3/13/06 (PMP) The First of Many--Part II
Continued from yesterday……
I had been given the motel room number, so I could go straight to the room when I arrived. A large, formidable-looking man answered the door. A St. Bernard dog stood behind him. I felt small in comparison, and I wondered how they all fit inside the tiny room. The man invited me in.
A woman stood inside the room. She stepped forward to greet me. She was about 50 years old, with unkept dishwater blonde to gray hair, pulled back in a loose ponytail. When she spoke, I could see that she was missing teeth and needed other dental work. The lights in the room were dimmed and a single candle was lit. I was motioned to sit in a chair which faced the chair the woman would sit in. The chairs were closer to each other than was comfortable.
We sat for awhile and just talked about other things. I suppose they wanted to set my mind at ease and make sure I was relaxed. I thought the man was a former cop the way he talked. He was pleasant, but yet seemed to know quite a bit about the way things worked in an investigation. Later on that evening, I found out that he worked in the field of insurance fraud. I do not remember his name.
Please keep in mind that this happened just 2-3 months after Jason’s disappearance. I do not recall all of the details, and the things that were said. I shut this out of my mind for a very long time as it was so painful. Even now, over 4 years later, it still hurts to recall these things, but I need to share to aid in your understanding.
I remember the woman’s name. She claimed family ties to a famous actor, Nick Nolte. Her name: Sharon Nolte. I believe she said she had Indian blood lines, but she did not look Indian in the least to me. I’m not sure if the Indian blood had something to do with her “powers” or why she told me that. I noted that she never once smiled during the entire visit. Her eyes were cold and unfeeling.
She and the man talked for quite a while about the case they were working on. They said that they were leaving for a trip to Texas very soon, and that while there, they were going to visit a man they claimed was a serial killer. They said they were going to get something of his for DNA, and then link him to the murders he was responsible for, thus putting them on the “map” and making law enforcement take heed of Sharon’s abilities. They went on for a time about this case and what this man had done, but I don’t recall any of that. It had nothing to do with me or Jason, after all.
They finally seemed to be finished talking and Sharon moved to the chair beside me. She grasped my hands and held them the entire time, with the exception of her looking at and touching Jason’s possessions, which she did at the beginning of the session.
Even more so than usual was my feeling of being inside of a very bad movie, and not being able to get out. I kept hoping that a director would pop out of the corner, and yell “Cut!” Surely this could not be happening to me on top of everything else. I asked myself what I was doing there, over and over again.
I fought a strong urge to pull my hands out of hers and bolt from the room. I wondered what would happen if I did that. I looked at the dog, lying on the floor, half asleep. The man was sitting on the bed, ready to take notes on what Sharon said. I felt like I should hear them out, if for no other reason than politeness. This was certainly a time when manners should be laid aside for sanity, but I did not move. Instead, I listened to her spew forth her insanity for three hours.
Sharon explained that she could see things like a movie in her head. She also said that she had contact with spirits. She said that when they were on their way to Omaha, Jason had appeared to them inside the back of their van.
Sharon said he was dead.
I can only recount to you the few things I recall after that point.
She spent quite a bit of time telling me about Jason’s job in the afterlife. He was a caretaker of sorts for children. He was to assure them that they were ok, and to help them become acclimated to the afterlife. To me, that sounded like the perfect job for Jason, as he was good with children, gentle and patient. Sharon told me that Jason wanted me to know that he was ok and that I could stop crying. She said he said to tell me that he loved me.
It was hard to focus after that. I kept biting my lip and telling myself to hold on, and be strong so that I could hear her out. Sharon said that a man named Danny Sullivan picked Jason up while he was walking to the high school to be picked up for work. (For those who do not know the story, Jason was called in to work early on that fateful day. His car was in the shop, and my husband and I were both at work. His employer sent someone to pick him up at the local high school, which was seven blocks away. He was last seen in our driveway.)
According to Sharon, Danny Sullivan was a pedophile who had never been caught. He worked as a copy machine repairman, and Jason recognized him because he repaired the copiers at the community college Jason had attended. Danny offered Jason a ride. Jason, a quiet and passive person, did not at first say anything when Danny did not drive to the school. The story went that by the time Jason decided something was very wrong, it was too late. Danny drove the car to a quiet area north of Omaha, and used a heavy object to hit Jason in the head and kill him. Sharon said that I was not ready for the details of his death, so she did not say more about it.
She briefly described the where the act happened, but it was too vague to have meaning, especially when one is speaking of farmland. (grain bins and/or grain elevators) She described Danny Sullivan as being in his thirties, with glasses. He was not a good-looking person.
There was a tremendous amount of time spent describing things that had no bearing whatsoever, which I find to be a common thread among psychics. When she was done, I excused myself to go to the restroom. I had to get away from these people and the awful things they said. In the bathroom, I started crying. They asked if I was ok. I said I was and I came out. I didn’t want to, but I couldn’t stay in the bathroom all night. It was getting late, and I knew my husband was probably getting worried about me.
They motioned me to sit down again. The man said that they had law enforcement connections in Kansas City, and that when they returned the first thing they were going to do was run a report on Danny Sullivan and start looking for him. After that, they would be going to Texas for a week or two, and upon their return, they would work on Jason’s case. I gathered his things and thanked them, grateful to see the door of the hotel room open up before me.
I remember nothing about the drive home, or even my arrival home. I am quite sure I did recount the evening to my husband, and that he comforted me. I went to bed at some point, and had to work the next day. I recall waking up for work and being unable to function. I truly felt as though I had been hit by a truck. I called in sick and went back to bed. At about 10am, a friend from work called me to make sure I was ok. He was one of the few people who knew what was to transpire the night before. “She said he was dead”, I told my friend. I could not say much more than that to him because the tears began to flow.
I was able to go back to work the next day, but I was not myself for quite some time. Family members called to find out what was said to me and I was able to tell them. I waited for several days before emailing Sharon. I wanted to find out what came of the check on Danny Sullivan. There was no response.
At work, whenever I saw a copier repairman, I stopped and looked at him. If he fit the general description of Danny Sullivan, I stared at him, looking for clues he was a sick, twisted person, capable of murder. There were a couple of times when I almost said something to them. I would have asked: “Have you heard about a missing young man named Jason Jolkowski?”
I did know that Sharon and her visions were most likely just a story in her head, but it was hard to shake the pictures she placed in my head. Over time, I was able to make my way back to what was now my life, a series of unanswered questions, punctuated with pain and fears, wondering what has become of my son.
I emailed Sharon every now and then, and never received a reply. After a couple of months, I told my police detective, and supplied the details I could recall. I asked him what he thought was going on, and he said that Sharon was most likely expecting me to get desperate. He said that she probably thought that by this time, I would be emailing her, telling her that I would do anything for the answers, including giving her money. There was no other explanation that made sense. Why go to all the trouble and then do nothing?
I found it strange at the time that I could not find anything on the Internet about Sharon Nolte, psychic. You would think that she would have been in the KC newspaper a time or two for her work, but not so in her case. Last week, I looked her up again to see if I could find anything. I did, and it had a familiar twist to it.
The part of this article that mentions her is page 4 of 6.
http://www.rftstl.com/issues/2004-12-01/news/feature_4.html
An excerpt from that story:
“Perhaps the most far-fetched story surrounding the case came in 2002 when Sharon Nolte called detectives. A Kansas City insurance investigator, she was convinced Jane Doe was a Chippewa Indian named Shannon Johnson. Nolte said she also knew the killer, a drifter living in southern Texas.
She worked the case independently for seven years before contacting the police, her investigation taking her to an Indian reservation in Minnesota where she collected sample DNA from a woman she believed to be related to Jane Doe. She says she even visited the killer, inviting herself into his home and collecting DNA evidence in his bathroom.
Nolte has few positive things to say about the St. Louis police department. She claims her story fell on deaf ears -- that Carroll and Burgoon never took her seriously. Of the $23,000 she says she spent on the case, $4,500 went to a private lab that tested the DNA against that of Jane Doe. The tests came back negative, but Nolte still maintains she was right.
"I don't give a rat's ass about the police department. I think they stink," she says. "I told them who she was and who killed her, and they never did anything with it. I had a bag full of the killer's pubic hair. Do you know how difficult it is to collect a bag full of pubic hair?"
As with all the people who have stepped forward to help police solve the case, Carroll and Burgoon say they appreciate Nolte's efforts, but in the end her story just didn't add up.”
I think the facts, as given in the story, need no further comment.
Unfortunately, Sharon would not be the last of the psychics to cause me distress, and yet not bring me any closer to solving the mystery of my son’s disappearance.
(Today marks 4 years and 9 months since Jason disappeared.)
I had been given the motel room number, so I could go straight to the room when I arrived. A large, formidable-looking man answered the door. A St. Bernard dog stood behind him. I felt small in comparison, and I wondered how they all fit inside the tiny room. The man invited me in.
A woman stood inside the room. She stepped forward to greet me. She was about 50 years old, with unkept dishwater blonde to gray hair, pulled back in a loose ponytail. When she spoke, I could see that she was missing teeth and needed other dental work. The lights in the room were dimmed and a single candle was lit. I was motioned to sit in a chair which faced the chair the woman would sit in. The chairs were closer to each other than was comfortable.
We sat for awhile and just talked about other things. I suppose they wanted to set my mind at ease and make sure I was relaxed. I thought the man was a former cop the way he talked. He was pleasant, but yet seemed to know quite a bit about the way things worked in an investigation. Later on that evening, I found out that he worked in the field of insurance fraud. I do not remember his name.
Please keep in mind that this happened just 2-3 months after Jason’s disappearance. I do not recall all of the details, and the things that were said. I shut this out of my mind for a very long time as it was so painful. Even now, over 4 years later, it still hurts to recall these things, but I need to share to aid in your understanding.
I remember the woman’s name. She claimed family ties to a famous actor, Nick Nolte. Her name: Sharon Nolte. I believe she said she had Indian blood lines, but she did not look Indian in the least to me. I’m not sure if the Indian blood had something to do with her “powers” or why she told me that. I noted that she never once smiled during the entire visit. Her eyes were cold and unfeeling.
She and the man talked for quite a while about the case they were working on. They said that they were leaving for a trip to Texas very soon, and that while there, they were going to visit a man they claimed was a serial killer. They said they were going to get something of his for DNA, and then link him to the murders he was responsible for, thus putting them on the “map” and making law enforcement take heed of Sharon’s abilities. They went on for a time about this case and what this man had done, but I don’t recall any of that. It had nothing to do with me or Jason, after all.
They finally seemed to be finished talking and Sharon moved to the chair beside me. She grasped my hands and held them the entire time, with the exception of her looking at and touching Jason’s possessions, which she did at the beginning of the session.
Even more so than usual was my feeling of being inside of a very bad movie, and not being able to get out. I kept hoping that a director would pop out of the corner, and yell “Cut!” Surely this could not be happening to me on top of everything else. I asked myself what I was doing there, over and over again.
I fought a strong urge to pull my hands out of hers and bolt from the room. I wondered what would happen if I did that. I looked at the dog, lying on the floor, half asleep. The man was sitting on the bed, ready to take notes on what Sharon said. I felt like I should hear them out, if for no other reason than politeness. This was certainly a time when manners should be laid aside for sanity, but I did not move. Instead, I listened to her spew forth her insanity for three hours.
Sharon explained that she could see things like a movie in her head. She also said that she had contact with spirits. She said that when they were on their way to Omaha, Jason had appeared to them inside the back of their van.
Sharon said he was dead.
I can only recount to you the few things I recall after that point.
She spent quite a bit of time telling me about Jason’s job in the afterlife. He was a caretaker of sorts for children. He was to assure them that they were ok, and to help them become acclimated to the afterlife. To me, that sounded like the perfect job for Jason, as he was good with children, gentle and patient. Sharon told me that Jason wanted me to know that he was ok and that I could stop crying. She said he said to tell me that he loved me.
It was hard to focus after that. I kept biting my lip and telling myself to hold on, and be strong so that I could hear her out. Sharon said that a man named Danny Sullivan picked Jason up while he was walking to the high school to be picked up for work. (For those who do not know the story, Jason was called in to work early on that fateful day. His car was in the shop, and my husband and I were both at work. His employer sent someone to pick him up at the local high school, which was seven blocks away. He was last seen in our driveway.)
According to Sharon, Danny Sullivan was a pedophile who had never been caught. He worked as a copy machine repairman, and Jason recognized him because he repaired the copiers at the community college Jason had attended. Danny offered Jason a ride. Jason, a quiet and passive person, did not at first say anything when Danny did not drive to the school. The story went that by the time Jason decided something was very wrong, it was too late. Danny drove the car to a quiet area north of Omaha, and used a heavy object to hit Jason in the head and kill him. Sharon said that I was not ready for the details of his death, so she did not say more about it.
She briefly described the where the act happened, but it was too vague to have meaning, especially when one is speaking of farmland. (grain bins and/or grain elevators) She described Danny Sullivan as being in his thirties, with glasses. He was not a good-looking person.
There was a tremendous amount of time spent describing things that had no bearing whatsoever, which I find to be a common thread among psychics. When she was done, I excused myself to go to the restroom. I had to get away from these people and the awful things they said. In the bathroom, I started crying. They asked if I was ok. I said I was and I came out. I didn’t want to, but I couldn’t stay in the bathroom all night. It was getting late, and I knew my husband was probably getting worried about me.
They motioned me to sit down again. The man said that they had law enforcement connections in Kansas City, and that when they returned the first thing they were going to do was run a report on Danny Sullivan and start looking for him. After that, they would be going to Texas for a week or two, and upon their return, they would work on Jason’s case. I gathered his things and thanked them, grateful to see the door of the hotel room open up before me.
I remember nothing about the drive home, or even my arrival home. I am quite sure I did recount the evening to my husband, and that he comforted me. I went to bed at some point, and had to work the next day. I recall waking up for work and being unable to function. I truly felt as though I had been hit by a truck. I called in sick and went back to bed. At about 10am, a friend from work called me to make sure I was ok. He was one of the few people who knew what was to transpire the night before. “She said he was dead”, I told my friend. I could not say much more than that to him because the tears began to flow.
I was able to go back to work the next day, but I was not myself for quite some time. Family members called to find out what was said to me and I was able to tell them. I waited for several days before emailing Sharon. I wanted to find out what came of the check on Danny Sullivan. There was no response.
At work, whenever I saw a copier repairman, I stopped and looked at him. If he fit the general description of Danny Sullivan, I stared at him, looking for clues he was a sick, twisted person, capable of murder. There were a couple of times when I almost said something to them. I would have asked: “Have you heard about a missing young man named Jason Jolkowski?”
I did know that Sharon and her visions were most likely just a story in her head, but it was hard to shake the pictures she placed in my head. Over time, I was able to make my way back to what was now my life, a series of unanswered questions, punctuated with pain and fears, wondering what has become of my son.
I emailed Sharon every now and then, and never received a reply. After a couple of months, I told my police detective, and supplied the details I could recall. I asked him what he thought was going on, and he said that Sharon was most likely expecting me to get desperate. He said that she probably thought that by this time, I would be emailing her, telling her that I would do anything for the answers, including giving her money. There was no other explanation that made sense. Why go to all the trouble and then do nothing?
I found it strange at the time that I could not find anything on the Internet about Sharon Nolte, psychic. You would think that she would have been in the KC newspaper a time or two for her work, but not so in her case. Last week, I looked her up again to see if I could find anything. I did, and it had a familiar twist to it.
The part of this article that mentions her is page 4 of 6.
http://www.rftstl.com/issues/2004-12-01/news/feature_4.html
An excerpt from that story:
“Perhaps the most far-fetched story surrounding the case came in 2002 when Sharon Nolte called detectives. A Kansas City insurance investigator, she was convinced Jane Doe was a Chippewa Indian named Shannon Johnson. Nolte said she also knew the killer, a drifter living in southern Texas.
She worked the case independently for seven years before contacting the police, her investigation taking her to an Indian reservation in Minnesota where she collected sample DNA from a woman she believed to be related to Jane Doe. She says she even visited the killer, inviting herself into his home and collecting DNA evidence in his bathroom.
Nolte has few positive things to say about the St. Louis police department. She claims her story fell on deaf ears -- that Carroll and Burgoon never took her seriously. Of the $23,000 she says she spent on the case, $4,500 went to a private lab that tested the DNA against that of Jane Doe. The tests came back negative, but Nolte still maintains she was right.
"I don't give a rat's ass about the police department. I think they stink," she says. "I told them who she was and who killed her, and they never did anything with it. I had a bag full of the killer's pubic hair. Do you know how difficult it is to collect a bag full of pubic hair?"
As with all the people who have stepped forward to help police solve the case, Carroll and Burgoon say they appreciate Nolte's efforts, but in the end her story just didn't add up.”
I think the facts, as given in the story, need no further comment.
Unfortunately, Sharon would not be the last of the psychics to cause me distress, and yet not bring me any closer to solving the mystery of my son’s disappearance.
(Today marks 4 years and 9 months since Jason disappeared.)
We understand that many people believe that psychics are effective in solving crimes and finding missing people. Please keep in mind that the goal of this series is to help families understand techniques used by persons making these claims and make better decisions about the use of psychics.
Project Jason and its volunteers cannot act as a clearinghouse for persons claiming success in using paranormal means to locate missing persons. We will be unable to respond to emails or other correspondence sent to us from persons making these claims or persons offering information about or referrals to psychics.
We instead invite those persons to present their evidence to the members of the James Randi Education Foundation. They have a forum available for you to discuss your claims. http://forums.randi.org/forumdisplay.php?f=7
Jump to the next story in the series:
http://voice4themissing.blogspot.com/2006/03/31506-pmp-guarantee.html
posted by Kelly Jolkowski at 12:13 AM
1 Comments:
Kelly... Thank you so much for sharing this story. I hope it will serve as a warning to the families and friends of missing people. "Psychics" who prey on these people, in their state of extreme vulnerability, are truly the lowest of the low. I was choked up reading your story, realizing how hurtful these people's lies and manipulations are.
Please stay strong. I am thinking of Jason and wishing the best for you and your family. ...Sadie
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