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June 11, 2025 70 mins

Sylvia Browne made a name for herself in the true crime world on talk shows, giving psychic readings to the families of the missing and the murdered. But an evaluation of her success rate shows that she was probably just guessing and she wasn’t that good of a guesser. 


Skeptical Inquirer articles:

https://skepticalinquirer.org/2020/03/psychic-defective-sylvia-brownes-history-of-failure/

https://skepticalinquirer.org/2020/03/the-psychic-defective-revisited-years-later-sylvia-brownes-accuracy-remains/


Guardian article by Jon Ronson:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/oct/27/usa.jonronson


Pretend Podcast Grave Detector Part 1

https://player.fm/series/pretend-1846581/ep-1602-the-grave-detector-part-1


See me at the True Crime Podcast Festival! https://www.truecrimepodcastfestival.com/

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Sources:

2025 Crimelines Podcast Source List 



Transcript: https://app.podscribe.ai/series/3790

If an exact transcript is needed, please request at crimelinespodcast@gmail.com

 

Licensing and credits:

Theme music by Scott Buckley https://www.scottbuckley.com.au/

Cover Art by Lars Hacking from Rusty Hinges


Crimelines is a registered trademark of Crimelines LLC.



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