The subject is nothing if not controversial. On one television show an experienced detective insists that no psychic has ever helped his department solve a crime, while another program features an equally experienced investigator who maintains that psychics are an occasionally valuable resource, citing examples from his own solved cases. Who is right? Is it a matter of science versus mysticism as some assert, or an issue of having an open mind as opposed to a closed one as others claim?

Divining Rod Led Searcher To Dead Girl

August 13, 1999 - Vancover - Canadian Press

With his trusty divining rod and a strand of hair from a murdered girl, Rex Fitz-Gerald was able to solve a mystery that had confounded more than 400 searchers.

Fitz-Gerald, 68, found the remains of eight-year-old Mindy Tran in 1994, setting the stage for an ongoing murder trial in B.C. Supreme Court expected to make legal history by relying, in part, on cutting-edge DNA technology. "It, in a way, blows your mind," Fitz-Gerald said Wednesday, after completing two days of testimony at the trial of Shannon Murrin, who is accused of having abducted and killed Mindy in 1994. Murrin - a neighbour of Mindy's -- was charged with first-degree murder in 1997.

The girl had vanished in Kelowna, 400 kilometres east of Vancouver, while out looking for a playmate. Her disappearance prompted a massive police investigation.

Fitz-Gerald was the civilian co-ordinator of an intensive four-day search for Mindy. He then worked on his own. "My wife said I was obsessed, and maybe -- in a way -- I was," said Fitz-Gerald, puffing on a pipe as he spoke to reporters after testifying.

Two months after she vanished, Fitz-Gerald found her the body just blocks from her home. It appears she had been sexually abused and strangled. "If Mindy hadn't been found, her parents would still be looking at her coming in the door, and never know," he said.

On Wednesday, the diminutive Fitz-Gerald, who at times had trouble hearing questions put to him, told jurors about his "personal energy loss" and "upset energies" as he used the divining rod to look for the girl.

Neither Crown nor defence lawyers probed the credibility or intricacies of his method.

Police had called him in because he has done more than 500 searches in a 46-year career that has even seen him train some of the officers involved in Mindy's case.

A friend suggested he use his divining rod -- also known as dowsing rods -- which are generally used for finding water. His is a metre-long telescoping rod with a stainless-steel coating.

Police loaned Fitz-Gerald a strand of Mindy's hair, obtained from a hairband she had left behind. Fitz-Gerald said he put the hair against the rod to provide focus. It led him, he said, to an area where he found some red cloth. "I noticed the odour," said Fitz-Gerald, who probed the area, accompanied by a friend.

His friend noticed a shoe. Fitz-Gerald recognized it from the description of Mindy's clothing, and probed it with a stick. "I noticed a human leg in the shoe," Fitz-Gerald told the court in a soft matter-of-fact way.

Within hours, police had confirmed Mindy's identity, bringing a small measure of peace to the girl's family and resolving a mystery that had bedevilled British Columbia for two months. Fitz-Gerald said he found evidence around the gravesite that civilian searchers came within a metre of the remains without finding them during at least four searches of the area.

"She was just very well covered," Fitz-Gerald said outside court. "The police told me that if I hadn't found her, she probably never would have been found. It was pretty carefully done."

The rod, he said, gave him an edge that other searchers did not have. "It indicated to me where she was . . . The chances of just walking along and finding her would have been just about impossible."

Fitz-Gerald, who still works as a searcher, said he has used the rod on other occasions. He said he is not a psychic, but cannot easily explain the feelings he draws from the rod.

"It's just that I have the ability to work a divining rod. I don't know why. I feel it's an energy of some sort."