When Ghosts Speak - Mary Ann Winkowski [58]
I spoke to this tough little ghost for a while, and she finally ended up telling me where her body could be found (in an unmarked grave, because no one had ever claimed it), as well as how she’d died (beaten to death by a john). She added that she’d been dead for about five years and had spent time in the houses of several teenage girls.
“They’re all so wholesome,” she told me. “And wholesome just aggravates me.”
I really wanted to convince her to cross over, since I could tell that she was still angry. I told her that no matter how many nice houses she went to, she was never going to get back her innocence. I looked over at the two girls, who were slouched at the table picking the black polish off their fingernails. “These two hardly look wholesome,” I pointed out.
The ghost shrugged. “I guess I’m a bad influence.”
I said that I could make the Light; she could cross over and maybe find some peace. I also told her that I’d pass on the information she’d given me, and maybe some of the people who had hurt her could be punished. This seemed to make her feel better. Since she didn’t know the name of the man who had killed her, she gave me the name of the man who had been her pimp.
She did cross over, and the two girls gradually returned to their “wholesome” selves, much to their mother’s relief. As I’d promised, I checked in with one of my contacts in the police department to pass along the information I had learned, including the number and location of the unmarked grave where the young prostitute’s body was buried. The cop I talked to asked me for a description, and when I gave it to her, she pulled out a few sets of photos. I was able to identify one as the ghost, and the police confirmed that it matched with the grave number I had given them.
The strange thing was that over the next few months, I ran into a few more Jane Does in various houses. Each time I went back to the same detective with what I’d learned, and each time it checked out. That’s why I now have a file full of unsolved cases from about 1981 through 1995. Since I received this file, I think I’ve run across maybe eight or nine of the girls. It’s not many out of the hundreds of unsolved cases, but at least it’s something.
That experience taught me that cops from all precincts talk with one another regularly—and also talk to officers from other towns and cities. And over the years, word has spread about cases that I’ve been able to help with. As a result, I have worked with local, regional, and national law enforcement agencies, and have contacts ranging from local cops to DEA and FBI agents. Of course, the information I learn from an earthbound spirit can’t be used as evidence in court. Both the law enforcement agents and I are certainly sensitive to that.
The truth is, I have to be careful with whom I choose to share the information I gather from an earthbound spirit. I learned this lesson the hard way many years ago when I became involved in a case at the request of one of my local law enforcement contacts. The situation involved a nine-year-old girl who was abducted from her mother’s car in a parking lot in an affluent suburb. The news hadn’t made our local papers, so I wasn’t aware of this particular event, but I had done some other work for a woman officer assigned to the precinct that was handling the case. She called and told me that although they didn’t have a body, the evidence was indicating that the child was dead. If that was indeed the case, she wondered, did I think that the little girl would have crossed over?
I told her that if the child was dead, I seriously doubted she would have crossed over, given how distraught her parents were. Based on my experience, I guessed that if she was dead and hadn’t crossed over,