Psychic Medium Located Missing Mom's Dead Body, Daughter Says

A psychic medium helped find a missing mom's body before the police did, according to the woman's grieving daughter—who is now asking the sheriff to reopen the case, according to a Louisiana-based news outlet.

Theresa Jones, 56, was reported missing more than a year ago from her home in Bernice, Louisiana. Deputies from the Union Parish Sheriff's Office (UPSO) searched for her, sharing missing posters and deploying a K9 unit in the hope that sniffer dogs could find her, but her whereabouts remained a mystery.

Jones' remains were found a few days later by family members, who say they were led to the grim scene in nearby woodland by Wisconsin-based psychic medium Carolyn Clapper. They said she had described the area to them in a phone call when they contacted her for help. Now, more than one year on, Jones' eldest daughter Ashley Deese is calling for the investigation into her mother's death to be reopened.

Newsweek has reached out to UPSO by email.

Revealing the involvement of a psychic medium for the first time in an interview with local news channel KNOE 8 News this weekend, she said there are several unanswered questions about her mother's death.

Deese told the broadcaster that she and her sister Brittany contacted Clapper after hearing that she had helped other families of missing people.

Clapper reportedly spoke to the pair on the phone pro bono and urged them to search for a large log and a creek in the woods.

Jones was found floating in Edmonds Creek by family members, according to a report at the time published by local news outlet the Lincoln Parish Journal. Offices from the UPSO Criminal Investigations Division were called to the scene and arrived shortly afterward to recover the body.

Speaking to KNOE 8 on Sunday, Deese said: "It's like I envisioned what I had heard on the phone […] that was the landmark, the log. So I immediately got ill, shaky, and sick, and started vomiting."

The investigation into Jones' death was closed in August of 2023, when officials ruled it was an accidental drowning with methamphetamine intoxication listed as a contributing factor.

"It doesn't line up, it doesn't make sense," said Deese. "And if someone can make it make sense, I will sit down and listen." She said that her mother was placed in the creek by someone else and was only wearing "a top, [with] no undergarments, nude" when she was found. She added that police did not conduct "rape kit" testing, or scrape her fingernails for evidence. "I'm bothered by that," she said.

She also said police should have spoken to the psychic, even if they were skeptical about her abilities, in a bid to pursue all angles. "It's been a year now since this has happened, and she has so much information pertaining to this case," she added.

But Sheriff Dusty Gates told KNOE 8 that he didn't contact Clapper because he doesn't believe in psychics and has previously met with psychics who were later proved wrong.