speaker 3: went well. He tells you Randy really put her on
Speaker 3: the spot to do his million dollar challenge, the one
Speaker 3: with the control groups and such, And you ask she
Speaker 3: said she'd do it? She said she agreed, and I
Speaker 3: told him we can host it on our website or
Speaker 3: whatever they need. She kept saying it didn't bother her,
Speaker 3: didn't bother her, That's why she came on the show.
Speaker 3: But I wasn't buying it. I got her to say
Speaker 3: she agreed to the conditions. Well, see what happens. You
Speaker 3: reach the dressing room and Larry turns his back to you.
Speaker 3: You reach down and gently unbutton the back of his suspenders.
Speaker 3: He's a why back guy. Larry unbuttons the front tabs
Speaker 3: from inside his waistband. You gingerly lift the suspenders from
Speaker 3: his shoulders, smoothly fold them over your arm, and walked
Speaker 3: to the side table where their box has been waiting
Speaker 3: since Larry got dressed for tonight's episode. See you tomorrow, kid,
Speaker 3: Larry says, and you nod and head out to the
Speaker 3: suspender room. This is Aaron.
Speaker 2: I love that he has an archiveoist. And then I'm
Speaker 2: imagining him like walking out with loose pants.
Speaker 3: Because it's like.
Speaker 2: Dropped the grass backly he walks out in the shorts.
Speaker 3: So as you went to Sarah. During the broadcast, Randy
Speaker 3: publicly challenged Sylvia Brown to take the million dollar Paranormal
Speaker 3: Challenge and she was, she said on air. She accepted it,
Speaker 3: and then he was like, it's available. You will be
Speaker 3: tested under mutually agreed you know, controlled conditions. She responds affirmatively, Yes,
Speaker 3: I'll do it. So following that Larry King Live episode,
Speaker 3: the James Randy Educational Foundation said that it was working
Speaker 3: with Brown's representatives to set up a formal test protocol
Speaker 3: that was consistent with the challenge rules, and that a
Speaker 3: preliminary protocol had been negotiated and they scheduled a test date.
Speaker 3: Brown didn't show up. No, I mean, obviously there's no test.
Speaker 3: So I would like to make note that the Larry
Speaker 3: King live appearance was on September third, two thousand and one,
Speaker 3: and Sylvia Brown had no message about anything that was
Speaker 3: coming in the next week. That's interesting, that's curious, Sylvia.
Speaker 2: So on me, it'll be a really strong nexus of
Speaker 2: energy around about a week and a day from now.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Sylvia, are you feeling anything in the No. No,
Speaker 3: but your grandmother says hi. So in May sixty she's dead, honey.
Speaker 3: May sixteen, two three is horrible. Almost three years after
Speaker 3: she accepted the throwdown, she goes on Larry King again
Speaker 3: and she had to admit she still hadn't taken Randy's test.
Speaker 3: Why hadn't she done it? Well, she's like, you know what,
Speaker 3: Randy won't put the prize money in escrow.
Speaker 2: Oh got him on a technicality.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Randy's like, okay, let's go. So he sends her
Speaker 3: a notarized copy of the prize account status where the
Speaker 3: balance is more than a million dollars. She wouldn't accept
Speaker 3: the letter, and so in two thousand and five, she's like,
Speaker 3: you know, I know forgot any confirmation that there was
Speaker 3: any prize money, and like, do you think you can
Speaker 3: mess with the amazing Randy?
Speaker 2: The giant check at her door that's actually a certified.
Speaker 3: Receipt of James Randy was ready. He had a certified
Speaker 3: mail receipt showing that she refused to accept the letter.
Speaker 3: So in two thousand and seven, the whole mess winds
Speaker 3: up on CNN again, this time on Anderson Cooper three
Speaker 3: point sixty. Did I watch the episode? Of course they did.
Speaker 3: There's lots of cross talk and accusations, but it wasn't Sylvia.
Speaker 3: It was her business manager, Linda Rossi, trying to take
Speaker 3: on James Randy and like she was not here for it.
Speaker 3: She said that Sylvia didn't have to participate in the
Speaker 3: challenge because she quote has nothing to prove to James Randy,
Speaker 3: and James Randy's like, yeah, I know she doesn't, and
Speaker 3: then she's like attacking him for being an atheist. And
Speaker 3: Anderson had a chastiser for using quote high school debate
Speaker 3: tactics like ad hominem attack. Yeah, Yeah.
Speaker 2: It was amazing, a good dismissive insult, and it was like.
Speaker 3: I had forgotten about the old Anderson Cooper was wild. Yeah.
Speaker 3: So Sylvia Brown, she keeps publishing and touring into the
Speaker 3: twenty tens, she released additional spiritual and psychic titles through
Speaker 3: Hayhouse and like other related publishers. And she's talking about
Speaker 3: like prophecy, spirit communication, health, intuition, and then she gets
Speaker 3: into like end time scenarios.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Well she said something about a pandemic hitting in twenty
Speaker 3: twenty in one of those books. Really yeah, and folks like, well,
Speaker 3: she was gone by then. Folks like Kim Kardashian referenced
Speaker 3: it when COVID hit. They're like, oh, look at this book.
Speaker 3: Ya course, But when you look at it in the
Speaker 3: context of what she was talking about, she was more
Speaker 3: referring to avian flu i. But see, here's the thing, though,
Speaker 3: a ton of expert had been sounding the alarm about
Speaker 3: this for a while now, about a global pandemic. Again,
Speaker 3: she was playing the odds, yeah, exactly. So she remained
Speaker 3: affiliated with her Gnostic church, continued private readings and events.
Speaker 3: She died on November twentieth, twenty thirteen. In California at
Speaker 3: age seventy seven. Her son, Chris Dufrain, carries on her
Speaker 3: psychic legacy.
Speaker 2: Naturally, someone got to He's got.
Speaker 3: A website, Chris RightNow dot com. And I was going
Speaker 3: to copy and paste his about Chris section here to
Speaker 3: read to you. But when you write click on his
Speaker 3: website and message box pops up that says alert copyright
Speaker 3: twenty twenty by Sylvia Brown Group, Incorporated. Well guess what, Chris,
Speaker 3: I use image to text, so I took a screenshot
Speaker 3: so I wouldn't have to hand transcribe it. This is
Speaker 3: for journalism. My good dude, that's You'm not breaking any copyrights.
Speaker 3: So now I'm going to read it to you. Go
Speaker 3: to the website and do the same thing. Internationally recognized
Speaker 3: psychic and author Chris Dufrain has been in professional practice
Speaker 3: for over thirty years, helping countless people. Chris is the
Speaker 3: son of world renowned psychic, author, lecturer, and researcher, the
Speaker 3: late Sylvia Brown. Chris's lineage includes over three hundred years
Speaker 3: of practicing psychics, including individuals involved in the field of parapsychology.
Speaker 3: Like his mother, Chris is also an award winning author.
Speaker 3: He has written seven books, two of which have appeared
Speaker 3: on the New York Times bestseller List. Chris Dufrain has
Speaker 3: also appeared on several TV programs over the years, such
Speaker 3: as People Are Talking, Base, City Limits, Northwest Afternoon, Unsolved Mysteries,
Speaker 3: and The Montel Williams Show. He has also been a
Speaker 3: featured guest on countless radio shows. Chris is very involved
Speaker 3: with his community, giving back any chance he gets. His
Speaker 3: primary goal in life is to help people with his
Speaker 3: gift through readings booked on his website and live question
Speaker 3: and answer segments on social media. You can find recordings
Speaker 3: of Chris on his YouTube channel. You can watch one
Speaker 3: of his frequent live YouTube Q and as meet and greets,
Speaker 3: as well as teaches courses in hypnotherapy but apparently doesn't
Speaker 3: have an editor.
Speaker 2: Or you can check his real estate seminari, which he also.
Speaker 3: Since Sylvia's passing, Chris is embarked on his own path,
Speaker 3: including lectures throughout the country, radio podcasts, and television appearances.
Speaker 3: In this way, he continues his mother's legacy, bringing spiritual
Speaker 3: awareness to our world, as well as his own personal
Speaker 3: messages of hope, peace and love in his own way,
Speaker 3: like if You parsel those sentences.
Speaker 2: He definitely needs more than an editor. He needs also
Speaker 2: a BS detector.
Speaker 3: I'll be yeah, yeah, Zaren, what's your ridiculous takeaway?
Speaker 2: Like I have to say this often, but like the
Speaker 2: world is so glad I decided not to become a
Speaker 2: con man or a charlatan because I would hire you
Speaker 2: as my editor.
Speaker 3: I would have the.
Speaker 2: Good website, people would believe it. I've done enough research
Speaker 2: over the years. I know the language they want, and
Speaker 2: like I wouldn't be so just patent agreed greedy about it,
Speaker 2: Like I wouldn't be out there She's dad, honey, you know,
Speaker 2: like you gotta have a little like grace with this.
Speaker 2: You give people an emotional story. So I say, what's ridiculous?
Speaker 2: My takeaway for this is, thank God I don't want
Speaker 2: to be a con person because if this is the
Speaker 2: bar to clear, right, Sylvia Brown is not that like
Speaker 2: I can think I could trip over that bar.
Speaker 3: I just I feel like I'm gonna go ahead and
Speaker 3: tell my ridiculous take Ok, Yeah, what is yours Elizabeth
Speaker 3: for once? I you know, I think about a lot
Speaker 3: of psychic stuff that you see. They're really kind of
Speaker 3: heavy on the self help because that's basically what they're doing. Yes,
Speaker 3: that's what they can make their money. Reading is it's
Speaker 3: like you can tell who people are asking about, like
Speaker 3: you know, and there's big patterns usually sure exactly, But
Speaker 3: when you take it that step too far. It's one
Speaker 3: thing when it's a novelty and you're basically reassuring someone
Speaker 3: like yeah, you know what a horoscope, you lost your
Speaker 3: you lost your dad, but you know what, like if
Speaker 3: if someone has a good relationship with her father and says,
Speaker 3: does he send me messages? He's still there, you're not
Speaker 3: going to say like yeah, they're like no, I hate him.
Speaker 3: You know. It's like the very question tells you everything
Speaker 3: you need to do, saying never buy a Chevy, and
Speaker 3: you're reassuring that person. And so I think that there
Speaker 3: sometimes people you know, maybe don't want to do a
Speaker 3: lot of self reflection or can't you are not emotionally
Speaker 3: developed to do it. And if this gives them a
Speaker 3: way to feel good and like kind of you know,
Speaker 3: develop out their feelings on things, that's one thing. But
Speaker 3: to god, the taking advantage she's dead, honey.
Speaker 2: Well, it's like the tarot cards and the horoscopes. The
Speaker 2: real power of those is when you kind of project
Speaker 2: onto it and you end up interpreting what you already feel.
Speaker 2: So it's a way to just kind of conjure up
Speaker 2: your own intuition, you know what I mean, if you
Speaker 2: fit the pattern with what you think will occur, or
Speaker 2: what you're worried about, or what you're feeling but not saying. Yeah,
Speaker 2: So they actually have some value as like a diagnostic
Speaker 2: tool for yourself if you're really to go with.
Speaker 3: It and I want to believe in like woo wooh.
Speaker 3: There are different degrees of it. I think that you
Speaker 3: can't say like with certainty with certainty, but I think
Speaker 3: that you know, you definitely get like feelings of some
Speaker 3: more than others.
Speaker 2: You know, some people can't really blow you away, you know,
Speaker 2: Like I've heard numerous stories where I'm like, Okay, I'm
Speaker 2: willing to believe you. If you listen to a couple
Speaker 2: of old exorcists sit around and tell you stories, You're like,
Speaker 2: there's something I don't know what it is, but you
Speaker 2: guys are.
Speaker 3: If I've learned anything from Art Bell, don't dismiss twenty
Speaker 3: years and then we'll find out. Yeah, you know what
Speaker 3: I think we need now? Is it? Talk back. I
Speaker 3: was gonna say lemon cookies, well and lemon cookies. Oh
Speaker 3: my god, I.
Speaker 5: Want hello, my beloved Ridiculous crimbing through. This is Kelly
Speaker 5: from Madison. I recently found out that my favorite screwball
Speaker 5: cop from the Police Academy Movies, one Stephen Gutenberg, got
Speaker 5: his start in showbiz buying. It's a fascinating story. I
Speaker 5: won't ruin it here, but I highly recommend checking it out.
Speaker 3: It'd be great to hear.
Speaker 5: About on the show. But Stephen Gutenberg Crime, Wait.
Speaker 2: A minute, does he have like a Tim Allen like story?
Speaker 2: Flip a coin, See he gets the guten.
Speaker 3: That's amazing. Okay, thank you for that. You're already writing titles.
Speaker 3: I see what you do. That's it for today. You
Speaker 3: can find us online at Ridiculous Crime dot com. We're
Speaker 3: also at Ridiculous Crime on Blue Sky and on Instagram,
Speaker 3: and we're on YouTube at Ridiculous Crime Pod. You can
Speaker 3: email us at Ridiculous Crime at gmail dot com, and
Speaker 3: you can leave a talk back on the iHeart app
Speaker 3: and we would love it. I appreciate it. Reach out.
Speaker 3: Ridiculous Crime is hosted by Elizabeth Dutton and Zaren Burnett.
Speaker 3: Produced and edited by Dave. She's Dead Honey Kusten, starring
Speaker 3: Annals Rutger. This Judith Research is by Coast to Coast
Speaker 3: AM host under study Marissa Brown and the star of
Speaker 3: A and E's Psychic Pancakes with Jabbari Jabari Davis. The
Speaker 3: theme song is by Guy Who Drank two gallons of
Speaker 3: milk in ten minutes and Can See the Future Thomas
Speaker 3: Lee and star of the One Man Show, Ragtime Skeptics,
Speaker 3: Dance Review Delight Travis Dutton. Post wardrobe is provided by
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Speaker 3: Executive producers are Cia Plant, Ben Bollen and UFO Mechanic
Speaker 3: Noel Brown. QUI Say It One More Time?
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