I was watching a documentary last night about the celebrated “BOSTON STRANGLER” murders, from the mid-1960’s. The documentary was occasioned by the fact that new DNA evidence tends to exonerate the chief suspect (the late Albert DeSalvo) who was killed by a fellow inmate in prison. I remeber that the case was extremely frustrating to the Boston Police Dept.-they went for years without any leads. Somehow, somebody got the idea to import a “psychic” from Holland-a man by the name of Peter Hurkos. Supposedly, Hurkos had helped the Dutch police find the bodies of several murder victimes in the Netherlands. I don’t recall that this Hurkos ever provided the BPD with any solid leads…but I do remeber that he embarrassed the chief detective on the case, by blurting out that he (the detective) was carrying on an affair with another detective’s wife!).
Anyway, with the arrest and conviction of Desalvo, Hurkos faded away…
Anyway…for our Dutch friends…is Hurkos still alive? And, did he ever actually solve any crimes in the Netherlands?
The first hit in a Google search for “Peter Hurkos” reveals that he died in June of 1988. This is a site that is very favorable to Hurkos (apparantly written by a relative) and has no back-up for its claims.
Here is an aritcle about Hurkos by James Randi which is infinitely more credible. Hurkos was a fraud.
Haj
Bah, if James Randi was alive in the time of Christ he would have spent time rationalizing the highly dubious claims of turning water into wine by pointing out that most of the witnesses to the incident were drunk at the time.
Reminds me of a mock “interview with Jesus” George Carlin did on his “A Place for my Stuff” album (quoted from faulty memory):
Interviewer: All told, how many miracles did you perform?
Jesus (Carlin): 116 miracles, not counting the Loaves and the Fishes?
I: Why don’t you count the Loaves and the Fishes?
J: It turns out people didn’t like them. They were putting them back.
Isn’t it odd that Peter Hurkos didn’t know he was going to die?