An Australian woman, Cheryl Carroll-Lagerway, dreamt a girl had been murdered and her body discarded in a bushland park in west Sydney. Sure enough, when she led police to the creek bed she had seen in her dream a body was found … but it was the wrong body!

Instead of six-year-old Kiesha Abrahams (right), who had been missing for two weeks, the police found half a torso of an adult woman, believed to be Kristi McDougall, a 31-year-old mother with a son aged two, who has been missing since 19 June.

Cheryl, who is described in some media accounts as an aboriginal elder, said: “I don’t know, it’s not psychic, it’s inside you – if you have a near death experience, yeah, it’s in you.”

At a press conference, the Homicide Squad’s Pamela Young confirmed: “A woman, she had a sense or a feeling that it was worth her while to come to this particular part of the park… It is quite unusual circumstances that brought us here, that she would think that initially and then we actually find a body.”

Meanwhile, the hunt goes on for little Kiesha who went missing from her bed while her mother and stepfather were watching TV in the living room on 1 August. Police are focussing their search at Nurragingy Reserve at Doonside, a short distance from Kiesha’s Mt Druitt home near Sydney, New South Wales.

How many children are reported missing in the United States each day? The answer – 2,000 – is astonishing. That means 800,000 kids younger than 18 disappear each year. Most, thank goodness, eventually turn up. But those who are abducted may experience years of abuse, while others, tragically, are murdered. It’s a huge problem and among those tackling it, on a voluntary basis, is the national Guardians of the Children (GOC). They have many successes to their credit, but now the Mt St Helen’s Chapter has a new secret weapon—psychic Sonja Grace.

I have already reported how the Norwegian-born “spiritual intuitive” guided GOC searchers to the body of Austin King, a missing teenager in Lewis County, Washington. I have also quoted the testimony of Michael Thornbrue who told me how Sonja Grace pinpointed on a map the precise position of a 10-year-old boy in woods on the outskirts of Portland, Oregon.

Now I’d like to share with you the remarkable experiences of Jennifer Mau (left), who helped found GOC’s Mt St Helen’s chapter with her boyfriend, David, and has been working closely with the Portland psychic on several cases, often with astonishing results.

Sonja had contacted GOC’s Lindsey Baum search centre with some intuitive information about the case and those present were asked if anyone wanted to follow up tips from a psychic. This ongoing investigation concerns a girl who disappeared just before her 11^th birthday. Jennifer responded with a flippant, “OK, I’ll entertain the idea.” But as soon as she began speaking with Sonja Grace she realised the psychic was “hitting on some key points that no one else knew, except my core team”. It was the start of a productive relationship.

They continue to work on the Lindsey Baum case, but in the meantime Jennifer Mau has seen several other cases closed, either as a result of Sonja leading them to the missing person, as in the case of Austin King’s body, or where a missing youngster turns up exactly where she “sees” them and in the same circumstances. The following cases illustrate this very well.

ADDISON LINDBERG, aged 14, went missing from Oregon City in April this year. When Jennifer Mau asked Sonja (pictured right) to help, the psychic assured her she was all right and had run away of her own volition.

“Sonja told me Addy had been in Portland but had since gone north and was near water; in the company of a male and a female parent figure; there were some adult kids around; there was a threat of being exploited; those were the key points,” says Jennifer. Sonja knew that the missing girl would start checking the internet and would respond to any message she found. So, following this advice, her stepmother started posting messages for her every day: “Addy, we’re thinking of you. Addy, please get hold of us.”.

One day Addison messaged her stepmum saying words to the effect: “I’m ready to come home.” She told them where she was and they went to collect her … in Seattle, which is north of Portland, by the water and boats, where she had been living with a homeless “Mum and Dad” and three homeless “sisters”.

Not only was Sonja spot on with locating Addison and her circumstances, but her advice about the internet had led to her return. Addy had googled her own name one day and the search led her to her stepmother’s FaceBook page and her appeal to Addy to return home.

CASSY SCHROEDER, 18, on the other hand, had been abducted – though her family did not know that. She might just have runaway from home. But Sonja knew what had happened to her, telling Jennifer that two men were exploiting her. As a result, the GOC chapter’s approach to finding her was very different. They printed a thousand flyers about her disappearance and distributed them in shopping malls and other areas where her abductors might take her, or where they might visit. “That worked,” Jennifer told me with justifiable pleasure. “The day after we distributed those flyers she was released. Had Sonja not told us what had happened to her, our actions would have been very different and would probably not have resulted in the outcome we got.”

KODIE SALLE, 15. Sometimes the calls for help are close to home, as in the case of this youngster who is the son of one of her friends. He’d not returned home and his anxious mother phoned Jennifer Mau for advice on what she should do. The GOC search leader, who was travelling in her car out of town, called Sonja immediately, asking if she could get any psychic impressions. “He’s fine,” the medium responded. “He’s visiting a friend.”

“OK, whereabouts?” Jennifer asked. “Am I near him?” Sonja responded: “You’re nowhere near, you need to turn round and go back into town.” This, incidentally, despite the fact that Jennifer had not told Sonja her location. So she turned her car around and drove back into town when suddenly Sonja said, “Stop! Pull over. He’s right there.” Jennifer did so but told Sonja over her cell phone: “I’m outside a bar. He’s 15, I’m not going to find him in a bar!” Sonja reassured her: “He’s upstairs from where you are and he’s with a blonde girl. They’re in a living room that has a bed in it.” Who, Jennifer thought, would have a bed in their living room? So she called Kodie’s mother, told her where she was and asked if her son had any friends in that area. Sure enough, a girl friend lived on that street … above the bar.

Jennifer made her way to the front door of the apartment above the bar and a blonde girl opened it. Inside – in a living room with a bed in it – was Kodie. “I’m Kodie’s Aunt Jenn,” she told the girl. “I’m taking him home. I think he has some explaining to do to his Mom.”

AMBER DUBOIS. Sadly, not all missing children are found alive. Californian schoolgirl Amber Dubois, 14, disappeared in February 2009 and Jennifer Mau had got to know Linda, a friend of Amber’s mother, Carrie, who she met at the Lindsey Baum search centre when she was giving out flyers about Amber. Jennifer decided to fly to California for a walkathon that was being held to mark the first anniversary of Amber’s disappearance and before going she mentioned the trip to Sonja, adding, “Any last-minute advice?”

She said, “You need to check the Indian reservation”. Having never been to California, Jennifer didn’t know if it had Indian reservations, but asked, “Which one?” Sonja said, “I don’t know which one, it’s the one closest to her house,” adding, ” If she’s not on the Indian reservation she’s just off it.”

“So I say, ‘Is she alive? Has she crossed over? What?’ you know, I don’t know how to word it. And she goes, ‘Jenn, she’s been gone.’ I’m like, ‘OK, but she’s on the Indian reservation?’ She says: ‘She’s buried on the reservation’.”

Sonja added that Amber had been murdered by a sex offender. When Jennifer reached California she was able to access photos in the sex offenders register and send them to Sonja in Oregon, but the psychic replied that none of these was the killer, adding, “You need to look at the apartments near the school.”

A month after the walkathon, which raised nearly $18,000 to help fund the continuing search for Amber, her skeletal remains were found following a tip-off to police. They were already holding John Gardner, a convicted sex offender, for the rape and murder of 17-year-old Chelsea King. Eventually, he also confessed to murdering Amber DuBois and received two life sentences without parole.

“Amber was buried within walking distance of the Pala Indian reservation,” Jennifer Mau adds, “and it was learned later that he had been living in an apartment by Amber’s school at the time she disappeared.”

Jennifer, a mother of two, and Sonja Grace are working on a number of other cases, and the Portland medium is directing all enquiries about missing children to be dealt with in the first instance by the GOC chapter.

“Sonja’s never charged me a dime for anything,” Jennifer Mau told me. “I work very strictly with her and I’ve never received a tip that was wrong. Any cases I’m working on with her that are open – not yet resolved – we do not discuss with anyone but law enforcement.”

Mortgage banker Michael Thornbrue called his sister Melissa early one evening to find out how her day had been. Fine, she said, until they learned that a friend’s son was missing and she and husband Josh had been helping with the search.

After a family disagreement, the 10-year-old boy had walked off and had failed to return. The police had set up a base camp close to the foot of a mountain range and the boy’s family and friends had been out searching the mountainside on foot and in four-wheel vehicles ever since.

With darkness descending there was growing concern for his safety. Maybe he had been abducted. Even if he was hiding somewhere in the forest, it was going to be a cold night and he wearing only a tee shirt.

Mike and Melissa both live in Portland, Oregon, in the north-west of the United States, close to its border with Canada. The woods can be a scary place at night, even for an adult, says Mike, speaking from experience. The trees are so dense, he explains, that even moonlight fails to penetrate to the forest floor and you cannot see more than 10 feet in front of you.

“Melissa and her husband Josh have 23 acres that border the coast range mountains. They have coyotes running through their yard and you can hunt elk, deer or bear close by. Mountain lions also live in the forest. ”

Everyone was praying that the boy would be found. Mike Thornbrue, however, decided there was another avenue worth exploring. Sonja Grace (right), the wife of a friend and colleague, had a reputation as a “spiritual intuitive”. Having been brought up as a Mormon, it was not a subject Mike had explored or discussed. “But I thought, ‘I have a resource, why not use it?'”

Portland-based Sonja recently made headlines when she used her powers to lead searchers to the remains of a teenager, Austin King, a month after he disappeared. I’ll be carrying an interview with Sonja on this Blog in a day or two.

First, however, I wanted to hear from those willing to testify to her psychic abilities. Mike was very happy to do so. He had called Sonja, he told me, and explained the situation. “The amazing thing was that she told me immediately, before I said anything, that the boy was angry. ‘Now he’s frightened. But he’s enclosed in something to keep warm. He knows what he’s doing, don’t worry’.”

Mike’s relief at hearing this quickly changed when she added: “I see him being picked up on a road.”

“I panicked,” he recalls. “I thought, oh man, some crazy person, you know, in the van you see in every movie, picked him up …” but Sonja said, “No, it’s not like that, I don’t even know if he’s been picked up yet, but I see him getting picked up on a road.” She then asked if I could get more information for her.”

He called Melissa and she was able to tell him the boy’s address and provide a bit more information about him and the time he went missing. He learned that the youngster’s father was a scout leader and his son did know exactly what survival techniques to use if he were alone in the woods. Sonja Grace had been absolutely right. But could she locate him?

Once she had the starting point for the boy’s journey away from his home, Sonja and Mike pulled up a Google map of Portland on their respective computers and began focusing on the satellite view to see if she could determine where he might be.

“Sonja said: ‘He’s definitely south of Highway 26′. So we started focusing there, and the main road that goes up to the house. She told me, ‘He’s on the east side of that road’ adding, ‘I see a ravine…’

‘I could see a ravine but it was on the west side of the road. But right where that ravine came through the road, it was shaped like a horseshoe and went through to the east of the road. As we’re looking at it Sonja said, ‘You see that horseshoe? He’s right there. He’s either under a tree or he’s done something, covered himself from above to stay warm and get out of the elements. He’s doing what he should but he’s scared.” [I’ve shown the exact spot indicated with a pink circle on the map above – Roy].

Mike (pictured left with wife Krista) placed the computer’s cursor in the shape of a hand right over that spot and took a photograph of the screen with his cell phone. He then sent it instantly to his sister’s mobile phone, so that she and her husband could identify the spot. They set off immediately on foot, because the ravine was on the other side of a logging area and a gate prevented them from driving through. They took with them a GPS unit so that they could get the right geographical coordinates.

“Just as they got to that horseshoe bend by the ravine, a four-wheel automobile came from the opposite direction. It was also searching for him. The vehicle stopped for a moment then set off again, and at that moment, Melissa and Josh saw the boy emerge from the forest,” Mike told me. “He had been in a ditch by the roadside and had covered himself with branches for protection and warmth.

“When he heard the vehicle he came out to attract attention. The car picked him up, then swung around the horseshoe bend and headed back to the police base camp.

“I was already on my way over to assist with the search when I received a called from Melissa saying, ‘We’ve found him!’

“When I asked where they had found him she replied, ‘Right at the horseshoe!’

“A group of Mormons heard us discussing the GPS coordinates, which were spot on, and they asked how it had happened,” Mike laughs. “So I said, as nonchalantly as possible, ‘Oh, my psychic told me.’

“‘You’ve got a psychic?’ they responded.

“‘Are you telling me you guys don’t?’ I answered. It was brilliant!”

For details of Sonja Grace’s book “Angels in the 21st century” click here. For books on PSYCHIC DETECTIVES click here

My next post will tell the story of the group who help protect abused children and organise searches for missing kids, and the psychic assistance they have received from Sonja Grace in six successful cases.

An American medium has directed searchers to the remains of a 16-year-old teenager, Austin David King (right), four weeks after he went missing. What’s more, it is just one of six cases that Norwegian-born Sonja Grace has solved, according to Guardians of the Children (GOC), a Texas-based motorcycle group that helps protect abused kids and assists in finding missing or runaway children.

Sonja, who is married to a Hopi Indian and describes herself as a “spiritual intuitive”, gave precise directions after studying a map of Morton, Austin’s small hometown in Lewis County, Washington state, whilst speaking on the phone at the end of June with Jennifer Mau, one of the founders of GOC’s Mount St Helens chapter who is also a Morton resident. Sonja lives 75 miles away, in Portland, Oregon.

Austin was last seen when he went to bed in a cabin behind his family’s trailer home in Chapman Road on 24 June. He was not there in the morning. Friends, family and the police began searching the area. On 30 June, the Lewis Sheriff’s Office sent a dive team to the Tilton River, which runs close to the cabin, after searchers reported what appeared to be a body in deep water. It turned out to be a bicycle. There were other false leads.

Jennifer Mau and the GOC chapter organised searches, gradually expanding the area covered as up to 50 people hunted for clues in the forest and along river banks. Meanwhile, there were reports that Austin had been sighted in nearby localities but they also proved to be false.

So Jennifer Mau decided to ask Sonja Grace for psychic assistance. “She worked with me on a map and came up with that point, that road.” Mau told one newspaper. “She said that’s the road where we should send searchers.” The road in question was some 10 miles from Austin’s home.

A group of four or five searchers, including family members, went to the area indicated by Sonja and the remains of a young male were found. Although there has been no verification that it is Austin King, I understand that a belt found at the scene was identified as belonging to him. Dental records or DNA will be needed to confirm that it is the teenager but his family have said they are certain it is him. No other person matching his description has been reported missing in the area.

A candlelit vigil was held in Gust Backstrom Park, Morton, on Friday 23 July, attended by family, friends and others, including Sonja Grace who drove from Portland to mourn with those who knew the teenager.

Until the results of an autopsy are revealed, the cause of death remains unknown but Sonja Grace told me confidently that it was homicide.

Sonja Grace’s success in the Austin case has resulted in calls for her to be involved with another missing youngster case, that of seven-year-old Kyron Horman. Although apparently not yet consulted by law enforcement or family, Sonja said in a TV interview that she believed the boy was taken from his school and whisked out of state. But she won’t publicise more details of what happened, she says, until the leads already provided have been investigated.

In various interviews, she made it clear that her information comes from her spiritual guides and the spirit world.

Earlier today, I spoke to a man who testified to the remarkable accuracy of Sonja’s intuitive powers in another missing child case. I’ll tell his story tomorrow. I’ll also be writing about my interview with Sonja Grace, discussing some of her other cases, very shortly.