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In M. Night Shyamalan’s smash film The Sixth Sense, Haley Joel Osment’s character utters the now-famous one-liner: "I see dead people." Keith Charles not only sees dead people — he actually talks to them.
Charles, 52, is a renowned psychic medium cop from London. Now retired, the investigator used his psychic abilities over the course of a 32-year career to help solve crimes in England and Canada, as well as the United States.
Hocus pocus, you say?
Consider this: From his desk in London, 3,500 miles away from Toronto, Charles once detailed a murder scene for Canadian detective Mike King.
Down to the pink curtains and intricate woodwork in the hotel room, the diner next door and the pig farm out back, Charles was dead-on, King said.
"He could see in clear detail the scene where the crime occurred. All these things were there in the exact order he told me," the investigator told the Review when he and Charles were in town last week — this time to give Philadelphia police a hand.
King also cited another case in which Charles came up with 23 pieces of evidence that were only in police files.
"Having a man who is a medium as well as professional detective is pretty amazing. I don’t know of any other police officers in the world who are mediums," he said.
Charles grew up in Brighton, a seaside town south of London. He realized his psychic gift at age 8, during a family trip to a swimming pool. Another child, Charles’ second cousin, got lost and the family panicked. Out of the blue, a voice told Charles where to look for the boy amid an enormous crowd of people. The child was found.
Charles didn’t think much of the incident at the time, but today, he considers it his first psychic experience.
In school, he found that he knew things about his classmates and their families without them having told him.
And at age 20, the extent of Charles’ gifts hit with a profound impact. He heard a voice telling him to look in the doorway of his bedroom. Scared but curious, Charles obeyed and saw his dead grandfather — as clear as a real-life person — standing there. "And it frightened the hell out of me," Charles said.
From that point on, he endeavored to find out more about his visions.
After his training at Hendon Police College, Charles went to Cannon Row in central London, where his duties included guarding the prime minister, members of the royal family and even walking the Queen Mother around her garden. During his career, Charles was assigned to the fraud, hotel burglary and murder squads.
In 1994, his son, Mathew, 20, was killed in a car crash. It was the one point in the psychic’s life when he thought about giving up his work. But Mathew’s spirit contacted his father to tell him he needed to help other bereaved families. Charles has been doing just that, and he recently released a book, Calling All Angels, he said during his visit here last week.
His road to Philadelphia has been a long time in coming.
In 1970, Detective King — then a police officer in London — visited the city and stayed with Philadelphia police officer Robert Kimrey and his family on the 400 block of Snyder Avenue. Kimrey is now retired, but his son, Jim, is a sergeant with East Detective Division. Throughout the years, King kept in touch with the Kimreys and told them about his friendship with a psychic cop from London.
Three years ago, Sgt. Jim Kimrey met with Inspector James Boyle of the Homicide Division and told him that a British documentary crew wanted to film Charles working with an American police force. Plans were hatched for Charles to assist the Homicide Division with several unsolved murders, Kimrey said.
However, the trip never materialized because of a scheduling conflict with the Republican National Convention.
Earlier this year, King contacted Kimrey again and told him Charles was coming to town.
Accompanied by King, the psychic and his wife arrived in Philadelphia last week. As a member of the Avalon String Band, Kimrey organized a benefit psychic performance at the club’s hall at Second and Tasker streets. The sergeant also put together another benefit at the Fraternal Order of Police. Proceeds from both shows funded Charles’ trip.
At last Thursday night’s show at the Avalon String Band hall, Charles demonstrated his remarkable talent by relaying messages from deceased loved ones — information that only the surviving relatives could possibly know. Many inside the sold-out hall were driven to sobs upon hearing the messages. For Charles, the explanation of such psychic phenomena is simple. "There is no death — our life continues," he says.
While he was in town, Charles finally met with Boyle to help with four unsolved homicides, including the infamous Boy in the Box case in the Northeast, dating back to the 1950s.
Charles also worked on the August 2000 murder of 5-year-old Iriana DeJesus, whose decomposed body was found in a building in North Philly, and the 1970 homicide of police officer Frederick Cione — the only unsolved police murder in the department’s history. The final case was the recent horrifying murder of Willie Kent, whose disemboweled body was found in an abandoned building in North Philly.
Inside Boyle’s office at police headquarters Friday, neither Charles nor police would discuss specifics about the psychic’s work.
Charles said he asks detectives not to tell him anything about the case in question. Instead, he prefers to hold an 8-by-10 envelope that contains a photograph of the victim or the crime scene. Before he begins his mental journey, Charles said he prays and enlists the aid of his guardian angels and one particular spirit guide — Tobias, a young monk who lived 200 years ago.
Charles provides information as simple as a nickname or a description of a location. Sometimes the psychic turns up blank.
Information Charles relays is rarely specific enough to make an immediate arrest or wrap up a case.
"He can actually come out and say, ‘You did it,’ but now [police] have to prove that. And that takes time," Kimrey explained.
In the four-and-a-half years Boyle has been in charge of Homicide, Charles is the first psychic the department has used.
"I’m open minded about it. I’m willing to try anything that helps and not rule out anything that might help," the inspector said.
Having worked both sides of the fence, Charles understands some might be skeptical about the use of psychics in police work, but maintains his abilities are just another tool.
"If, at the end of the day, we are all trying to solve a crime and bring someone to justice, why not use a psychic? We use sniffer dogs," Charles noted.
The psychic also visited South Detective Division at 24th and Wolf streets to offer his thoughts on the Maria Procopio case.
Procopio, 35, who lived on the 2400 block of South Opal Street, disappeared after leaving her job at QVC in West Chester on Sept. 24, 1999.
The detective now on the case was in court last week, so the original detective — Bob Dougherty, now with the Chester County prosecutor’s office — met with Charles and Kimrey.
The investigators retraced significant locations in the case, Kimrey noted: They drove to Bridgeport, where Procopio’s red Pontiac Sunbird was recovered, and to Delaware County, the spot of a reported sighting minutes after she left work.
Once again, Charles was given an envelope and did his thing. Again, Kimrey would not discuss specifics regarding the information received.
"My hope was that he would solve at least one of these cases," he said. "It was enjoyable to have him here. I found him intriguing, but the real reason he was here was to help solve these cases and to make sure justice prevails."
