Paranormal team says it sensed 'presence' in Mendota cold case
By Tamara Abbey
mendota@newstrib.com
MENDOTA — Answers to a nearly 20-year-old mystery that haunts Mendota remained as elusive as the clouds drifting past Saturday night’s full moon as a team of paranormal investigators tried to find a resolution to the disappearance of Veronica Blumhorst.
The Paranormal Anomaly Search Team arrived in Mendota Saturday afternoon to contact the missing girl. They were aided in their search by Doug Truckenbrod since her brother, Todd, has since moved to Arizona.
John, the lead team member of PAST, has been investigating the paranormal for years. He asked his last name be left out of the story since not all believe in his work. He said he was asked to come to Mendota to try and find Veronica’s spirit and hoped her spirit would bring much-needed closure to the family.
“I think for me, it’s going to be a more emotional release,” Todd said. “At least I’d know, knowing where she’s at.”
His sister disappeared the night of Sept. 20, 1990. He is convinced she died and while the case remains open and no suspects have been charged, he believes he knows who killed her.
Yet questions continue to plague him even though he has moved 1,700 miles away.
“I don’t know if (she was) killed fast or taunted or what happened,” he said. “Even 19 years later, I wake up and wonder what happened.”
John said his investigation Saturday did have some activity with responses at Bartlett Woods Nature Preserve in Lee County.
“That was the place where I got the strongest impressions,” John said.
While he did feel her presence at locations she frequented, it was not enough to really pinpoint her final resting place.
“I was hoping that I was going to communicate with the beyond, for her to tell us where she was,” he said. “That didn’t happen but she did give us some indicators of where she did like to hang out.”
While in Mendota, PAST team members did not want their locations or work documented by anyone outside their team. John said the energy of other people could interfere with his attempts to communicate with Veronica. Many in Mendota were ready to volunteer but John wanted to keep the investigation independent of their energies and emotions.
John said he has helped other family members understand the impact deceased relatives can have on the living. One woman was about to sell her suburban Chicago home due to the unusual noises. When she learned it was her deceased relatives attempting to communicate with her, she decided to stay in the family home. They have since been of little nuisance to the current, living occupant.
John hopes to discover more about the disappearance of Veronica Blumhorst but the work he did Saturday remains inconclusive. He and his team will independently review the video and photographs they took before viewing it as a team. They will compare notes and discuss their findings before issuing a report which could take another two to three weeks.
The case remains open with the Mendota Police Department since Veronica parked her car in the family garage after work the night of Sept. 20, 1990. As far as the family knows, she was never seen again.
Police initially treated the case as a runaway, an assumption her brother denies since the car contained an overnight bag from an earlier trip, and she did not take any money with her.
What happened next remains a mystery that her brother Todd wants to end. He only wants to lay her to rest. But he still waits to give that final good-bye.
Without a resolution, he is planning a 20th anniversary memorial in Mendota. To follow his efforts on finding answers to her disappearance, he established a Facebook page called Remember Veronica Jill Blumhorst.
PAST has a Web site at www.pastinvestigators.com. It offers information about what the team does and the process its members use to investigate paranormal activity.
The family initially contacted a psychic shortly after she disappeared. While her relatives received some guidance, they still wait for answers.
