Psychics peer into Palmgren case

photo Gail Palmgren. Contributed Photo

HOW TO HELPGail Palmgren was last seen driving a red 2010 Rubicon Jeep with a tailgate tire cover that reads "Life is Good" and with a daisy painted on it. She also had a personalized Alabama tag -- "EAZY ST." The Palmgrens own a home near Titus, Ala., on Lake Jordan. She is 5 feet 8, weighs 135 pounds and has blond hair and brown eyes. Anyone with information may call Signal Mountain police at 423-886-2124.

More than 100 psychics from around the world have peered into the case of a missing Signal Mountain woman in hopes of providing investigators with clues.

Gail Palmgren, 44, was last seen April 30 after she dropped off her children at 40 Ridgerock Drive in her red Jeep.

"Some say she's dead. Some say she's alive. Some say she's hiding and she's in a safe house. So now the police are reviewing a report where they have four or five scenarios," said Kelly Snyder, a retired federal agent with the Drug Enforcement Administration and founder of FIND ME, a Phoenix, Ariz.-based organization dedicated to helping law enforcement find missing people and homicide victims with the aid of psychics.

The psychic readings were sent to the Hamilton County Sheriff's Office last month; it's unclear if investigators have followed up since then.

"They're not going to turn anything down," said Janice Atkinson, public information officer for the sheriff's office. "Anything is worth following up on."

A detective at the sheriff's office said he would "accept our information," Snyder said, but "he didn't tell me, if anything, what they would do with it. They told me they would take our information and investigate."

"They use what they already know and see if what provided makes sense to them," Snyder said. "Somewhere in the report is the truth."

He declined to release details of the readings in case investigators are following up on the information, which includes psychics giving specific GPS coordinates.

FIND ME, which also has a search-and-rescue unit with canines, took a look at the Palmgren case after one of her family members contacted the group online.

But it's not as simple as just asking the psychics to open up their mind's eye, Snyder said.

"The only way we get involved is if a police department is involved," he said.

The Signal Mountain Police Department initially investigated Palmgren's disappearance after Matthew Palmgren, her husband, filed a missing persons report with the police department May 2. The report came only days after police responded to arguments between the Palmgrens at their home April 22 and April 29, according to reports.

A couple of weeks later, the Hamilton County Sheriff's Office took over the case, and now the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation also is reviewing Gail Palmgren's disappearance.

Snyder said success is seen in about one-quarter of the cases reviewed by FIND ME. In one case, the group's psychics predicted the location of a body within 100 feet of where it was later found, Snyder said.

"How do you explain that? It's not a lucky guess, trust me," he said. "And it happens over and over again."

Another psychic not associated with FIND ME has contacted friends of Gail Palmgren's.

Lamdi Hasan, who lives in Romania, also sent his readings on the case to the Chattanooga Times Free Press.

He said a green pickup and a bald man between the ages of 48 and 50 are connected to her disappearance. He also accurately described the purse she had with her at the time she disappeared, according to a family friend.

"I see the same man. Baldness. ... I hear talk about an electric fish and aquarium. I see the jeep with the driver's door open. I see the jeep leaned to a tree. I see a creamy yellow beige handbag with medications in. ... Area I see is not where people go," wrote Hasan, who has weighed in on other missing persons cases around the world.

But even Snyder said psychic readings aren't the be-all end-all of investigations.

"This is just another investigative tool. This isn't voodoo," he said. "People have these abilities. Why not tap into it?"

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