Photo Credit: Somerset Police Department/Facebook
Imagine spending over $70,000 to exorcise a demon out of your child. Scratch that. Imagine being gullible enough to do it. And what I would like to know is how terrible of a child do you have to have that warrants that? Well this was the predicament a Massachusetts woman found herself in when 37 year old psychic Tracey Milanovich told her her 10 year old daughter had a demon attached to her soul. She went on to tell her during a November 15th palm reading that she was “dead in God’s eyes” and had “something inside her that was bad.”
See, Milanovich didn’t ask for the $70,000 all at once. As is often the case with fraudulent palm readers, they ask for the money in increments. In this case it started with her being told she needed to spend $1,000 to have candles lit around her. She did so a few days later but in the meantime, the victim had grown so nervous that she checked to make sure her daughter was still breathing throughout the night.
But it didn’t stop there. A week later she was told she could “purchase her, as well as her daughter’s soul back” for $6,058. She borrowed the money but was told not to tell anyone what the money was for because “the spirits will know what she was doing” and that she “didn’t want to tell her what the demon would do to her daughter.” And to make matters worse, she was then asked for $6,058 to “remove what was left.” Then $20,000 was needed to banish the spirit. But it wasn’t until she was told over $40,000 was needed to keep the spirit from returning when her husband got involved because she told him she was taking out a personal loan for the matter. Being of sound and logical mind, he did what any other normal human being would, which was to call the police. All of this occurred in the span of about 2 months with the first meeting November 15th, leading to her arrest on December 27th. She was arraigned this week on charges of obtaining property over $250 by trick, larceny over $1,200 and intimidation of a witness and released on her own recognizance.
Retired New York City police officer Bob Nygaard told Boston Herald, “It’s important for people to realize that this happens to a lot of educated people. No one is immune to falling for a con artist.” Just last September a Florida man was sentenced to over 3 years in prison and ordered to repay $1.6 million to a woman she had convinced her family was cursed.
When I first encountered this story, my first reaction was, how does anyone determine that a psychic is lying to accuse them of committing fraud? That’s most likely the argument the psychic would make in court. And while there is merit there, you also can’t charge astronomical fees out of the blue either. Stay vigilant, people. And if you have an out of control child, you might want to try a therapist or a belt first before you spend 10s of thousands on a psychic.
