Bullshit Files: The Psychic and the Mass Grave

I don't know how I missed this one but around this time last year, on a tip from a member of the public, authorities swooped down on the property of Joe Bankson and Gena Charlton in Hardin, Texas.

What were they looking for?

Dozens of dismembered bodies, including those of children. Lordy! Why won't anyone think of the children?

What did they find?

Um... nothing.

The tipster, 48 year-old psychic grandmother "Angel", had this to say:

"They up front asked me how I got the information, and I am a reverend. I am a prophet and I get my information from Jesus and the angels, and I told them that I had 32 angels with me and they were giving me the information and then it went from there."

Oh dear. I mean if you can't trust in Jesus and the angels, well, who can you trust?

Now I don't know about you or, for that matter, the staff at Liberty County Sheriff's Office but if someone came to me with a hot tip about some crime, and they disclosed the source of their tip was Baby Jesus and His Heavenly Choir, I might take a bit more of a pragmatic view. Yes, before I send in the cadaver dogs, the search teams, invite the media, and otherwise commit to a very expensive exercise maybe I might have done some checking first.

Did Hardin, with a population under 1000, have an unusual history of missing persons? Or even the surrounding area, for that matter? Were there noise complaints of night-time chainsawing activities from the neighbours of Bankson or Charlton?

No?

Was there just an outside possibility that Angel is batshit crazy?

Allegedly this wasn't the first time Angel had phoned a hot tip to the police. With not much better results, either.

Well, the outcome of this sad tale is that Bankson and Charlton are taking legal action against Angel, the Sherrif's Office, and several media outlets for defamation claiming that the police had no probable cause to search their home and that the media failed to make 'reasonable enquiries' into the truthfulness of the statemements published.

I await the oucome with interest.