As a mother of six, Judith Richardson Haimes used her psychic powers to help law enforcement in approximately 100 criminal cases around the northeast. However, she found that situations involving missing children were the most challenging.
In 1975, Gretchen Harrington, age 8, went missing, and Delaware police turned to her for assistance in finding her. On her way to Bible camp in Marple, Pennsylvania that August, Harrington vanished.
Richardson Haimes made a prediction in September while seated in a room with police, which she expressed to Insider as one she hoped wouldn’t come true.
The Richardson Haimes, now 79, recalled blurting out, “Oh my God, she’s dead,” and everyone being inconsolable.
A month later, Harrington’s remains were discovered.
David G. Zandstra, who was residing in Marietta, Georgia, was charged with murder and kidnapping on Monday, nearly fifty years after the incident.
Zandstra was a friend of the Harrington family and served as pastor at Trinity Church Chapel Christian Reform Church in Broomall at the time of Harrington’s passing, according to the district attorney.
According to the prosecution, Zandstra’s daughter’s acquaintance came forward to the police, which led to the arrest.
When she told his daughter what happened, she was told that her father did that occasionally. The woman told police that when she was 10 years old, she awoke at a sleepover to Zandstra stroking her groin area.
Additionally, the woman gave detectives her diary from 1975, in which she noted that she thought Zandstra had been nearly abducted twice.
Zandstra was asked by investigators with the Georgia charges of sexual abuse this month, and according to the prosecution, he told them he killed Harrington after picking her up on her way to camp.
“He acknowledged offering to drive Gretchen to a nearby forested spot. The defendant claimed that he had stopped the automobile and urged the victim to take off her clothes,” according to a statement from the district attorney’s office.
Upon Harrington’s refusal, Zandstra allegedly punched her in the head with a fist, according to the testimony he gave to police. According to the prosecution, Zandstra covered her corpse after believing she was dead and left the scene.
“I wanted to be wrong so badly that I have goosebumps all over.”
Richardson Haimes admitted that she didn’t remember many specifics about the nearly 50-year-old case, but she did get the impression that the perpetrator was a member of the Sunday school or bible school.
She said, “I knew he would hide in plain sight if they didn’t get him back then.”
Regarding cases of missing persons, Richardson Haimes claimed to have tight guidelines.
When the victim’s family called her directly, she referred them to the police since she would never work on a case with the present. She said that she was only involved in incidents where the police directly requested her assistance.
She also generally didn’t want her involvement to be known to the public out of concern for her family’s safety.
She was wary of critics who didn’t like that she was given serious consideration by police as well as reprisals from criminals.
She helped state police in one instance in New Jersey when a young woman’s headless torso was discovered. She claimed she was a target, thus someone within the agency must have disclosed her involvement.
“One day, my front porch heard a bang. They left a bag, so I went and opened it,” she remarked. “There was a head of cabbage inside.”
After suffering a brain bleed due to an allergic reaction to medication while undergoing a CAT scan in 1977, Richardson Haimes stopped working as a professional psychic for private clients and stopped volunteering for police agencies. She also experienced severe migraines whenever she tried to concentrate.
She claimed that the allergic response caused her to lose her income as a clairvoyant, leading her to file a landmark lawsuit against Temple University in Philadelphia. However, the case—and the award—were eventually reversed.
She no longer experiences severe headaches after many years, but she now only conducts readings for herself.
“Psychics have never solved a crime. It doesn’t work like that,” she added. “We are a tool for investigations. We assist.”
Being psychic, according to Richardson Haimes, is possessing a sixth sense that is difficult to explain.
When she was about six years old and living in rural Kentucky, her mother was the one who first realized she could predict the future or know what had already happened.
Her mother was worried that others in the town would find out.
“In the heart of the bible belt, Kentucky, someone like me was possessed,” she remarked.
Richardson Haimes, on the other hand, views her abilities as instinctual rather than spectacular.
“There are different people in my field — people who are absolute frauds, and people who are well-meaning idiots,” she remarked. “And then there are those who possess a sixth sense that is essentially just an animal instinct, highly developed.”
Richardson Haimes currently resides in Clearwater, Florida, on the Gulf of Mexico.
Although she possesses “a tremendous amount of psychic ability,” her oldest daughter, who is in her 60s, has never pursued it professionally.
She attributes her own career in the criminal justice sector, in part, to the fact that three of her sons went on to work in law enforcement. She remembered instances when she praised them for using their “sixth sense” in cases, but they shot back claiming it was just “cop sense.”
“You can say they have a healthy dose of skepticism,” she remarked. “With this, you must have it. You can’t just believe what others say. They must provide you with evidence.”
Richardson Haimes stated that although she is happy that they have identified “the perpetrator,” she does not think that Harrington’s death was an accident.
Zandstra, who has been refused bail and is contesting his extradition from Georgia to Delaware, could not be found a counsel, according to Insider.
She remarked, “I suppose that clears his conscience. I can assure you that’s definitely not how it happened.”
