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Critic’s “Top 15” claims by psychic detective Noreen Renier

fls said:
Where are you getting that from? I'm looking at a satellite map of Williston and the only water it shows are the east pit, the Whitehurst pit, and then a small pit in the southeast part of the town.
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Investigator Brian Hewitt "says on Sightings that he 'walked around probably 30 quarries' before deciding that the Whitehurst pit most closely matched the totality of Renier's clues." See http://gpposner.com/Williston.html

fls said:
Right, but what does that have to do with it? If he's nearby, it has to be somewhere he can remain undetected for over a year. If he's further away, then the possibilities are too numerous to count.
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Exactly. The police didn't know whether Lewis would be found near his home or a long distance away; in a watery pit, swamp, wooded area, or somewhere else; in his car, near his car, or far removed from it. The possibilities were indeed too numerous to count, which is why the investigation went nowhere for 16 months.

fls said:
But it clearly wasn't because of what Renier said. The information she gave them not only was wrong, it indicated so many possible directions and interpretations that there would be no way to use it to do a directed search.
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So, give me your scenario as to how the police zeroed in on the Whitehurst pit.
 
Rodney said:
Investigator Brian Hewitt "says on Sightings that he 'walked around probably 30 quarries' before deciding that the Whitehurst pit most closely matched the totality of Renier's clues." See http://gpposner.com/Williston.html
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But it didn't most closely match. Maybe police incompetence?

So, give me your scenario as to how the police zeroed in on the Whitehurst pit.
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Lucky guessing combined with police incompetence? After all, we know lucky guesses exist. And lord knows we can show multitudes of examples of police incompetence. But since we don't have a single case of scientifically demonstrated psychic powers, it would be just plain foolish to attribute the solving of this case to some kind of hocus-pocus.

Now would any of the psychic faithful like to point to some kind of quantitative objective evidence, you know, that niggling little stuff that would actually lend some reality based credence to the notion that psychic powers were involved, but which is so far wholly lacking? :D
 
Rodney said:
Investigator Brian Hewitt "says on Sightings that he 'walked around probably 30 quarries' before deciding that the Whitehurst pit most closely matched the totality of Renier's clues." See http://gpposner.com/Williston.html
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Maybe he's talking about quarries without water in them. Or maybe he' talking about a larger search radius. On the satellite picture, once you widen the radius another few miles, there seem to be more water-filled pits. However, if you start from Lewis' house, the choices are limited to those I mentioned (and that's not taking into account accessibility or depth).

Exactly. The police didn't know whether Lewis would be found near his home or a long distance away; in a watery pit, swamp, wooded area, or somewhere else; in his car, near his car, or far removed from it. The possibilities were indeed too numerous to count, which is why the investigation went nowhere for 16 months.

So, give me your scenario as to how the police zeroed in on the Whitehurst pit.
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Why? It clearly couldn't have been due to Renier's direction.

Linda
 
fls said:
Why? It clearly couldn't have been due to Renier's direction.
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Aside from the fact that Williston Police Chief Slaughter categorically disagrees with you ("I can only tell you what the facts are that led us to Norman. And I can also tell you that we wouldn't have found Norman Lewis without the help of Noreen" -- see http://noreenrenier.com/media/articles/lawenforcementmag.html), that wasn't my question. I was asking how you believe the Williston police came to focus on the Whitehurst pit, especially since Gary Posner and several participants on this thread believe that another pit better fit Renier's reading.
 
Rodney said:
Aside from the fact that Williston Police Chief Slaughter categorically disagrees with you ("I can only tell you what the facts are that led us to Norman. And I can also tell you that we wouldn't have found Norman Lewis without the help of Noreen" -- see http://noreenrenier.com/media/articles/lawenforcementmag.html), that wasn't my question.
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That part is actually a nice illustration (since it's well-documented) of how these opinions are worthless, since his memory of what she said excludes all the bits which were wrong, includes correct information which did not come from her, and includes heavy doses of confirmation and attribution bias.

I was asking how you believe the Williston police came to focus on the Whitehurst pit, especially since Gary Posner and several participants on this thread believe that another pit better fit Renier's reading.
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How would I know? Even the police no longer seem to know, since they quite mistakenly attributed it to Renier, even though what she told them was wrong and is different from what they 'remembered' her saying.

Linda
 
Rodney said:
Aside from the fact that Williston Police Chief Slaughter categorically disagrees with you ("I can only tell you what the facts are that led us to Norman. And I can also tell you that we wouldn't have found Norman Lewis without the help of Noreen" -- see http://noreenrenier.com/media/articles/lawenforcementmag.html), that wasn't my question.
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Imagine you're a cop who is incompetent enough to overlook some very obvious possibilities in a missing person search. So your case drags on far longer than it maybe would have if you'd done some better police work. Then you get yourself involved with some bogus psychic who is familiar enough with the case to feed you back some information you already know, all fluffed up with some "maybe 45" and "sounds like 21" crap of course. Then you eventually solve the case, again taking way longer than it might have if you'd pursued some of the more obvious options sooner.

So some people start to call you on how silly it is to get a fortune teller involved. You're going to (a) admit that it was stupid to bring a psychic on board because you couldn't do your job and acknowledge that the missing person was found where some decent police work would have led anyway, or (b) make noise to the effect that the case was terribly difficult and you were stumped until you got the psychic involved?

Rodney said:
I was asking how you believe the Williston police came to focus on the Whitehurst pit, especially since Gary Posner and several participants on this thread believe that another pit better fit Renier's reading.
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It could be they dragged their butts along with some shoddy police work for too long, then finally realized the Whitehurst gravel quarry was a likely location for a variety of reasons other than some two-bit palm reader offered some completely ambiguous "information" that could have pointed to any of hundreds of locations.

fls said:
That part is actually a nice illustration (since it's well-documented) of how these opinions are worthless, since his memory of what she said excludes all the bits which were wrong, includes correct information which did not come from her, and includes heavy doses of confirmation and attribution bias.
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Excellent point. Sensible and well grounded in reality. But for someone who believes in psychic powers, that answer sucks. ;)
 
GeeMack said:
Imagine you're a cop who is incompetent enough to overlook some very obvious possibilities in a missing person search. So your case drags on far longer than it maybe would have if you'd done some better police work. Then you get yourself involved with some bogus psychic who is familiar enough with the case to feed you back some information you already know, all fluffed up with some "maybe 45" and "sounds like 21" crap of course. Then you eventually solve the case, again taking way longer than it might have if you'd pursued some of the more obvious options sooner.
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If a skeptic had pointed out some "of the more obvious options" before the fact, perhaps the case would have been solved earlier. But as I've pointed out more than once, the strong suit of skeptics does not appear to be the ability to contribute much of anything before the fact. I guess they're too busy posting here. ;)
 
Rodney said:
If a skeptic had pointed out some "of the more obvious options" before the fact, perhaps the case would have been solved earlier. But as I've pointed out more than once, the strong suit of skeptics does not appear to be the ability to contribute much of anything before the fact. I guess they're too busy posting here. ;)
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If the cops were reasonably competent they might have recognized some of the more obvious possibilities months before they did. If they had they wouldn't have to defend their attempt to utilize magical powers to make up for it. Of course it is foolish to blame skeptics for a police department doing a lousy job. And it's just as foolish to believe skeptics might be able to predict the future as it is to believe fortune tellers and palm readers can magically see details after the fact. But as you're a believer in supernatural powers, your disdain for skepticism is understandable.
 
There are in fact limited places where a truck could be hidden in water. The depth of the water is low in various locations so a bright red truck would be visible near edgelines. And in order for a truck to be hidden you must be able to drive to the spot. That eliminates several locations and entire expansive sections of the quarry in which he was found. Some of the remaining areas (including other quarries) were closed and behind locked gates. And some nearby lake/ponds lack vehicle water edge access. Given that the location where Lewis was found is the largest and most accessible, and (based only to color imaging provided on some maps) appears to be the deepest over a edge area accessible to vehicles --- you don't need to be psychic to know you don't have options left.

Based on vehicle access to the quarry edge and water depth below one can make a pretty reasonable prediction on where the truck had to be --- a factor I'm sure the Navy divers took into consideration when attempting to locate a hidden truck.
 
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Rodney said:
If a skeptic had pointed out some "of the more obvious options" before the fact, perhaps the case would have been solved earlier. But as I've pointed out more than once, the strong suit of skeptics does not appear to be the ability to contribute much of anything before the fact. I guess they're too busy posting here. ;)
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But cases involving the contributions of skeptics before the fact wouldn't come to your attention. Psychics don't get called in for solved cases.

Linda
 
fls said:
But cases involving the contributions of skeptics before the fact wouldn't come to your attention.
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Why not? I've asked more than once on this forum for evidence of a skeptic solving a missing person case, and have yet to receive any.
 
Rodney said:
Why not? I've asked more than once on this forum for evidence of a skeptic solving a missing person case, and have yet to receive any.
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Don't you think many police detectives are of a skeptical bent?
 
Sherlock said:
There are in fact limited places where a truck could be hidden in water. The depth of the water is low in various locations so a bright red truck would be visible near edgelines. And in order for a truck to be hidden you must be able to drive to the spot. That eliminates several locations and entire expansive sections of the quarry in which he was found. Some of the remaining areas (including other quarries) were closed and behind locked gates. And some nearby lake/ponds lack vehicle water edge access. Given that the location where Lewis was found is the largest and most accessible, and (based only to color imaging provided on some maps) appears to be the deepest over a edge area accessible to vehicles --- you don't need to be psychic to know you don't have options left.

Based on vehicle access to the quarry edge and water depth below one can make a pretty reasonable prediction on where the truck had to be --- a factor I'm sure the Navy divers took into consideration when attempting to locate a hidden truck.
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^^ This bears repeating. ^^

When I look at the maps and satellite views of the Williston area I notice a couple of pretty obvious places where a vehicle and occupant might end up disappearing. Given the Whitehurst gravel pit has many points of access for a vehicle, it makes it a very reasonable possibility.

In fact it's so reasonable that if I were a missing-person detective looking for someone who had threatened to off himself by driving into a quarry, I might have gone out there to Whitehurst's and asked the owners to point out the depths of the ponds at various locations.

And if I were pretending to be a psychic detective, as Noreen Renier does, I might have taken the safe bet and been more specific about my guess. She really dropped the ball with that one. Idiot.

Of course I'm neither a cop who believes in magical powers, nor a fraudulent psychic detective who preys on the families of missing people. I'm just a skeptic, a critical thinker who knows how to read a simple map.
 
fls said:
FTFY

Linda
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Please humor me by supplying just one case similar to the Williston one, where a skeptic, rather than a psychic, provided the police information useful enough that they gave the skeptic credit for helping solve the case.
 
I couldn't tell you if the handy man is a skeptic, but he gave the only real lead I've read.
 
Rodney said:
Please humor me by supplying just one case similar to the Williston one, where a skeptic, rather than a psychic, provided the police information useful enough that they gave the skeptic credit for helping solve the case.
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The best, most qualified, most competent police officers and detectives are skeptics, critical thinkers. That's part of what makes the good ones good. They're credited with helping solve missing person cases all the time. It's their job.
 
Search dog owners find thousands of missing persons

Successful critics of using paranormal psychics that found missing persons? A single case? How naive!

Two of the largest organizations devoted for owners of search and rescue dogs have publicly criticized the use of psychics in missing person cases.

And their membership of more than 4500 registered owners offer a success rate through the use of trained dogs far superior with less cost per case. Much of their findings are also admissible in court and their EVIDENCE has far fewer and limited legal liabilities with virtually no overturned convictions. Plus these critics add a documented history of solving crimes, finding missing persons (both dead and alive), and obtaining actual court convictions --- about 572,000 to 1 over missing person psychic detectives. And that "1" is simply a numeric value since its as close to zero as possible!

In addition to search and rescue dogs, compared with the top ten psychic detectives over the past 30 years state police dogs hold an approximate 85,000 to 0 chance of finding a missing person alive over the psychics sanctioned by state police and a 640,000 to 0 chance of finding a missing person dead or alive more than a year before psychics hired and sanctioned by state police agencies --- even on cases up to 30 years old!

I'll put either of these groups of registered and certified paranormal critics who are critical of psychic detectives against any paranormal claimant. And so do the nation's courts.
 
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