First Official Crime Scene Investigation

Last week I realized that, despite the fact that my guides have told me that I'll be going more public soon, I have had very little experience with a couple of areas of common public interest; namely crime scene investigation and investigation of houses with spirit activity. My relative lack of experience in those areas came to my attention because of the fact that, over the last 8 months I've had multiple clients coming to me in need of those services. The influx of clients with those needs is strange only because I haven't really drawn many of those types of clients in the past...I never really saw myself as the type to help the police solve a crime (despite the fact that, as pathetically typical as it may sound, Medium is my favorite show, lol). The truth is that I tend to be a very deeply emotional person in the sense that I feel the pain of others to my core, making it difficult for me to relive their suffering. This is why I can't watch movies like Saw or others in which people are suffering; it literally makes me physically sick to my stomach.

In any case, after coming to this realization last week, I decided that, since I'm not sure what avenue my professional life will take in the public, I should probably get some practice in...Now, I'm not COMPLETELY inexperienced in these areas - I've investigated homes for people unsettled by spirit activity and over the course of my career I've aided families whose loved ones have died tragically, mysteriously or otherwise unnaturally. But doing medium work and obtaining information that way before going to a crime scene is very different than going in completely blind, which is something that, until today, I'd never done before. It's one thing to sit down with a mother whose son comes through and tells you all of the details of his murder but quite another to go to a location where you have absolutely no idea what type of a passing took place there (whether a murder, a suicide, an accident or a natural passing) and attempt to connect to the energy to get information. This is what I did today...Last week I had my assistant Chris look up locations online without telling me or anyone else ANYTHING about the location he chose - not even where it was located...The plan was for him to get the jist of what happened and then, on the appointed day (today), drive us out to the location, where I would be videotaped doing a "reading" on what happened at the location.

Follow up:

Please keep in mind that I don't approach this as some sort of exciting "ghost hunting" expedition...I take my work and the lives that have been lost very seriously and with the utmost respect. I believe that, with some practice, I can potentially help families find closure (possibly through assisting them with leads) in the death or abduction of loved ones and my intention when doing these investigations is to hone my skills. I'm choosing to videotape them both so that I can overcome any sort of "performance anxiety" I might have and also to let the world see what's it's really like on an investigation...Most of the shows we see about psychic phenomena are so pre-packaged and glitzy that people think a psychic sees all things in an instant, which isn't true...We're human and we're not infallible...Sometimes a 22 minute investigation takes 15 minutes to really get going (grin). I think it's important that people understand the truth about psychic phenomena because I think it might help those who have doubts to know that being psychic doesn't mean we have some special powers, it just means we're more aware of the subtle energies around us. Hopefully my work can help to bring a bit more of a sense of humanity to the field.

I also think that the videos of me investigating the locations will help others who are working to develop their skills to see that, no matter how long you've been working with your abilities (I've been working with mine since I was a little girl and I've been working professionally for about 10 years), you never stop learning and growing; ideally there's never a point in one's life where they've mastered everything and have no room to grow. Before last week I'd never really had much interest in crime scene investigation - it just wasn't an area I thought of myself exploring or taking an interest in...But after having spent time feeling the overwhelming energy at my first location, I can see so much potential...I was so moved by the little girl who gave me details of her murder and those of her loved ones that I feel compelled to continue exploring this path.

MY FIRST INVESTIGATION

To be honest, I wasn't sure I would be able to do it...Would I be able to connect strongly enough to the energy of a space to be able to determine the facts of what had taken place? When I do medium readings, I'm not able to control who comes through, so my client could hear from someone they really want to talk to or they may hear from an uncle who passed 20 years before they were born...Would I be able to connect with the residual energy of someone's passing strongly enough on command to be able to pick up anything but the most basic emotions? Well, for better or worse, I was determined to find out - and I wanted to make sure that it was under strenuous conditions: a. while I was being videotaped (which always makes me nervous!) and b. with other people watching (which ALSO makes me nervous! lol - I'm getting much better at these things, though)...

So today (Monday, April 6, 2009) was the appointed day and, while I'm very surprised and happy that I was able to pick up some good, solid information, it was an incredibly disturbing to experience. I'll be posting the video (along with subsequent ones that I'll be doing soon) on the website (www.MediumReadings.com) and I'll post the link here on this blog post within the next day or two, so be sure to check back if you don't see it yet...

I'm going to leave the video in its entirety, as well as adding some commentary to the beginning for my website. The video is about 10 minutes long and for the most part you can tell that it's my 1st official "investigation" - I spent the first 6 minutes or so just trying to wade through this giant mass of horrifying energy without being able to get anything too specific...the energy was just so thick and so frenzied and so overwhelming and the images were so confusing - it was like I was going underwater in a pool and I couldn't pick out one thing from another...but it was all frightening...It didn't help that we were standing out on a street and neighbors were all around, so we had to be very quick - I had a good connection going, so I think if I'd had more than the 10 minutes to be there I probably could have gotten some good details...

Actually, even though I wasn't told where we were going, the second we'd turned down the street I knew it was our destination (despite the fact that our driver took a bit of a "scenic" route through many neighborhoods to get there, lol)...the energy from the very top of the street was like passing through a thick brick wall...It was intense and it was heavy...About 200 feet past that I literally felt this overwhelming terror and just wanted to run as far from there as possible - it was a horror I've never experienced in my life...Chris, who was driving, asked if I wanted to leave but fortunately I was able to get it under control and we continued...it loosened for a few feet and then it struck again in an overwhelming, horrifying sense of panic in one spot on the street - I didn't have to guess where the house was located...Chris drove past it all the way to the end of the street because fortunately he had his thinking cap on and wanted to see if I could narrow down the area of the street where the house was located...He drove past again and even tried to "sidetrack" me by driving up another little street, but, it was clear to me where the area was...I had him turn around and we went back, stopping right in the middle of where the anxious energy was thickest...Unfortunately my camera can only hold an hour's worth of video, so we weren't able to videotape alot of interesting things that happened, including this particular scene, but we're working on that for next time...

As soon as I stepped out of the car I was overcome and overwhelmed with images and feelings...Unfortunately, because I'm not used to being on camera, I'm also not used to verbalizing everything I'm experiencing, which you'll see for the 1st few minutes of the video (I do a lot of gestures as I'm experiencing pain from the way the people died, but I don't do a lot of verbalizing what I'm seeing and feeling - except that at one point early on I do say that I felt like I was being "punctured," which was true - it was horrible)...Working on verbalizing everything I'm experiencing so people watching can understand what's going on is something I'm going to work on for future investigations...But in this one, you'll see me walking around as I'm wading through fear and from the 1st second I stepped out of the truck I was hit with the vision of blood all over the walls of a house at night - it looked like a scene from Amityville Horror. At the same time I was being bombarded with this feeling of being stabbed, my throat kept feeling like it was closing up so that I could barely breathe (at the time I thought it meant someone was strangled but I later found out it was something much worse), my head felt like I'd been hit by both sides of a hammer and I wanted so, so badly to cry...

THE BLACKBIRD

Then I saw the blackbird...Until that point, I wasn't really sure if I was going to be able to wade through all of that chaotic, terrified and terrifying energy...I was swimming in this chaos and then I turned and saw a blackbird sitting on a post a few feet away and it all started to pull together...it was amazing (You'll see it in the video)...As crazy as it sounds, that blackbird caught my eye and I suddenly felt an overwhelming sense of sadness - I couldn't stop the tears from coming and the next thing I knew, I had a child standing next to me telling me details of what had happened...It started to get more cohesive...As another example of something not caught on tape, the child gave me a few more pieces of the puzzle, including telling me that she was a girl and her brother survived the attack. Unfortunately we also didn't capture the moment that I was led (by the little girl) to the 2nd location - this was a key part of the crime, so I'm disappointed that we were unable to capture it on video.

There are a couple of details that I misinterpreted, including two points: a. I thought that they knew their attacker...I was getting a feeling from the girl that the guy was some kind of drifter but it really felt like he'd been to their property before...This was incorrect - the guy was an escaped convict from the Chino men's correctional facility. He "hid out" at the house next door to them, which is probably why I felt a "familiar" feeling. b. It's funny, at one point in the video you'll hear me say that I thought that the brother might have been the one who did it...I didn't really feel that way so I'm not sure why I said that - probably because I was just overwhelmed...I've never been to a place like this before...all that kept running through my mind was, "My God, it was a massacre - a bloodbath..."

In any case, after the little girl (who I thought was 9 but was actually 10) came, a lot more information came through clearly...Again on the point of verbalization, I didn't realize it because I was immersed in the energy, but I kept saying in the video that there was a single male - what I meant was that it was one man who'd done it...I felt that some people thought that, because it was so savage that there were multiple killers, like in the Sharon Tate murders, but that wasn't the case - just one man did this. Unfortunately, again, I was overwhelmed so I didn't verbalize that part correctly...But for my very first investigation I think I did ok sifting through some very difficult info, especially since I'd had no idea of anything about the place - when you go to a scene you naturally assume there was a PERSON who'd died, not an entire family, which was one point that the little girl made clear. She also told me how many family members had died and how many had lived and she made the stabbings very apparent, which, although there were other injuries, is how they all passed...and she also kept making my throat feel like it was closing up...I found out in the "de-briefing" that that's because her little brother's throat had been slit, although he was the only one to survive...

I was very deeply affected by this scene and have had some real trouble disconnecting from the sadness of it all...Toward the end of the video you'll hear me say that "They don't like that very much" and that "We should go." What had happened was that the little girl disconnected from me all of a sudden and told me that "They don't like that very much" - meaning people filming in front of the house...Another point I found out in the de-briefing is that, despite the fact that this took place in the 80's (another fact that was given to me by the little girl off-camera, unfortunately), they still get looky-loos wanting to see a "haunted house." This breaks my heart....Although of course it sounds hypocritical since I too went there, my intentions were not to "ghost hunt" or "see something cool." My intentions were to hopefully use the tragic loss to strengthen my skills so that I may someday help others. A second after the little girl told me this and pulled away a car drove down the driveway and stopped where we were, so we left.

FACTS I WAS ABLE TO PICK UP WHILE ON-CAMERA

1. Two places were injured: The head and the chest (Fact of the Case: The victims were stabbed multiple times, chopped with a hatchet and bludgeoned (hit in the head) with the blunt end of the hatchet)

2. The location was the scene of a murder (Fact of the Case: The location was a murder site

3. A lot of blood (I felt "a bloodbath")(Fact of the Case: The walls were covered in blood due to the violent way the victims were killed)

4. Injury to the throat (interpreted incorrectly at the time as strangulation because of the feeling of a hand around my throat in addition to it closing up) (Fact of the Case: The young son, Joshua's throat was slit and he was hit on the back of the head. He survived by placing his hand over his throat to slow the blood loss)

5. Perpetrated by a single man (Fact of the Case: Although there was a brief belief that the especially violent nature of the crime indicated that it was perpetrated by multiple offenders, DNA evidence pointed to a single man: Kevin Cooper)

6. Happened at night (Fact of the Case: The murders took place in the middle of the night while the victims slept)

7. The victims were "punctured" (Fact of the Case: The victims were each stabbed and punctured with a hatchet several times.)

8. The murder was "frenzied" (Fact of the Case: The murderer was, in fact, in a frenzy, moving from one family member to the next, striking multiple times with both a hatchet and a series of knives)

9. Involved a family - more than one victim/multiple murders (Fact of the Case: The victims were the Ryen family and a family friend)

10. Single story house (Fact of the Case: The murder took place in their single-story house. As a side note, the houses that are in the area now seem mostly to be 2-story houses)

11. The victims included an older female and 2 children (Fact of the Case: The victims did, in fact, include Peggy Ryen, the mother, Jessica Ryen, 10 years old, and Joshua Ryen, as well as Joshua's friend, who was staying the night. Unfortunately, although I started to pick up on this 5th victim, I didn't pursue it)

12. 3 family members died, although there was a 4th family member who was "supposed to die" but didn't. (Fact of the Case: Peggy, Doug and Jessica Ryen were all killed that night. The 4th family member was Joshua Ryen, then 8 years old, who survived the vicious attack, despite being bludgeoned in the head and having his throat slit)

13. One child died, the other was the one who was "supposed to" die but didn't - in other words, the "4th family member" mentioned above was NOT one of the adults, it was a child (Fact of the Case: The surviving victim wasn't an adult, it was 8 year old Joshua Ryen)

14. There was also a male victim (Fact of the Case: There were actually 3 male victims, including the 2 boys, Joshua Ryen and Chris Hughes. What I meant by this statement in the video is that there was also an adult male victim, which would be the father, Doug Ryen)

15. The house was a ranch or a farm (Fact of the Case: The Ryen's house was a single-story horse ranch, where they also had cats, dogs, sheep and other animals)

16. November was significant, but wasn't the month the murder took place (Fact of the Case: The killer, Kevin Cooper, was arraigned in November, 5 months after the murders)

FACTS THAT CAME UP OFF-CAMERA

Here are a few facts that either came up in another video we shot after leaving the house (which I might post at a later time) or off-camera:

1. The child I was talking with was a little girl (Fact of the Case: A little girl named Jessica Ryen was one of the victims)

2. She told me her brother was the one who survived (Fact of the Case: Jessica's little brother, Joshua survived the brutal attack)

3.The crime happened in the 80's (Fact of the Case: The murder took place in 1983)

4. The little girl kept saying "bedroom" (Fact of the Case: the crime happened in the parents' bedroom)

5. I kept getting pulled up the street a ways to another house...When we pulled in front of it I thought I was going to burst out in tears, literally...I kept telling Chris (my assistant) that I felt that there was such a strong emotional tie for the little girl to that place, but I didn't know why...It turns out that the house we were standing in front of to shoot the video was the killer's "hideout." It's where he was staying before the murders and where he went (with the murder weapons) after the killings. This 2nd house was where the family lived and where the actual killings took place.

JESSICA'S BLACKBIRD
After we left the house, we drove up the street and pulled over next to a field of high grass and flowers to give me a chance to decompress. I was feeling better since the place where we'd pulled over was in an area where the energy was lighter...but after a few minutes of sitting, I suddenly was overcome with that same feeling I'd felt when I'd seen the blackbird before the little girl appeared...I literally started getting choked up again...About 2 seconds later Chris looked over my shoulder and said, "There's the blackbird! It's the only one in the field!" I turned around and there it was...About 20 feet from my window...The black bird with the bright, flaming red breast...and I was heartbroken.

All the time in the world...

After sitting for the last few hours listening to music (much as I would at any other time in my life with little thought), I had an epiphany: My life is very strange. Don't get me wrong, I mean that in the best possible way. It's just that, sitting here, being lulled into submission by the bittersweet melodies of some of my favorite songs, I realized how very...odd...a journey I've taken through this place, this life...My beloved best friend Kat (who passed away from cancer in 2002) might say that I've played in the clover patches of life...My beloved grammy (who passed away from cancer a month after Kat) might say I took the circuitous route...listening to the truth in the beats of my own heart...But hopefully they'd both say I've lived my life well, full of experience with plenty of "sightseeing" along the way...

Follow up:

It's interesting, the road I decided to walk, considering the conventional paths of my siblings...all four of my sisters (one of whom is a gifted medium and another a gifted psychic) are in real estate and my brother is an engineer working for a huge electronics company. Throughout my entire life my family expected me to go to college, get a degree in law or medicine or...anything, really, lol and live in 9 to 5 obscurity...I'm sure the fast-paced, adventure-filled rollercoaster ride they've watched me navigate hasn't been easy to watch at times. But the truth is that it's shocking to me that, despite the fact that they've each shown interest in their abilities, not a single one of my incredibly gifted sisters has chosen to pursue a career outside the norm. My second-oldest sister (whose name I won't mention here to protect her privacy) is an amazing medium, for example...and the sister just above me has had prophetic dreams since we were little kids. I remember her waking up in the morning and telling me things that were going to happen in the world that week - and, almost without fail, they did. It wasn't an easy way to grow up, I imagine...For my part, I just got to talk to people whose bodies had died...It wasn't much different than talking to you or anyone else. But my sister had to see some very scary, horrific images in her dreams. Not all of them were bad, but I remember a few that were bad enough to really shake her.

I've been thinking recently though about perception and how it truly creates our lives. For example, I truly haven't had a clear concept on just how unusual my life has been until recently when I was talking with a couple of friends about some of my experiences. After explaining what I've always thought was a relatively tame experience in which a spirit manifested himself in full, clear "ghostly" form and walked out of one of the walls of my apartment, across my hallway and into another wall, I looked up to see that the jaws of both of my friends were practically sitting on their knees, lol. It's been hard not having my grammy to talk to about my experiences...When I was a kid I always loved to sit with gram, listening to her talk about when she was a little girl and first discovered that she was "haunted." She'd actually had a few scary experiences as a kid...Although they're easy to understand as an adult, they were frightening to a 9 year old. One such time was when she was babysitting her little brother. Her step mother had to run to the store, so she left my grandma at the little apartment with the baby. Gram said she'd always been afraid of that apartment because she'd heard noises, including footsteps and voices and she'd seen a man walking around occasionally. So this one day she was alone with the baby when the water in the kitchen kept turning on by itself. She was scared, but she kept going in and turning it off. She said it turned on probably 8 or 9 times. It would just be off and then as soon as she went into the living room it would turn on full blast. So finally she decided to ignore it and stayed in the room with the baby, already scared out of her wits. She heard the water running, but refused to go into the kitchen again, instead just sitting frozen on the couch. Then, a couple of minutes later, she looked up to see a man (she said he looked like he was 19 or 20) peeking around the corner, smiling at her. She said that was the last straw, lol - she grabbed the baby and ran outside to sit on the front porch for 30 minutes until her step mother finally came home, lol. She never told her step mother what happened because the woman wasn't very nice, but when they went inside the water was turned off and there was no sign of any disturbance. (Just as an interesting side note, having water turned on happened to gram in several places by several different spirits - it appears that was gram's "alert." Mine has always been televisions being turned on. Ever since I was a little girl, I've had multiple televisions turned on by spirits - I have a theory that every medium has their one particular "sign" that they've received multiple times throughout his or her lifetime. It would be interesting to test that theory!)

Okay, it's time to start my day...But I'm in the mood to share more about gram and Kat, so stay tuned!