'It's not witchcraft': R.I. psychic uses gift to help others
By Brian Krans

She first felt she had a special gift when she was about 5 years old. At
10, Ronna Boyd was convinced.
She was at a train station in Burlington, Iowa, with her family when she
had a vision of a specific woman falling from the platform. "It was a
picture. I saw her fall off and break her nose," Ms. Boyd said.

She went to warn the woman, but her mother stopped her. A few seconds
later, as the woman was waving to a passenger on the train, she fell and
her nose was a bloody mess.
Now 30 years later, Ms. Boyd says after years of meditation and
training, she's refined her psychic gift, one she says God gave her for
a reason.
"It's not witchcraft. It's paying attention to specifics. It's using a
gift to help people," she said.

She's worked with police on certain cases. Her first was the
disappearance of Trudy Appleby, the 11-year-old girl who went missing
from Moline 10 years ago.
"I had been receiving dreams about that one about a month before she was
reported missing," Ms. Boyd said.
She went to police with what she had after the girl went missing. She
was greeted with skepticism, as anyone would who claimed to have visions
about a highly-publicized case. Yet, some authorities were interested in
any insight into the case.

"Nothing ever turned out from it, which I'm sorry for," she said.
Police use of psychics might be dramatized in TV, but some departments
have found it useful. Others have found it nothing more than nonsense.
"We've used psychics as an investigative tool," Moline police Chief Gary
Francque said. "Some agencies feel strongly about using them, some think
it's ridiculous."

While any information they provide can't be used in the courtroom, Chief
Francque said psychics help confirm what police already know or steer
them in a certain direction. They're only used in homicides or missing
persons' cases when leads run dry.
"Sometimes there are some uncanny coincidences they come up with, but
you have to be very cautious and skeptical of what you get," he said.
"You can't just discard it because you think it's silly or you don't
believe in it."
One of those skeptics is Scott County Attorney Bill Davis. "I'm a pretty
pragmatic person and don't put much stock in them," the veteran
prosecutor said.

Mr. Davis said there are too many frauds out there, or the information
provided has been too vague. Chief Francque and Ms. Boyd agree.
While Ms. Boyd would like to work on more police cases, she said there
are too many phonies, or "gypsies" as she calls them, out there creating
a bad name for "true psychics."
You can tell a fake by them giving vague generalities about obvious
things, she said.
Chief Francque said a certain psychic will only be used on a case after
a referral from another law-enforcement agency, and the person's
casework has been checked out.

Using the wrong psychic would just create more headaches, he said.
"Sometimes their impressions or visions, we have no idea what they're
talking out," Chief Francque said. "It's a further complication to the
case."
In "Practical Homicide Investigation," author Vernon J. Geberth writes
that although there is a lack of empirical research into psychic
phenomena, there has been significant documentation to merit the use of
psychics on a case-by-case basis. He neither encouraged or discouraged
their use, but rather saw the need to evaluate their usefulness.

As a "clairvoyant high feeler," Ms. Boyd says all she needs is a name
and preferably an item from someone to start getting visions. She said
the specific details she'd be able to give have helped not just law
enforcement, but also those seeking answers.
About eight years ago, she helped Joliet police and the state's attorney
in "a small capacity" by consulting with a murder victim's friend. The
police were unsure of a suspect, Ms. Boyd said.
"I was able to describe how the victim died. There are times I have
re-experienced that person's death," she said. "There was a man I kept
seeing and police were able to tell me the details I gave them were
correct."
Ms. Boyd was unsure if her work on the case led to a conviction.
Everywhere she goes, Ms. Boyd and other psychics will find critics of
their work. When she's working on a case, unbelieving detectives are
told to stay away from the scene to avoid any hostilities.

"A true psychic is going to tell you things that there was no rational
way of me knowing," she said. "Besides, I'm not one to walk around in a
toga or a muumuu."
She said some people have a heightened sense of intuition, bordering on
psychic abilities, but ignore it.

"You can't tell a mother she doesn't have a connection with her child.
At least one point, they will have a psychic moment," she said.

"They label it as mother's intuition, but it's just intuition in
general."

Ronna Boyd
Age: 40
From: Rock Island
Profession: Psychic, spiritual advisor and medium. Day job is a claims
adjudicator for an insurance company.
Has helped on: Trudy Appleby missing person case, a murder in Joliet,
Ill., a murder in California, and connected a friend, who was adopted,
with her birth mother.