Psychic’s claim of mass grave revealed as false

A FALSE tip from a psychic prompted Texas authorities to swarm a rural home searching for a non-existent mass grave and up to 30 bodies, including those of dismembered children.

A few hours later it was clear the tip was false.

“There’s no crime scene,” liberty county judge Craig McNair said as deputies, Texas rangers and FBI agents ended a fruitless search that gained worldwide media attention.

McNair and Captain Rex Evans, spokesman for the liberty county sheriff’s office, said the woman who twice called in the tip would be investigated for making a false report.

Evans said the sheriff’s office took the tip seriously because she claimed children’s bodies were in the mix. The department called the FBI for help, and the Texas rangers spent hours obtaining a warrant to search the one-storey brick home near Hardin, about 82km east of Houston.

But soon after media reports said the sheriff’s office confirmed having found bodies, outlets quoted the same agency as saying they had no evidence of them.

The Houston Chronicle and KHOU-TV tracked down the home’s occupant, who said he and his wife, both long-haul truck drivers, had left on Sunday en route to Georgia and he knew nothing about dead bodies.

Joe Bankson said his daughter’s ex-boyfriend had become drunk and cut his wrist at the home two weeks before, possibly leaving blood that might have piqued investigators’ interest.