Allison Dubois Reads Newspaper, Tells Police

On April 8, 2009, eight year old Tori Stafford of Ontario was abducted and murdered.  Her body was found in a field by a police investigator, just over three months later on July 21st.  A sad and too common story.  But not too sad for the vultures to use it for their own ends.

The vulture in question is (yet again) Allison Dubois.  Eager to gain publicity from this tragedy, she is claiming she helped the police working on the case, as reported in Medium depicted Tori's fate to cops:

“It was amazing — Tori had been missing about three weeks, and I was standing, facing her school, noticing things like the senior’s building next to the school and it was at that moment ... that I told the police officer she had met someone whom she had met before, through her mother, and that she had been lured to her death.”

Dubois recalled she described the terrain where they would find the girl’s body and that two people were involved, including a woman who had been used as the lure.

“That’s the only reason Tori went with her, because she was familiar with her,” she said.

[My bold.]

Dubois’s story wasn’t that far off.  Two people – a man and a woman – were later arrested for the alleged murder of the little girl, and are currently facing trial.  No wonder Dubois is talking about it.

Funny thing though.  On April 22, 2009 (for those playing at home, that would be two weeks after the little girl had gone missing and therefore a full week before Dubois supposedly gave her information to the police) - police released a sketch of a woman who was suspected of having been involved in the little girl’s abduction:

This composite image of a woman sought in the abduction of eight-year-old Tori Stafford, based on the unidentified woman seen in a surveillance video leading Stafford by the hand shortly after she went missing.

The father of an Ontario girl who vanished more than two weeks ago said he “strongly believes” he knows the person in a composite sketch of a woman caught on surveillance video with his daughter, but the girl’s mother says she doesn’t recognize the woman.

So a week before Dubois reportedly told police that a woman (possibly known to the little girl) was involved in the abduction, the local papers reported that a woman (possibly known to the little girl) was involved in the abduction.  Hey, you don’t supposed Dubois saw the picture of the alleged abductor in the press, and simply regurgitated the information to the police, do you?  Nah, couldn’t be.  She must have used her awesome psychic powers.  Because only someone with psychic powers could have known that a woman might have been involved.  Well, either that or someone who had, you know, read the local paper the previous week.

Another funny thing, given Allison’s awesome psychic ability, is that it isn’t all that clear that the abductor was “someone whom [the little girl] had met before,” as Allison claimed.  For example, read this report from CTV Toronto:

Although the suspects know Victoria's parents, police don't believe they knew who their daughter was at the time she was kidnapped, sources say.

Admittedly it's not totally clear, but it does appear that the little girl didn’t know her abductors, and so it seems unlikely that “the only reason” the little girl went with the woman was “because she was familiar with her,” as Dubois claimed.  Also, it doesn’t appear that Allison was much help in finding the body, as she implied.  From the National Post:

Stafford's remains were found Sunday by a veteran police investigator searching on his own in a rural field about 500 metres off Concession No. 6, just east of Mount Forest, Ont., about 130 kilometres northwest of Toronto.

The detective, acting on a hunch, found the bones down a lonely dirt track in a secluded, heavily bushed area across the road from a grey, brick house surrounded by rolling, green farmland.

Just regular police work then.  I guess Allison, despite her undoubted psychic abilities, was no help at all to the police.  Just as Allison Dubois was no help in catching the Baseline killer either.  Well, you can’t say she’s not consistent.

Considering this happened a year ago, I wondered why we are only just in the last few days, hearing about Allison's invaluable help in not catching the perpetrators or finding the body.  So I checked and – funny story - I discovered that this story broke just before Dubois is due to visit Canada for a series of speaking engagements starting Monday May 17th - Toronto, ON - buy tickets VIP almost Sold Out!  $150 a pop (“No one attending the event is guaranteed a reading.”)  Obviously a coincidence.  Interestingly, if you Google "tori stafford" "allison dubois" you get four pages of stories, most of which include the line “come face to face with the image of Tori Stafford” – ie it’s all the exact same story reprinted by different media.  A cynic might almost think that Allison’s publicist had done an excellent job with this non story.  In reality, the only remarkable thing about this is how unremarkable Dubois’s supposed psychic predictions actually were.

Thanks to reader Dean for the original link.

More on Allison's awesome psychic abilities

Skeptico on Allison Dubois:

Medium guesses about serial killer

Allison Dubois no help in catching killer

A walking, camera-strutting, fake-ghost-talking joke

Secretary to the dead

Burden of proof

The Two Percent Company on Allison Dubois

Allison Dubois Week

Allison DuBois - Even More of a Hypocrite Than Previously Thought

Polar Opposites

Comments

[Nico]

Pretending to predict heart disease on an aged lady is to be opportunist.

To exploit the murder of a little girl for your own benefit is to be immoral.

Allison Dubois makes me sick.

[Peapoh]

Thank you for covering this. I have a very credulous roommate who loves to use cases like these as his defense of psychics. "All those cases where psychics helped solve the case" huh? Right. Idk why I never asked him for an example but next time I will.

Then again our toxins argument ended in me being closed minded. /rant

[R.B. Glennie]

Whenever I hear anything about `psychics', I think back more than a decade ago to an `Oprah' like programme that was aired on CTV, I think it was called `Camilla Scott.'

Camilla's guest was a woman named `Char' (I believe).

During the course of the show, Char did `psychic' readings on several audience members.

One of the audience members was wearing a sweatshirt, which read, `AUSTRALIA' and had a huge Australian flag upon it.

The `psychic' made the bold statement to this woman, `You've been on holiday recently...'

Surprise, surprise: the answer was `Yes, I just came back from Australia...'

People like `Char' really do `read' their marks - in the same was a confidence artist reads people in order to scam them out of their money or other goods.

`Psychics' = con artists.

[Psychics]

It happens. Too many psychics or so called psychics are mere pretenders with no psychic abilities whatsoever. It's like anything and any profession. There are pros and there are fakes. I used to be skeptical till something totally unreal happened to me that's not worth mentioning as most folks won't believe. Still it's a free world and we chose to believe what we believe.

[Big Al]

I think you may be mistaken about what being skeptical is, Psychics.

It's not a question of believing anything,. It's all about not believing without good reason. You say you have good reason to believe, which is not incompatible with skepticism.

Nobody here will mock you for believing something that happened to you. The most that will happen is that people are likely to ask detailed questions to explore the concept of whether you are possbly mistaken about the root cause.

They obviously can't do that if you are unwilling to say what it is. It all depends on whether you have more invested in not considering that what happened might possibly not be supernatural, rather than being truly skeptical and trying to prove that it is.

[Yakaru]

Psychics, (Jacob and Sabrina Devine) please tell us who the fake psychics are, and more importantly exactly how you came to decide they are fake.

Of course, I know your comment was an utterly insincere attempt at drumming up business, but as you claim to possess a professional level of discernment in this matter, I will challenge the two of you to back up your statement.

[Jeff]

Aw, give them a break, Yakaru. They just provided me with a full two minutes of pure entertainment.

If you head over to their site, you'll see that they are the source for psychic and astrology services in your area. Where do you live? Doesn't matter. They're in your area no matter what, because they're using a quick little geoIP script (common these days) to identify where you're logged on from and list that city.

If you scroll down, though, you'll also find out that, according to their research, 488 people in my area have had psychic predictions at some site they're hawking. And 300 people in my area used services from the next site they link to.

Wait, no way - you got 488 people in your area, too? And 300 for the other site? Amazing! What an incredible coincidence!

Well...not so much. Since the mention of your area is scripted to personalize itself to you, the viewer...and the mention of the numbers is hard-coded in the HTML - it will be the same regardless of the viewer. (I doubt they're using a server-side script for IP checking, if they're so obviously using a client-side one.)

In short, their "research" is a number they pulled out of their asses and slapped down on...whatever place you live (which they'll never know - what are they, psychic?). Which sounds about right for the "research" done by "psychics."

Ah, comedy.

[yakaru]

Surprisingly enough at least 488 people here in my area of Berlin, Germany have also got psychic readings through this lot. A bit of clicking around even gives me a list of online doctors I can talk to too. These crooks have got a hide posting here. And they call us cynics!

[Dunc]

I doubt they're using a server-side script for IP checking, if they're so obviously using a client-side one.

The client-side script only defines a bunch of functions which return pseudo-hard-coded values emitted by a 3rd-party server-side script. And they've got lousy coverage in the UK - they know I'm in the UK, but that's all, so I just get "Your Source For Psychic & Astrology Services In The Area", which is amusingly vague...

I still really want to do this though...

[Jeff]

One of my favorite XKCD's, Dunc!

And yes, their client-side scripting (the limited JavaScript, such as it is) is calling third-party code, but I was referring to their own obvious lack of ability here: they didn't code the third-party script, and their blatant use of it in client-side script makes it doubtful that the "488" came from server-side scripting that we can't see. My comment was a remark on how obvious it was that 488 was being supplied no matter where you are (as Yakaru confirmed) rather than a dissection of the details of the script itself.

It does raise a vital question, though: have 488 people in low Earth orbit received psychic readings from that site?

[Frank Snow]

They've picked up the rough location of my (UK) office. Apparently 488 people In The Sutton Area Have Had Free Psychic Predictions!

[getpsychicanswers]

Thanks for sharing this. I am actually looking for cases closed by psychic.

[Tom Foss]

I'll give you a hint, getpsychicanswers: you're not going to find any.

[Gr8GooglyMoogly]

You get right on that, getpsychicanswers!! In the meantime, I will start my in-depth investigation on the age-old question - Does Santa Claus wear boxers or briefs? Though I cannot totally discount the wacked-out "Commando Santa" conspiracy fringe.

[Issyalbert]

I went to one of her readings. I truly believed in what she was doing. I did not get a reading but felt I was close. When I went back to my car, I walked thru the hotel to get to the garage where my car was parked. I bumped into Allison and her husband. I was so excited. I asked her for an autograph and to my surprise she was the rudest person I have met. She declined and her husband squeezed her and she said hurry up then. I almost thru her books in the trash right there and then. She is not as she portrays herself to be. I few months later we got a call from her agent that she could do a reading on the phone for $500 and 30 minutes or $1K if they were deceased. I thought it was outrageous. I think her answers are weak. I am uncertain how somone can go on living. Science does not prove that. maybe some day we will know.