Aurora – Self-described psychic Harold Danforth of Crestone says he’s had regular conversations with Aaroné Thompson from the great beyond and has even told detectives of the revelations.
Another so-called psychic believes he has traced Aaroné to a Park Hill home.
And still others have been calling police for weeks, explaining their visions of the girl’s disappearance or possible death.
When the case of the missing girl first unfolded, police received bursts of calls from people offering to help find her. Since then, the calls have slowed, police said, but many of them are still rather … unconventional.
“We have had people who have told us to look in specific areas and fields based on premonitions and dreams,” said officer Marcus Dudley, Aurora Police Department spokesman. “We have been invited on a radio talk show with psychics in hopes that we can gather leads. … It’s pretty out there. It’s not even practical to utilize resources to check out these allegations.”
Police are continuing their investigation into what they believe is Aaroné’s death. The girl, who would have turned 7 on Nov. 30, was reported missing by her father on Nov. 14. Police searched for the girl for 72 hours before turning the investigation into a homicide case and labeling Aaroné’s father, Aaron Thompson, and his live-in girlfriend, Shelley Lowe, as “persons of interest.”
No arrests have been made, and Aaroné still hasn’t been found, but the “psychics” believe they know where she is.
Danforth told police he’s had two chats with Aaroné, who informed him she’s OK and with all kinds of loving people. She told Danforth she was killed and her body was burned in a rubbish pile and thrown from a pier into a river.
“Don’t be thrown off by the river part,” said Danforth, 87, who says he has been a psychic since he was 13. “I’m pretty sure she’s been thrown into the water.”
Danforth said police told him that his story doesn’t match the information they have received.
The tip that police have been following came from Lowe’s former common-law husband, who is in prison. He apparently told authorities that Lowe told him that Aaroné was bleeding in a bathtub when she stopped breathing and was then buried in a field.
Thompson and Lowe have denied this, and friends of the couple have criticized police for failing to continue to look for Aaroné. The Rev. Acen Phillips, who has been ministering to the family, says a psychic told him Aaroné is alive and well, and in a house in Denver’s Park Hill neighborhood.
Police say a bus driver imagined what the girl would look like at age 7, despite the most recent photo being taken 18 months ago. He told authorities that he saw the girl get on his bus, but Dudley said the tip doesn’t hold up.
“The first week or two, we were getting 30 calls a day from people wanting to help in anyway possible,” he said. “But once we changed the nature of the investigation, they’re more of a trickle now.”
Law enforcement agencies do sometimes consult psychics, but it’s not common, Dudley said.
“There may be times when we are doing consulting with federal folks, and they may have suggestions on folks they have used,” Dudley said. “But I am not aware of this being an instance that that would take place. We wouldn’t rule it out. If there is enough evidentiary value in using (a psychic), it’s something that an agency would consider.
“It’s not what we plan to do in this case.”
Staff writer Jeremy Meyer may be reached at 303-820-1175 or jpmeyer@denverpost.com.
