A look at the claims, predictions and behavior of a media "psychic".
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A look at the claims, predictions and behavior of a media "psychic".
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Opal Jo Jennings: Reading on the Montel Williams ShowDoes Sylvia Browne "bring comfort to people?" Not this time. 
Sylvia Browne watches the video montage of Opal Jo Jennings. BackgroundIn March of 1999, six-year-old Opal Jo Jennings was abducted from her grandparents’ front yard in Tarrant County, Texas. A state-wide search for her was soon underway, with no success in finding her. Opal’s grandmother, Audrey Sanderford, decided to come on the Montel Williams Show and ask for Sylvia Browne’s help. It should be noted that some of the families of missing persons who appear on the show do so not because they believe in Sylvia’s “psychic powers”, but primarily to get the face of their missing loved one on national television, in hopes that someone in the viewing audience will be able to help. I do not know whether Mrs. Sanderford believed in Sylvia or not. The ReadingThe episode in which Mrs. Sanderford appeared was first broadcast on April 29th, 1999. A little more than halfway through the show, Montel Williams sets up a clip which introduces the segment:
At this point, a commercial break is shown.
Sylvia Browne and Audrey Sanderford. Click here to view video clip of reading. (3MB, .mov format)
From this point on, Montel and Sylvia take unrelated questions from the rest of the crowd. Mrs. Sanderford is still seated, on camera, and continues looking understandably distraught throughout. According to friends of the family, despite Montel Willams’ promise of help, the family never again heard from Williams or Browne. How Accurate Was the Reading?Typically, when Sylvia Browne does a reading on the Montel Williams show, we have no way of knowing whether she was right or wrong. Not so this time. In August of 1999, convicted child molester Richard Lee Franks was arrested and charged with Opal’s abduction. He admitted to having picked her up and given her a ride (the children who witnessed Opal’s abduction say that a man grabbed her, struck her when she screamed, threw her into his truck, and drove off with her). Franks was convicted of Opal’s abduction in September of 2000, and was subsequently sentenced to life in prison. In late December of 2003, the skeletal remains of a small girl were found in a remote area near Fort Worth, Texas. The pink Barbie tennis shoes found with the remains matched those Opal Jo was wearing when she was abducted. A few days later, Tarrant County medical examiners announce that DNA extracted from a tooth confirmed that the remains were those of Opal Jo Jennings. The cause of death: blunt force trauma to the head. Was Opal still alive when Sylvia talked with Mrs. Sanderford? Not according to a friend of Opal’s family, who says “It was determined that Opal was killed by trauma to the head with(in) several hours of her abduction.” Was Opal in Japan? No. She was found 13 miles from where she was taken, in Texas. It would seem that the only thing that Sylvia Browne got right in the case was the fact that Opal had been abducted by a white man. Not only is this not a very impressive “hit,” but it was already known thanks to eyewitnesses, and had been reported nationally. It would have been easy for Sylvia to find this information on the news or on the web, and to drop it into this reading to help convince the family she knew what she was talking about. But no matter how wrong her reading was, Sylvia didn’t have to worry, since the Montel Show would not be doing any follow-up segment. ConclusionSylvia Browne’s supporters like to talk about how much “comfort” she brings to people. I wonder how comforted Mrs. Sanderford and the rest of her family felt. It is bad enough that Sylvia Browne gave them the false hope that Opal was still alive. But she planted in their heads the image of their little girl in “white slavery” - which generally refers to forced prostitution - on the other side of the planet, where they would have had almost no chance of ever finding her. They had to live with that thought for the next four years, until Opal’s remains were finally found. When confronted with failures of her predictions and readings, Sylvia Browne likes to say that she can’t be right all of the time. If that is the case, why on Earth would she ever say something as horrific as this to a family unless she was 100% certain it was correct? But if Sylvia Browne is simply a cold reader – as I believe she is – then this is about the cruelest, most disturbing example of cold reading I have ever seen. Related LinksClicking on any of these links will load a separate browser window for viewing the linked page. StopSylviaBrowne.com is not responsible for the content of any of these linked pages.
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