Two out-of-state psychics are helping Utah police solve the mystery of two missing persons.
Although most police departments don't solicit psychic help in cracking cases, the mysterious disappearance of 16-year-old Trisha Ann Autry from her Hyrum home June 24, 2000, has caught the attention of the television series "Unsolved Mysteries." The nationally televised program is paying for a psychic from California to join the Cache County Sheriff's Office in its search for Autry.
In another case, friends and family of Janis Marie Stavros have gone to an Ohio psychic in hopes of finding the 42-year-old Canyon Rim woman who disappeared Jan. 4.
Salt Lake County Sheriff's investigators have turned up few leads in the case.
Cache County Sheriff's detectives have followed several leads from around the country in their case, but Autry's whereabouts are still unknown.
Autry's mother, JoAnn, is convinced her daughter was kidnapped by someone she was chatting with over the Internet. With the psychic's help and exposure from the television show, investigators are hoping someone who has seen Autry will come forward.
"We're hoping this might bring a little more exposure to it," Cache County Sheriff's Lt. David Bennett said. "We have absolutely nothing to go on in that case so we don't discount (the psychic's help)."
The reward for information leading to Autry's discovery has increased from $5,000 to $7,000, Bennett said.
Homicide detectives from the Salt Lake County Sheriff's Office are handling Stavros' case because of the suspicious circumstances surrounding her disappearance, Deputy Peggy Faulkner said.
The last substantial evidence from police came after a Jan. 11 search of Stavros' truck and home, 2910 E. 3215 South. Loved ones haven't seen or heard from Stavros since Jan. 3, an oddity considering she called her family almost daily.
"At this point, we're suspecting someone did her in," said Mike Stavros, the missing woman's ex-husband who is among a handful of people from in and around Utah searching for clues.
Although Stavros' family and friends said they wouldn't normally give credence to a psychic, the dead end police have run into has seemingly left them with few options.
"I'm a very skeptical person," Stavros' daughter, Meghan Laudie, said. "But I never imagined she would disappear. I never imagined this would turn into an eight-week thing."
Laudie met the Ohio psychic, who says she specializes in criminal investigations, through some friends. It's now Laudie's job to extrapolate from the information the psychic shares.
The cases of Stavros and Autry aren't the first in Utah involving psychics.
San Juan County Sheriff Mike Lacy had calls from roughly a dozen psychics during the exhaustive manhunt for three fugitives in the Four Corners area wanted in the shooting death of a Colorado police officer on May 29, 1998.
"We looked into some of them, but some of them were so far-fetched it was unreal," Lacy said.
Davis County Sheriff's investigators consulted a psychic in the early 1980s in hopes of finding the person who murdered a 3-year-old girl, according to Lt. Kelly Sparks. Detectives had discovered the girl's body but hoped the psychic might lead them to her killer, Sparks said.
"Everything that she gave them was so general that it just seemed like more speculation than anything else," Sparks said. "They didn't give it a lot of credibility. . . . Like all law enforcement we're skeptical of everything, but we check everything."
The case remains unsolved.
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