Aubrey Osteen was skeptical when he heard a psychic had offered to help Fulton County, Ga., authorities solve a
murder case, but he's a believer now.The Rev. Charlene Hicks did work with Georgia police to help find the body
of murder victim Julie Love.Osteen and another agent drove around Fulton County while Hicks meditated on where
Love's body might be found.They did not find the body that day, but when they did find it later, the details of the
location were exactly as Hicks had described, Osteen said."We were like, 'yeah, right,'" he said of his initial reaction
to the idea of using a psychic. "But there are people who can do that. I would not believe it had I not experienced
that."But many law enforcement leaders believe the use of psychics to help solve cold cases is simply a waste
of time.John Bankhead, director of public affairs for the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, said the Julie Love case
broke open after a spurned lover provided information that led to the arrest of two men, one of whom is on death
row for Love's murder.Psychics have called the bureau many times before to offer their services, but they can never
provide specific information needed to solve cases, Bankhead said."They say there's water, or a wooded area, or a
number five," he said, "but if psychics work, why are there over 1,000 missing women in Georgia? If she could give
me tomorrow's winning lottery numbers now, I'd believe her."That stance doesn't bother Hicks, who will be in Montgomery
today and Saturday to teach people about trance mediumship, the psychic process of channeling spirits from
beyond the grave.She claims to have helped police departments solve murder and missing persons cases in the
U.S. and Canada."They think we're quacks," she said. "But it's like planting seeds, and I think it is starting to grow."
DeKalb buys house in ghostly condition
CHARLES YOO
Cox News Service
February 26, 2006
cyoo@ajc.com
The Chesnuts are preparing to say farewell to all the strangers living in their house in Dunwoody. The old man. The little girl in a dress and pinafore. The lady who stares out the window. And whoever makes the Bible levitate around the room. "We have ghosts in our house," said 41-year-old Caroline Chesnut Leslie, the daughter who grew up there. "They're just part of that house. They just don't seem to want to go on." After three decades, the Chesnuts have sold their family estate. The new owner: DeKalb County. The county recently spent $1.2 million under its green space program to buy the Donaldson House - named for the original owner, of the late 1800s - and its 3 acres on Chamblee Dunwoody Road. County officials plan to preserve the house, though what use it will be put to they're still not sure. The grounds, with magnolia trees and lots of roses, will become a county public space. Ever since voters approved a $125 million bond referendum in 2001, DeKalb has acquired more than 2,200 acres to preserve parkland. But the ghosts that accompany the latest purchase are a bonus. The Donaldson House is known for its wandering spirits, so notorious that it's considered one of the top seven haunted places in Atlanta, according to Citysearch, a popular Web guide to major cities in the country. Other Web sites about paranormals also list the house as a notable spook spot. But these Dunwoody spirits aren't nasty poltergeists. The Chesnuts - David, Linda and daughter Caroline - believe that the spirits protected them during a tornado that swept through Dunwoody in 1998. For local preservationists, the house is a remnant of a purer period, long before I-285, Jaguars and stockbrokers took over and helped make the area in north DeKalb one of the priciest locations in the South. That's why the Dunwoody Preservation Trust lobbied to have the county buy the property and protect the Donaldson House from bulldozers. County officials are considering how to use the house - a community center, maybe, a meeting place or museum. "Whatever its use will be, it'll clearly be open to the public, to everybody," said DeKalb Chief Executive Officer Vernon Jones. That invitation presumably also extends to the ghosts, who, according to the Chesnuts, were there first. From Savannah to Atlanta, plenty of historic sites have paranormal presences, said Bob Hunnicutt, founder of the Georgia Ghost Society, a nonprofit group whose members - eight active ones at last count - investigate such places. "You run into some hauntings in which the spirits themselves don't realize that they are dead," said Hunnicutt. "I've never seen a Linda Blair [of the movie "The Exorcist"] activity. Most hauntings in Georgia, I would consider them nonharmful or benign." Sometimes ghosts remain in their earthly dwelling because they loved their home so much, said the Rev. Charlene Hicks, a psychic in Dunwoody who was once invited to the Donaldson House to survey the spirits. "It had peaceful feelings to the house. They're friendly spirits there, no negative stuff. It's not like the spirits are trapped in that house and can't go to the light. They like being there." A ghost is still a ghost to Fay Kemp, 61, a landscaper who worked on the estate for the past 44 years. He heard a strange sound there once. "I try to get out before the sundown," said Kemp, smiling. Jim Donaldson, the house's original owner, was attached to his land, literally. The property includes a century-old farmhouse and a backyard cemetery where Donaldson, who died in 1900, is buried. Married three times, he had fourteen children. Some descendants still live in the Dunwoody area.
The house was built around 1870. Donaldson, an ?migr? from Great Britain, came to Georgia in the mid-1800s at age 12. After brief service in the Civil War, Donaldson farmed and amassed land. He sold 1,000 acres - at $6 an acre - and helped bring more settlers into what is now north DeKalb County.
"He had a massive amount of land during that time," said Danny Ross, president of the Dunwoody Preservation Trust. "One time, he boasted he could walk from Dunwoody to Chamblee on his own property." Linda Chesnut, an interior designer, and her husband, David, an attorney and former chairman of MARTA, had wanted a place big enough for their daughter to have a pony. In 1975, they found the house. That February day was bitterly cold, but when they stepped inside the empty house it felt warm, as if the furnace was on. They bought it. But they weren't alone. Sometimes lights turned on and off by themselves. "My daughter would wake up and there would be a lady there looking at her in the bed," said Linda Chesnut. Relatives visiting the Chesnuts reported hearing a choir singing. Then a Bible started levitating. One time, David Chesnut says, he saw the Bible rise from a table and slide to the ground. Wife Linda says she too has seen it levitate. Several years ago a television crew wanted to spend Halloween night at the house, said Linda Chesnut. As the cameraman and a psychic approached the cemetery, the camera stopped working, Chesnut said. The cameraman slept inside his van. "A lot of people don't believe that kind of thing," said Linda Chesnut, who teaches college courses in historical restoration. "We do." Caroline Chesnut Leslie felt easy growing up with spirits. She once told that to her high school classmates. "I got made fun of," said the landscape architect. "I wish, for their own sake, they [the ghosts] would go on, but they're stuck here. There's nothing we can do."
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