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Dorothy allison

Dorothy Allison

Real Name: Dorothy Margaret Allison
Occupation: Psychic Detective
Place Of Birth: Jersey City, New Jersey
Date Of Birth: December 29, 1924
Location: Nutley, New Jersey

History[]

Background: Dorothy Allison, a housewife and psychic from Nutley, New Jersey, has assisted police departments in hundreds of investigations. The authorities believe her abilities are genuine and have been amazed at the details she has come up with for their cases. Sergeant Don Vicaro of the Nutley Police Department said that seeing Dorothy's predictions come true was the most amazing thing that ever happened to him.
Dorothy has lived in New Jersey all of her life. She has four children, and her husband, Bob, is an engineer for a construction company in Manhattan, New York. When she was fourteen, she had the first indication of her psychic abilities when she had a vision of her (apparently healthy) father's death. In the vision, she saw a mourning wreath on their front door. Three days later, he died of pneumonia.
Dorothy was understandably upset when her prediction came true. She believed her abilities were "evil". However, her mother, who was also psychic, told her she had a gift. She said Dorothy did not need to worry and would not always see bad things. She said Dorothy would go far with her "talent" but told her not to use it for profit.
Dorothy's mother also warned her that she needed to be courageous enough to stand alone and stay strong in the face of skepticism. Despite her mother's reassurances, Dorothy spent years wishing she did not have her abilities. At one point, she became a "parlor psychic" and read people's futures.
Then, in 1967, Dorothy had a detailed dream about five-year-old Michael Kurcsics, who had disappeared after falling into a creek in Nutley. She went to the police and accurately described his clothing and the area where his body was later found. Following her accurate prediction, police departments contacted her, asking for help solving cases.
Since the Kurcsics investigation, most of Dorothy's cases have been homicides, and many of the victims have been children. She often keeps photographs of the victims and stays in touch with their families.
Dorothy has often thought, "Why does this happen to me? Why not somebody else?" It has been hard on her emotionally and physically. She even quit for three years because it was so difficult for her. However, she has since learned to accept her abilities because she knows they can help people. She often prays to God, asking for help. She also wears a medallion of St. Anthony, protector of the "lost and found."
Dorothy describes her psychic visions as being like turning on a TV and getting a picture in her mind. Sometimes, they are in color, but other times, they are in black and white. She sees the past, present, and future together. Sometimes, her visions are fast-moving, jumbled, and difficult to decipher. She describes it as a kaleidoscope of pictures in her mind. Her visions occur both when she is asleep and when she is awake.
In Dorothy's visions, she has seen victims, the locations of their bodies, and even their killers. When working on murder cases, she often sees the crime occur and smells the odors from the scene. To try and provoke a vision, she likes to go to victims' homes and touch items belonging to them. She uses their pictures to help pinpoint their locations. She looks through crime scene photographs to help visualize the crimes. She also develops astrological charts for people connected to the cases.
Dorothy works eighteen hours a day out of her kitchen. She handles at least thirty cases at a time. Sometimes, she works over the phone. Other times, she goes with the police to the crime scenes.
Dorothy is called almost daily by detectives and family members of missing persons. Although she is never paid for her work (other than travel expenses), she has been asked to help in hundreds of investigations. She has traveled across the United States and amassed dozens of certificates, letters of appreciation, and honorary badges from police departments for her help.
After Dorothy helped with the John DeMars case, Detective Sal Lubertazzi of the Nutley Police Department volunteered to become her liaison with other police departments. He screens every request for help and explains how she works. He also helps interpret her visions. His wife, Phyllis, sorts the mail and answers letters.
The use of psychics in police work is almost always controversial. Frequently, they are inaccurate. All too often, they are charlatans. But there are a few who do indeed seem to have a special gift: the unexplainable ability to predict details still locked in the future.
Dorothy claims to have helped solve 90% of the cases she has worked on and helped find more than 100 missing persons. She has predicted where bodies would be found, what happened to the victims, and even when they would be discovered. She also claims to have helped the police solve over twenty murders.
Once, Dorothy warned a police officer that his daughter was going to commit suicide, which she later did. In another case, she told a beautician that one of her clients was going to commit suicide. She described the woman and said she often held a religious object. After the suicide occurred, the woman's parents asked Dorothy about the object. She said it was in the woman's jewelry box. The parents went to the box and found it.
On another occasion, Dorothy predicted the exact time and location where a man would hang himself. In one murder case, she accurately described the murder weapon (a round type of television wire), the area where the body was taken after the murder, the area where the body was found, the condition of the body when found, and the suspect's occupation. In another case, she accurately predicted that a missing fourteen-year-old boy from Maryland would be found working as a cook in California.
In many cases, Dorothy's success has been astonishing. But over the years, she has worked on hundreds of investigations, and in many, she was unable to come up with information that helped the authorities.
Dorothy admits that there have been many times that she has "struck out" completely. There were cases where she wanted to find a child but did not come up with any clues or answers. She does not know why this happens.
In March 1988, "Unsolved Mysteries" looked for a case where they could examine Dorothy's abilities. They found the murder of Lori Zimmerman in Hagerstown, Maryland, where the police are at a dead end. The police agreed to let Dorothy assist in the case and have the show film the investigation as it happened. They gave her no information about the case. They wanted to see if she could give them new information to help identify Lori's killer.
Case Files:

  • Michael Kurcsics
  • Robert Kennedy - In April 1968, Dorothy told Sergeant Vicaro that either Robert or his brother, Ted, was going to get shot. She said it would happen soon and in a place far from New Jersey. She saw an Arab or Indian man who was a stowaway on a ship. She believed he would be involved in the shooting. Less than two months later, on June 5, Sirhan Sirhan assassinated Robert in Los Angeles, California.
  • Patty Hearst - In February 1974, Patty was kidnapped by the Symbionese Liberation Army. Dorothy saw Patty in a small, closet-sized space without light. She saw Patty's hair dyed red. She later saw Patty in Pennsylvania and New York City. She also saw her joining her captors in robbing a bank. All of these predictions came true.
  • Richard Wyler and Albert Sutler - In 1974, Richard and Albert disappeared while flying a small plane. Dorothy accurately predicted that they would be found in a wooded area on December 9, 1974, and predicted some details about the crash site.
  • Doreen Carlucci and Joanne Delardo - On December 13, 1974, Doreen and Joanne disappeared from Woodbridge, New Jersey. Dorothy saw the words "Silver" and "Meade". The girls' bodies were later found near the Silver Meade Trailer Camp.
  • John DeMars
  • Esli and Robert Hall - On March 20, 1975, Esli and her brother, Robert, were abducted after leaving their home in Union City, New Jersey. Dorothy accurately predicted that they had been sexually assaulted, strangled, tied up, and thrown in a marsh. She said their bodies would be found near a railroad, twin towers, and a burlap bag with red lettering resting on a pile of straw. She said the area had a strong smell of horse manure. Their bodies were later found fifty feet from the described area. She also accurately described the killer's face to a sketch artist before the murders even took place. Finally, she took the police to the cemetery, where the siblings would later be buried.
  • Susan Jacobson
  • Debbie Kline - On July 22, 1976, Debbie disappeared from Waynesboro, Pennsylvania. Dorothy told the police that they would find Debbie's body sitting up, wrapped in a swimming pool cover with her throat cut, near a sign that said "Burnt" on it. She also gave the police a composite sketch of her killer and said his first and middle names were "Richard Lee". A few days later, Richard Lee Dodson was arrested and led police to Debbie's body. Everything that Dorothy had described about the scene was accurate.
  • Son of Sam - Dorothy gave an accurate description of David Berkowitz to a sketch artist and correctly predicted he would be picked up on a traffic violation.
  • Ronald Stica - On September 22, 1977, Ronald disappeared from Lodi, New Jersey. Dorothy saw a blue car, the word "Eclipse", a swampy area, and an airport. Ronald's body was later found in a swamp. Nearby was a fragment of a blue car, a bowling alley called "Eclipse", and Teterboro Airport. The chief detective said she took them within 50 yards of the body.
  • Atlanta Child Murders - Between 1979 and 1981, at least thirty black men and boys were murdered in Atlanta, Georgia. Dorothy told the police the killer was a black male, a "bully" who was angry about being poor. She later claimed she identified Wayne Williams a year before the murders.
  • Russell Keller - On October 22, 1981, Russell was murdered in South Dakota. After Dorothy met with Russell's father-in-law, she said, "Don't look any farther, he's involved." He later confessed to being involved in the crime.
  • Lori Zimmerman
  • Schoolgirl Killer - During the late 1980s and early 1990s, several women were raped and/or murdered in Scarborough, Ontario, Canada. Dorothy had visions of one woman being murdered, dismembered, and encased in cement. She also had a vision of another woman being abducted and murdered. As it turned out, these visions occurred before the murders even happened. These cases were later linked to Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolko, and the details from Dorothy's visions were found to be accurate.
  • Heriberto Aquino and Eliezer Guivas - In March 1993, Heriberto and Eliezer disappeared while fishing in New Jersey. Dorothy saw them in a river and also saw a junkyard and the name "Roberts". They launched their boat from Roberts Street, and their bodies were later found near a junkyard.
  • JonBenét Ramsey - Dorothy created a sketch of the suspect.

Notes:

  • This case originally aired on the May 6, 1988 Special #6 episode of Unsolved Mysteries.
  • Dorothy was also featured on Unexplained Mysteries, Psychic Investigators, Secrets of the Unknown, The Phil Donahue Show, and The Sally Jesse Raphael Show.
  • Dorothy was referenced on an episode of Dateline, which focused on the disappearance and death of Timmy Wiltsey.
  • Dorothy published the book, A Psychic Story, about her psychic abilities.
  • Police departments nationwide sent affidavits to Unsolved Mysteries attesting to Dorothy's psychic powers.
  • Some sources state that Dorothy's father died hours, a day, or a few weeks after her prediction.
  • Many skeptics, including James Randi and Joe Nickell, consider Dorothy a fraud. They were unable to find any proof that she helped find a body or identify a killer. Nickell describes her as a "retrofitter": a psychic who throws out a lot of vague information and then says they are correct when a few pieces of their information match evidence from the solved case. He also believes she may have gotten some information from the detectives or victims' families.
  • Some of the stories surrounding Dorothy's cases have changed over time. For example, contemporary newspaper articles stated that Michael Kurcsics was found in a pond by a man trying to find a spot to bury his cat. However, later reports incorrectly claim he was found in a pipe as a result of Dorothy's information. Some even state that she took the police to the pipe, and when they cut it open, they found Michael's body.
  • Two detectives in Paterson, New Jersey, accused Dorothy of offering them money to say that she helped them find the body of eight-year-old Delvis Matias. They claimed she led them on a "wild goose chase", made about a dozen wrong predictions about the case, and did not help them find Delvis. They also said she asked them to give her a set of phony police reports that would indicate she helped solve the murder. She denied the accusations, claiming the detectives were "professionally jealous" of her.
  • Other detectives have also said that, although she has had some accurate clues, Dorothy has not helped them solve any cases. They noted that her clues were too vague and profuse to pursue. One detective in the Ronald Stica case claimed that she did not help them find Ronald's body, even though she said otherwise. The police investigating the Atlanta Child Murders said she gave them forty-two possible names, and none were helpful. Also, the police investigating the disappearance of the "Clinton Avenue Five" in Newark, New Jersey, said she led them to a field near Newark Airport. However, nothing was found.
  • Dorothy continued working as a psychic for the rest of her life. In total, she worked on more than 5,000 cases around the world. She claimed to have helped the police find 250 bodies and solve hundreds of murders. On December 1, 1999, she died of heart failure at the age of seventy-four. She allegedly predicted her own death, telling her family in 1990 that she would not live to be seventy-five and telling them earlier in 1999 that she would not live to see her next birthday.

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