Police: 'Visionary' Woman is One Who Found Boy's Body

Update at 11:20 a.m.: In a radio interview on the John and Ken Show on KFI 640 AM, a Riverside County Sheriff's detective confirms the story you will read here, saying, "Never in my 23 years have I seen anything like this." In that interview, Ragland said family members sitting out in front of the garage gave her and those with her permission to search the property.

A story that has had many confusing twists and bizarre aspects apparently has taken another startling turn.

Police confirmed today that an Orange County woman who has been insisting in media reports she found the body of Terry Smith Jr. in his Menifee back yard after receiving a "vision" is indeed the one who called them at 12:55 a.m. Wednesday to report the discovery.

Pam Ragland, who describes herself as a "visionary" rather than a psychic and who owns a "thought shifting" business in Orange County, said on her Facebook page and in multiple media reports that she drove an hour and a half from her home in Rancho Santa Margarita to Menifee that morning because her intuition told her to.

The woman told the Los Angeles Times she had a vision of a boy lying on his side with his eyes closed. She saw him in the dirt under a tree with an unpaved road nearby and a city in the distance.

Ragland could not be reached for comment this morning. Menifee 24/7 chose not report her claims previously, until police confirmed her as the one who discovered the remains.

She has offered some explanation on her Facebook page and commented Wednesday morning on a Menifee 24/7 live Facebook update that quoted police as saying "something" led them to the house about 1:30 a.m. It was later confirmed that the body was found exactly as she described it, but her name was not released previously.

"My daughter and I are the "psychics" from OC. You can see my public profile for a brief account of what we, my son and an off-duty fireman, discovered," Ragland posted on the Menifee 24/7 Facebook thread that morning in a comment that understandably was met with skepticism from other readers.

Later, on her personal Facebook page, Ragland said she discovered "absolute human remains" under the tree on the Smith property and called police. She said she was detained and questioned. Ragland told the Times she and her children -- whom she says also have intuitive abilities -- arrived at the Menifee Market volunteer command center that night and told searchers she thought the boy was closer to home than they now assumed.

According to the Times interview, an off-duty firefighter among the volunteers agreed to drive her around to look for the boy. She directed him to the Smith yard, which has already been searched with cadaver dogs. There, she says, the discovery was made.

According to Ragland in the interview, she smelled a foul odor and her children saw something sticking up from the ground a few inches. Ragland said it was the boy's head.



Today on her Facebook page, Ragland apologized to media members to whom she had not returned messages. Her comments included the following:

If you think it would be easy telling this story, it's not. I am practical. I used to transform
companies. When I first realized I had a healing gift, I was shocked. When I realized I could help with drug addiction, withdrawals, depression, pTSD & many other things, I was shocked. And when I found out I help Autistic & ADHD kids & adults be more normal, I was even more shocked.

Until we began helping in this, I once again did not realize all the ways I could help.

If you don't like how we helped, don't think we helped find the boy, or have anything negative to say, please keep it to yourself. Thank you.

But know this -- we are all more powerful than we know. Including you.

Here is the link to the radio interview:

http://www.kfiam640.com/pages/johnandken.html