PSYCHIC GPS

PSYCHIC GPS  

        - Donna DiPietro

A few years ago, my son Justin called to relay a message from a real estate agent, whom I didn’t know. She had heard that I was psychic and hoped that I could help find her purse.  She had parked her car and inadvertently left her purse inside, while she showed property that day. As Justin and I spoke on the phone, he had the woman on another line. I described, in detail, an area of Boston that I was not familiar with. I saw a small business area off a main street and described some of the businesses. As I was there in spirit, I went around the back of the businesses and saw a dumpster, and on the ground, next to the dumpster was the missing purse. I saw her wallet inside the purse and that the money and credit cards had been removed, but the IDs were still inside. The woman was not sure of the area but would follow my directions of how to get there using the signs and landmarks that I saw in my mind. The woman drove about seven miles and came upon the business area that I described and drove around the back. The dumpster was there, as I saw it, and she noticed what looked like a purse lying on the ground next to the dumpster. She got out of her car, walked over to the dumpster and picked up her purse. Inside was her wallet with her IDs but her money and credit cards were gone. I have no idea how I was able to pinpoint exactly where her purse would be found.

THE BALL

THE BALL       
      - Donna DiPietro

Those of you who know me, realize that I am a rational person and as dumbfounded as anyone by the paranormal events that I have experienced. I told my daughter Alicia that I was hesitant to make ‘The Ball’ case public because of it being so unusual. She said it is important that I add it to my psychic case book because it is part of who I am and something that I experienced.

As a child, I wished I had my own dog to play with and love. I was the youngest of six children and we lived in an apartment, and owning a dog was not in the picture. I wanted a dog so much that I pretended that my dodge ball was a dog and I would call it to come to me, and a few times it did. On one occasion, I was alone, standing in the back yard at the bottom of the stairs and the ball was on the first floor porch, in a corner where I had put it the day before. I stood there, looked at the ball and concentrated on it to come to me, as a dog would when called. After a few minutes, the ball started to move and slowly travelled across the porch to the top of the stairs and bounced down each step, one at a time, until it stopped at my feet. I was surprised and tried to figure out how this could possibly have happened. There were other occasions when the ball seemed to move for me on command. One time, a friend was over and we were playing catch with the ball when it got caught in a large bush that was against the house and near to where the ball bounced down the steps. My friend went to the bush to get the ball but couldn’t reach it because it was lodged in the branches too far back. I went to the bush and tried to reach the ball also but couldn’t get at it. As we stood there trying to figure out how we could get it, the ball started to slowly move and dislodged itself from the branches and came towards me until I held it in my hands. My friend looked at me and asked how I did that, and I said I didn’t know. I was, at this point, a little frightened and thought I had better not try moving the ball again. These events happened when I was about 8 years old and living with my family on Porter Street in Somerville, Massachusetts.

I have tried to come up with an explanation of how the ball could move without someone or something touching it, without an air current, without being on a slanted surface, and all other possibilities I can think of, and there seems to be no reasonable answer. I could not imagine that I would actually be able to make the ball move by using my mind because I didn’t know anything about telekinesis until many years later (Telekinesis – moving objects with your mind). I still am not absolutely sure if telekinesis was the cause of the ball moving but every other suggestion has so far been ruled out. It is a bit unsettling, because if I were able to move the ball, and able to move an object again by my thoughts – how do I know I would have control in stopping the object from moving. Perhaps, sometime in the future, scientists will find a logical explanation of such events that will be accepted by the general public.

ISABELLA STEWART GARDNER MUSEUM

ISABELLA STEWART GARDNER MUSEUM  
                                  - Donna DiPietro

I have been hesitant to make this case public and have given my decision very careful consideration. I know that once I post this chapter to my blog, there is no turning back. I am not and never was an official part of the investigation but I know that I have given investigators information that has been helpful. I feel that I have a responsibility to make available to the public this important chapter in the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum’s history. This information could have sat in a file cabinet for years, the paper disintegrating over time, becoming only a story handed down from generation to generation with facts twisted and lost along the way. I could not let that happen.

In May 2008, I was contacted by a well known Boston radio talk show host who knew someone involved in the Gardner Museum heist investigation. He heard about me through others and called me ‘The Real Deal’ and asked if I would be interested in going to the museum for a tour and to see if I sensed anything. On Sunday afternoon, August 10, 2008, the radio host, his wife, my husband and I, and another couple, went to the museum. It was a beautiful sunny day and we were met at the door by an investigator and given a grand tour of the museum. The investigator did not believe in psychics and to him this was not considered anything but a visit.

There were many visitors at the museum that day and our group fit in as regular art lovers. I do not think anyone in our group knew what to expect from me and even I did not know what would happen. I brought a steno pad and pencil with me, as I had read on the museum’s website that pens were not allowed inside, the reason being that ink may accidently touch a valuable art object or the antique wallpaper. I planned to write down anything that I sensed. We were in the short gallery and I came up with the name ‘Richard’ and the expression ‘Smart Alleck’. The investigator was talking with the radio host and I interrupted them and asked if ‘Richard’ and ‘Smart Alleck’ meant anything. I was then told that one of the security guards on duty the night of the robbery was named ‘Richard’ and he was known as a ‘Smart Alleck’ in the police report. I then asked if a small piece of paper had fallen off the back of one of the stolen pieces during the robbery and I pointed to an area on the floor where I envisioned it to be. The investigator confirmed that a label had fallen off the back of one of the stolen pieces and was found on the floor in the area I pointed to. I then told him that one of the robbers said something that a British person would say – such as ‘cheerio’. He said that one of the robbers called the other one ‘Mate’. I asked how he knew that and if the robbers were recorded. He would not answer my question and said he had his way of knowing. I found the answer to my question in Ulrich Boser’s book 'The Gardner Heist’  that came out six months later in February 2009. One of the guards supposedly heard a robber call the other one ‘Mate’. The radio host asked me about the condition of the stolen art. I told him that one of the paintings has a split in it. He said that one of the paintings is on wood and it does have a split in it.

We went to the main entrance of the inside garden and I was standing next to the lion statue located on the right. At that moment, I felt Mrs. Gardner rush over to me and she held my right arm and asked me to get ‘Ellen’ (or a name that sounds similar). I asked the investigator who Ellen, or someone with a similar sounding name, was and he did not know. I envisioned Mrs. Gardner wearing  a long dark blue satin dress with a matching short jacket with long sleeves. The ends of the sleeves were loose and hung from her arms. There were two dark blue satin roses on the front of the jacket where buttons would be.  She wore matching dark blue satin slippers with a large blue satin rose on top of each. She was showing me the Blue Room entry and told me that she was standing there when the robbers went in and stole one of her paintings. She said that an alarm should have sounded but it did not. I found out later that there was an alarm over the Blue Room entry that the robbers disengaged. (An oil on canvas, ‘Chez Tortoni’ by Manet, was stolen from the Blue Room.)

On my next visit to the Gardner, Thursday, October 9, 2008, I again met the investigator and a ‘legitimate source’ who asked me about my visit in August. I told this source about the experience I had while standing next to the lion statue on August 10th - how Mrs. Gardner grabbed my right arm and pleaded with me to get ‘Ellen’ or a similar sounding name. The source said that was very interesting. I did not know how interesting until about an hour later when we visited the carriage house. The carriage house was torn down in July 2009 to make room for the museum’s new addition. The museum had to go to the Supreme Court to get permission to tear it down and finally won approval. We went into the carriage house but we could not go to the second floor apartment because an artist-in-residence was up there at the time of our visit. The ‘legitimate source’ then told us about the apartment. Over an eight month period there were five artists who lived there at different times and all of them experienced paranormal activity. The room and furniture, and even the bedding and curtains, would get electrified and unusual things would occur. One female artist had the same experience that I had. Each evening, when she retired for the night, a woman would hold her arm and plead with her to get ‘Ellen’. I asked the ‘legitimate source’ who ‘Ellen’ was and the source said ‘Ella’ was Mrs. Gardner’s personal maid and whenever Mrs. Gardner wanted something she would say “Get Ella.” I was told that Mrs. Gardner’s bedroom furniture was upstairs in the apartment and it was where the artist slept. The artist thought the woman said ‘Ellen’ whereas I thought the name was either ‘Ellen’ or a name that sounds like Ellen.

The ‘legitimate source’ told me, and the group I was with, that she was in the museum one evening and saw a full body apparition of Mrs. Gardner. This person was working upstairs alone in an archive room, sitting on the floor, facing the doorway that looks out onto a hall that has some file cabinets and a fax machine.  She saw something move in front of her, inside the room, looked up and saw Mrs. Gardner standing about ten feet away. She was wearing a long dark dress, remained a few seconds, then disappeared.

I also learned of the strange occurrence that happened on Mrs. Gardner’s birthday, April 14, 2008. The bust of a nun sits on the top of a cabinet that is in the Gothic Room. This is the same room where the life size painting of Mrs. Gardner, by John Singer Sargent, is on display. The nun is always facing the side of the room as Mrs. Gardner requested. When the guard checked the room on his rounds early the next morning, he noticed the bust was facing the center of the room. The top of the cabinet was scratched where the bust of the nun had moved, seemingly on its own. The museum has the most sophisticated surveillance cameras but for some reason the bust was not seen revolving.

On my October 9, 2008 visit, I was showing the five people I was with the bust of the nun that moved. We were standing in front of the cabinet and I started asking questions aloud, such as “Is someone here that would like to communicate?” Suddenly, a code-like metallic tapping sound came from inside the closed cabinet. Each of my questions was answered by this tapping sound. I asked the investigator if I could open the cabinet and he said “No.” At that moment, the code-like tapping sound came out of the cabinet and settled on the large candelabra that was standing in front of the cabinet. Again, with each question that I asked, I would get a response. The investigator walked around the area of the cabinet to see if he could make the same code-like sound but it could not be duplicated. We were looking for an explanation and thought the sound may have been caused by vibrations from traffic. We looked out the window and there was very little traffic and we were all standing still when the sound came from the cabinet and the candelabra. I was quite surprised when I visited the museum in September 2009 and saw a large square object sitting on the floor next to the cabinet. It had the words ‘Vibration Detector’ on the top.

On Sunday, April 4, 2010, I saw in the news that Robert Wittman, a retired FBI agent who worked on the Gardner Museum case, had written a soon to be released book, ‘Priceless’. The name ‘Robert Wittman, FBI’ sounded familiar - that is because it was among the notes that I wrote down in pencil on the steno pad that I had with me on my August 10, 2008 visit to the Gardner Museum. On one line is the name ‘Robert’. On the next line under ‘Robert’ is ‘Whitcomb last name W’ (The author’s name is ‘Wittman’). On the next line I wrote ‘FBI’.  I e-mailed the notes that I wrote on my steno pad to the investigator and the radio talk show host after I arrived home the evening of August 10, 2008. The notes were also e-mailed to another investigator who accompanied me on my October 9, 2008 investigation. A short time later, I scanned the original steno pages and e-mailed them to these people. I have kept records of not only these e-mails but all of the other e-mails that were exchanged between these parties and myself in relation to the Gardner Museum case. My decision to release to the public my information is difficult because it is of a psychic nature, against the norm, and my involvement, apparently, was to be kept secret. No one, including me, realized what I was getting myself into, what intriguing things I would find out, and how accurate I would be.  I am not a professional psychic and I have never accepted payment for helping people.  In the last few years, others have published books about their own investigations of the Gardner Museum heist, and I feel that I have an obligation to do the same. 

Recently, there have been news reports of investigators digging up the Connecticut property of mobster Robert Gentile. When I was at the museum on August 10, 2008, among the things I wrote on the steno pad were ‘Robert, small crimes, Connecticut’. Mary Callahan, Mary’s house, grandmother or mother, Mary’s Place. Two of guys have the same uncle, Maine’.  Investigators also searched the Maine property of another mobster. His widow told investigators that after the robbery, Robert Gentile supposedly gave her husband one of the stolen paintings to hide.  She said the painting was rolled up and in a cylinder, that she had seen it when it was taken out and unfurled, but she does not remember the details of what it looked like. Also, among the things I wrote on the steno pad is that in 2009 they will start to find information that will lead to the stolen art.  I believe that some of the art will be found, the others will remain missing.

During my first investigation on August 10, 2008, the radio host asked me if Whitey Bulger would ever be found. I said that he would be found in three years, living near the water, and that he had a heart condition and needed access to a health facility to obtain medicine. He said that Whitey was 78 at the time and would be 81 when found, if my prediction came true. James ‘Whitey’ Bulger was captured on June 23, 2011 in Santa Monica, California at the age of 81 and it was made public that he had occasionally travelled to Mexico to obtain heart medicine. 

Every so often, the media releases news that continuously verifies my predictions. My hope is that by making this information public, it will help in the return of Mrs. Gardner’s stolen treasures. There is much more to the Gardner Museum besides ‘The Biggest Art Heist in History’.

A PRECIOUS GIFT

A PRECIOUS GIFT
         - Donna DiPietro

I have a dear friend that I would like to tell you about. I can not use her real name, so will call her Rachel in this case. Rachel and her husband, Len, have a wonderful son and daughter-in-law who live two thousand miles away. Rachel’s parents were in concentration camps during World War II and the older brother she never met, died of starvation at the age of two during that time. Len’s mother also was in a concentration camp during the war. Rachel and Len appreciate life and family and longed for a grandchild to love. About two years ago, Rachel asked me if her son and his wife would ever have a child. I told her that they would have a beautiful baby girl with dark curly hair and that she would be very intelligent and make them proud. I told her she would play the piano when she grows up and would bring the family much joy. I told her that the baby would arrive in September of 2010. What I did not know is that Rachel’s son and his wife were told by specialists that they could never have a child and that they had spent many years going to doctors and clinics for help in making their dream come true. Rachel believed my prediction and told her son and his wife that they would have the baby daughter that I predicted and that she would arrive in September. Rachel called me the second week in August and asked me again if the baby would arrive in September. She then told me that the young couple could not have a child and had recently signed up with an adoption agency but were told it could be ten years before their dream materialized. Rachel called me the first week of September and excitedly told me that her son and his wife had been called that day regarding the adoption of a baby girl. The baby had been born to a well educated single young lady who had heard about the couple’s dream of having a child. The young lady could not keep the baby and wanted to give it a loving home. The couple went to the hospital and saw the beautiful dark haired baby girl that I predicted would be theirs, brought it home the next day and adopted it shortly after. They plan to buy a piano as soon as their daughter is old enough to start lessons. It turns out that her birth mother is an accomplished musician.

DR. B'S BUSINESS RECORDS CLASS

DR. B'S BUSINESS RECORDS CLASS
                                  - Donna DiPietro

When I was in high school, I had Dr. B for Business Records class. Dr. B was very strict and he told the students that we had to call him ‘Dr.’ B, and if we forgot and called him ‘Mr.’ B by mistake he would make us stay after school. He was of slight build, wore glasses, was meticulous in his wardrobe and had black hair slicked back in the style of the day. I noticed that he wore clear nail polish which I had never seen on a man before. I was always a quiet and shy girl and would seldom raise my hand to answer a question even if I knew it. On the first day of Business Records class, Dr. B told the class that when we arrived each day, the first thing we were to do was to open our books. On the second day of class I sat down at my desk and immediately opened my book and Dr. B screamed “Oh no, don’t open your books!!!” I thought he was yelling at me for opening my book but in reality he saw that the other students hadn’t opened theirs and he probably did not even notice that I opened mine. I was so frightened by his screaming voice that I immediately shut my book. I then looked around and everyone was opening theirs so I opened mine and thought it was quite amusing and apparently I had a little smile on my face because Dr. B rushed over to me and said there would be no smiling in his classroom and he told me to go outside and stand in the hall until class was over and to come back to the room after school. Nothing like this had ever happened to me before because I prided myself in always being courteous and well behaved. When school ended I went to Dr. B’s third floor classroom, walked inside and saw there were quite a few students sitting there. After he spoke to a few of the students and he let them leave, he asked me to come up to his desk and tell him why I smiled during class. I told him that I had opened my book when I sat at my desk and that he yelled “Oh no, don’t open your books!!!”, so I closed mine and saw everyone opening theirs and then realized he was yelling at everyone else, and that I thought it was funny and that’s why I smiled. He also thought it was funny and he actually smiled, and from that day on he was always pleasant to me. I sense he was bullied throughout his life and used his screaming fits and control over his students as a defense, but in so doing he was also being a bully and negatively affecting the young people in his class. One day Dr. B told the class that we were having a test the next day and if someone did not show up and take the test they would fail the test because there would be no make up test. He said there would be no excuses and he did not care if someone was out sick. I happened to look across the room and saw a particular boy in the first seat, last row. Something told me that he would not be in school the next day because his father was going to die. This was the first time I had a precognition of what was to happen but I did not understand it and I did not know it would really happen. The boy was in some of my other classes and the next day at school I did not see him. I asked some of the students where he was and was told that his father had died of a heart attack the day before playing baseball. I felt so sorry for the boy and his family and also perplexed of how I could know what was going to happen. These are the things I remember about Dr. B’s third floor Business Records class. I sense Dr. B is no longer with us and hope that he has found a comfortable place to spend his eternity.

WORLD OF MUSIC

WORLD OF MUSIC
           - Donna DiPietro

In the 1990s, Cindy and I were co-workers at a real estate office in Wellesley, Massachusetts. She was in the marketing department and was responsible for the newspaper ads, brochures and feature sheets for the many real estate agents in our office. Her office was down a small hall around the corner from mine. She was originally from New Jersey and she and her husband Lou moved to a suburb of Boston when Lou began working for a successful computer company many years before. The computer industry was big business and employed many people who could depend on long and lucrative careers with the same employer, but those jobs were coming to an end. 

Cindy and I loved to go for walks on our lunch hour and we would often cross the street to the campus of Wellesley College and follow the foot paths that threaded the area. It was a luxury to get up from our desks and get some fresh air in such a pretty place, with its peaceful pond, hundred year old trees and buildings where so many young ladies lived and studied and went off to save the world. Cindy and I were quite a pair and sometimes we would sit on a bench and look out on the pond and watch the ducks paddle back and forth. A few times we brought our lunches and sat on the grass and had a picnic. Cindy had been worried about her husband’s job as the company had been laying off people and one day he was told what he dreaded to hear. It was quite traumatic for the two of them because they had left New Jersey where their family and friends lived and moved hundreds of miles away, settling in a new place, buying a house and raising their two sons. 

On one of our lunch time walks, Cindy told me what had happened and asked what I saw for their future. I told her that in August of that year, her husband would get a good job offer in the music business and work in New York City and that they would move back to New Jersey. She thought it strange that I saw the music business since it was quite different from what Lou had been doing for many years. As the weeks went by, Cindy would think about what I predicted and wonder if this would actually happen. As more time went by, Lou got a call from his nephew who had started a small business in Florida a few years before. It involved making tapes of party music that he would sell to people for birthdays, holidays and other celebrations. The small business grew to be very successful and he realized he needed a large space to accommodate the growth. Since Lou had been a business manager at the computer company and had great experience, his nephew asked if he would work for his company. The nephew found a great space in New York City and would be moving there in August and needed Lou to start at that time. It was very short notice but Lou accepted the offer and moved to New Jersey to start his new job in New York City. Meanwhile, Cindy and Lou put their home near Boston on the market and Cindy stayed a few months longer until the home sold then joined Lou in New Jersey. 

The last I heard from Cindy, she and Lou were enjoying their new found life style of dinner parties and mingling with show biz people, and they were happy to be home in New Jersey among their family and old time friends.

MESSAGE TO MISSY

Dear Missy,
Thank you for leaving the wonderful message (highlighted below) on my blog. You can always e-mail me at donnadipietro@yahoo.com.  I would love to hear all about what has happened in your life and the things that I predicted. 
Donna

Missy has left a new comment on your post "Nimble Thimble":
Hi Donna. I met you in the 90's at your niece's wedding. You shared so many things with me at that time that came to be with incredulous accuracy. I just reached out to your niece last night trying to find you because I've thought about you so often over the years and she got me here! I would love to chat with you and share all of the events with you...could we somehow do that? I can't wait to read all of your blog postings...you are utterly amazing. Thank you.

GUEST HOUSE GHOST

GUEST HOUSE GHOST
                 - Donna DiPietro

I have known ‘N’ for ten years. She is very logical and not one to imagine things. A few years ago, she and her long-time boyfriend moved into a guest house on an estate next to a vacant, partially furnished mansion. At the time, the estate was for sale and the couple felt fortunate to find such an attractive place to live. The property had a caretaker that lived elsewhere, so the owners were happy to have the guest house occupied, so as to have someone there at least part of the time. 

The property has many of the requirements that make it an inviting place for paranormal activity. It is near water, woods, a Native American burial ground, and a cemetery. The guest house has an open floor plan on the first floor and the many windows create an enjoyable sun filled environment. But on cloudy days and at night, there is a somber feeling that stirs within its walls. The first hint of something unusual happened the first week of moving in. 

One evening, the couple was entertaining guests in the living room when the sound of a pulley with chain was heard from the second floor. After that, the sound was heard every so often in the daytime and at night. They found out that the guest house was once a barn with a hayloft that used a pulley. As the weeks went by, the sound of footsteps coming up the stairs from the first to the second floor were sometimes heard at night. One night ‘N’ was awakened by the footsteps that not only came up the stairs but entered her room and walked over to the bed. The entity then sat on the edge of the bed making an indention of someone sitting down. It lingered a few minutes than arose from the bed, causing the indention to disappear. ‘N’ was more curious than frightened, as she thought of the ghost as a deceased person who needed help. She sensed he was male because of the heavy footsteps and wondered why he was still around the property. One evening she was downstairs and a ball of light came through the closed solid wood front door and traveled across the living room, as though searching for something. 

A few weeks later ‘N’ was waiting for her friend Rachel to stop by, as they were going to a concert. ‘N’ opened the door for Rachel, and Rachel stood in the doorway with a frightened look on her face. ‘N’ asked her to come inside and Rachel was afraid to go in, so ‘N’ came outside and the two of them went on their way to the concert. When they were inside the car, Rachel told ‘N’ that she did not want to scare her but that she saw a man standing behind her when she opened the door. The man had his arms around ‘N’, without touching her, as though he were reaching for the door and protecting her when she opened the door. ‘N’ then told Rachel what she and others had experienced since she moved in. 

A few months later, the estate was sold and ‘N’ and her boyfriend moved out. I visited the property on two occasions and it was a great opportunity to connect to its past. The people who live there over the years will change, but the property itself will remain the same and that is what makes it so wonderful.

JUSTIN'S FRIENDS

JUSTIN'S FRIENDS
              - Donna DiPietro

When my son Justin was in high school, he invited two of his friends over to our house for lunch. Jason was in Justin’s class and his brother Russell is two years older. We were sitting around the dining room table when Justin asked me what I saw in his friends’ futures. I told Jason to be careful around boats, and that I saw other boys in a small brown boat that was going to sink. I told him that he would soon be invited to go into the boat but he should not. He said that he was going to a camp the following week-end and would be careful. When Jason got home from camp, he told us that my prediction came true. There was a brown row boat that he was invited to go into with some other boys and he declined. When the boat was out in fairly deep water, it sunk and everyone fell into the water. Fortunately, they all were able to make it safely to shore. I then told the boys that I saw another boat, this one was a lifeboat that came from a sinking ship. There were people in the lifeboat and they were starving. I also saw blood inside the lifeboat. Russell and Jason were surprised that I saw these things, because it described perfectly a book that their mother was reading at the time. They called their mother and I spoke to her on the phone. She told me about the book and the survivors of a sinking ship who had caught a turtle to eat and the blood of the turtle was inside the lifeboat. I also described to their mother objects that I saw in her house – a cat statue on the floor under a small table and a picture of yellow flowers hanging on the wall in the same room. Many months later, I went to her house for the first time and she showed me what I had seen by speaking to her on the phone. Russell and Jason asked me what occupations they would have when they grew up. I told Russell that he would become an attorney and I told Jason that he would become a doctor. They both said that it was the opposite, and that Russell planned on being the doctor and Jason the attorney. The years went by and my predictions came to pass – Russell did become the attorney and Jason the doctor.

SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY - BOOK OF NAMES

SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY - BOOK OF NAMES
                                         - Donna DiPietro

A number of years ago, when my niece Ardis was a student at Syracuse University, she would occasionally call her Uncle Al and me to talk and ask me to use my psychic abilities. There was an old book in the main room of her dormitory building that had the names of hundreds of people. I would tell her to look at a particular page number and she would find a certain name on that page. It was a great form of entertainment and bewilderment. I could understand if she was already looking at a particular name on a certain page, and then I would suggest that I was using telepathy by reading her mind. But that was not the case. The book was closed when I told her what pages to look at to find particular names. I felt I was there in the dorm, looking at the book myself and seeing the names on certain pages. I don’t understand why I was able to do this since I was almost 300 miles away and have never been to Syracuse University and have no knowledge of the dorm or the book.

TIFFANY NECKLACE

TIFFANY NECKLACE
               - Donna DiPietro

In 2001, I was working for a real estate company in Wellesley, Massachusetts. Carol, one of our agents, stopped by my office this particular day and asked me if I could locate her daughter’s Tiffany necklace with a sterling heart charm, engraved with the daughter’s initials. Her daughter had been searching for it for days and it was nowhere to be found. I had no idea where the daughter lived or knew what her home looked like, but I was immediately in the daughter’s apartment walking over to a bookcase. I was drawn to a particular book with a red cover and told Carol that if her daughter opens the book, she will find her missing necklace. Carol relayed my message to her daughter. A few minutes later, the daughter called Carol and said she found the necklace. She remembered she had been reading that particular book with the red cover and somehow her necklace fell off and landed between the pages. She couldn’t believe her eyes when she found the book exactly where I said it would be and opened it, and there was her Tiffany necklace with a sterling heart charm, engraved with her initials.

ACCURATE PREDICTIONS OF BIRTHS

ACCURATE PREDICTIONS OF BIRTHS
                                      - Donna DiPietro

'S' was the mortgage broker in the real estate office where I worked in Wellesley, Massachusetts in the mid 1990s. She and her husband were a wonderful couple with a beautiful daughter.  'S' asked me if they would ever have more children. I told her that I saw a handsome blond baby boy dressed in an undershirt and diaper sitting on her knee. I predicted that she would tell me she was pregnant the next year around the holidays, which was almost two years into the future. I also told her that she and her husband would have a third child, a girl, and that I saw ‘May’. 

The next year, the week before Thanksgiving, I was downstairs in the kitchen at work, and 'S' came in and said she had just found out she was pregnant and she wanted me to be one of the first to know. As predicted, she had a beautiful blond baby boy. Months later, I left that office to work elsewhere and hadn’t seen her for about two years. 

One day I was in the area and walked by the office. 'S' happened to be in the front reception room and ran out to greet me and gave me a hug. She said she had the third child I predicted, a girl, and she called her May. It turns out that she was named after S's mother. I had no knowledge of S's mother’s name at the time of my predictions.

POTTING SOIL

POTTING SOIL
           - Donna DiPietro

This case is dedicated to a dear friend Patricia Schauberger. Pat is a real estate broker who owns Beaver Brook Residential Brokerage in Littleton, Massachusetts with another nice lady, Margie Mitchell.

Recently, my friend Patricia Schauberger invited a group of ladies to a jewelry party at her house in Littleton, Massachusetts. As I walked into the kitchen, Pat introduced me to Jill and told her that I was a psychic. Jill, who fashions beautiful jewelry using high quality crystal beads and silver, was sitting at the kitchen table surrounded by small gift boxes filled with  bracelets, necklaces, earrings and other creations.  She asked me to use my psychic abilities to find her friend’s car keys. I immediately saw a two car garage with two cars inside. I told Jill that the brown car on the left was the one that her friend drove. I walked into the garage and on the left side, against the wall, I saw something that looked like small shelves. I said the keys were sometimes put on a shelf and they had fallen. Under the shelves, I saw a large mound of dark greasy looking dirt on the floor and I told her that if her friend looks on the floor to be careful because his hands will get very dirty sifting through the dirt. I told her that there was a container with a red label nearby. 

The next day, Jill called me and said she gave her friend the information I came up with. The keys had been missing for a few weeks and another set had been ordered, so it wasn’t an emergency that he find the missing ones. He confirmed that he does have a two car garage, has a brown car and parks it on the left side inside the garage. On the left wall, at the back, is a ladder and he often put his car keys on one of the rungs. Under the ladder, on the floor, was a large pile of dark shiny dirt that had fallen out of a broken bag of potting soil. Jill’s friend said that when his keys went missing, he sifted through the dirt but his hands got so dirty that he decided to stop looking in the soil. He hasn't found the keys elsewhere, so there is a very good chance they could be right there under the ladder, next to the container with the red label.

LISA'S LOST AND FOUND MOTHERS' DAY BRACELET

LISA'S LOST AND FOUND MOTHERS' DAY BRACELET
                                                     - Donna DiPietro

Lisa was a real estate agent in an office I worked at in Wellesley, Massachusetts about ten years ago. She is married with eight children. On one Mothers’ Day they presented her with a beautiful ‘Mothers’ bracelet that had all eight of their individual birthstones. Lisa loved the bracelet and wore it every day. 

One day, she was at the office and told me that she could not find her bracelet and asked if I could find it. I immediately saw the letter ‘P’, a blue carpet and a desk. I told her that if she opened the bottom right hand drawer of the desk she would find her missing bracelet. She said that her home office did have a blue carpet and a desk and she would look where I said she would find her bracelet. 

She went home and opened the bottom right hand drawer of her desk and saw an empty pretzel bag. She was ready to throw it away but she looked inside and saw her bracelet. She said that she probably would not have looked inside the empty pretzel bag but remembered that I mentioned the letter ‘P’. The next day, she came to work wearing her lost and found ‘Mothers’ bracelet. .

CHILDHOOD HOME - HOUSE OF DIMENSIONS

CHILDHOOD HOME - HOUSE OF DIMENSIONS
                                                - Donna DiPietro

THE HOUSE
In 1956 I moved with my family to the top floor apartment of a three-family home in Somerville, Massachusetts. It was a spacious square-shaped red brick building set upon a hill. Being the highest house around, we could see for miles over the rooftops of buildings, and had a great view of Boston, Cambridge and the surrounding area. Each level had seventeen steps to the next floor, and since the house was built on a retaining wall, it had another thirteen steps to reach the first floor. We had to climb forty-seven steps to reach our apartment. There were old gaslights that no longer worked, hanging on the walls of the inside stairway. Each of the three apartments had seven large rooms with high ceilings. Our reception room had a lovely working gas fireplace that was surrounded by green marble tiles, etched with the faces of ancient Romans. Above the fireplace was a mantle where we hung our Christmas stockings. An old upright piano sat against a wall in the living room. There were large porches on one side and on the front of the house on all three floors. Our floor didn’t have roofs on the porches, which gave us the benefit of enjoying sunny summer days and a clear view of the starry night sky. The house was very intriguing and I loved it the moment I stepped inside. I was the youngest of six children, and my two eldest sisters were married and did not live with us. So there were my parents and my sister Bess, who was a school teacher, and my two brothers Robert and Douglas, six altogether. I can still remember the smell of Pinesol as my parents cleaned the apartment in preparation for our move in. My eldest sister lived directly across the street with her husband and  three children.

CHARLOTTE MAKES HERSELF KNOWN
Our house, built in 1875, had some unusual characteristics. When we were in the kitchen or dining room, many times we would hear the sound of footsteps coming up the stairs and stopping at our front door. The sound of a key would be heard going into the lock and turning, and the sound of the door opening and closing, and footsteps walking into our reception room, past the fireplace, down our inside hall towards the kitchen, dining room area. We would look up, expecting to see a family member, and many times there would be no one there. The footsteps would always stop at the kitchen threshold, except for one time. This would happen off and on, perhaps once per week, and not again for months. We were mystified at first, but over the years we got used to our invisible visitor. One summer day, my father was home by himself, enjoying the sun on the outside back porch and doing a crossword puzzle which he loved to do. He had just washed some dishes and had hung a wet dish towel on the spring of the screen door to dry. After awhile, as he sat with his back to the door, the door opened wide and slammed shut with great force. He jumped up and turned around, expecting to see perhaps my sister who lived across the street or another family member, but there was no one there. The weather was calm and there was no wind. The spring on the screen door was jumping up and down and the dish towel was swaying wildly. My father opened the screen door, went inside the house, and walked from room to room, and there was no one there. That was the one time the visitor walked past the kitchen. It was a mystery until a few years later when my mother and I got a Ouija Board. We were sitting in the living room using it and my mother asked the board who is walking in the house. The Ouija Board spelled out “Charlotte”. After that, we called the ghost Charlotte and for years, whenever something happened that we couldn’t explain, we would say it must be Charlotte.

There were big radiators in the rooms, and even in the summer sometimes they would clang and bang as though heat were coming through, even though the valves were closed and the radiators were cold. One evening, as my mother and I watched television in the dining room/den, the wallpaper began to peel off of the walls. The wallpaper had been on the walls for at least ten years, and all of a sudden started to peel and actually fell to the floor. You could hear it peeling, as though invisible hands were working to remove it.

TIME TRAVEL
I lived in the house for many years until I got married. When my husband Al and I were engaged, we were visiting his parents in Florida for a few days. Early Sunday morning, I heard my parents calling my name. They were saying “Donna, is that you, why are you home?” It woke me up, and I realized I wasn’t home, I was in Florida. It was so unusual that I wanted to make sure of the time and I looked at the alarm clock and at my watch, and it was 7:10 a.m. I called my parents a few hours later and my mother answered the phone. I asked her if anything unusual happened. She said that I had better talk to Daddy. My father got on the phone and told me that they were in the kitchen having breakfast and they heard someone come up the stairs, turn the lock with a key, open and close the front door, walk down the hall, go into my room and shut the door, and they heard me talking. They called out “Donna, is that you, why are you home? You’re supposed to be in Florida”. They rushed down the hall from the kitchen to my room and the door was open and there was no one there. I asked what time this event happened. They said around 7:10 a.m.

THE BATH RUG
My parents lived in the house for twenty-nine years, until they moved to my sister’s house across the street where they had their own first floor apartment. When they decided to move from Charlotte’s house, more strange things occurred. One day, my father was washing the bathroom floor and put the small bath rug in the living room on the wall to wall carpet to get it out of the way. When he went to get the bath rug hours later, he noticed it was quite wet. It was dry when he put it there. The next time he washed the bathroom floor, he again put the rug in the living room, and again it was quite wet when he went to get it hours later. He thought it very strange and decided to do a test. One night, he put the dry bath rug on the living room floor on the wall to wall carpeting. The next morning when he went to check it, it was sopping wet. He tried this at least five more times over a few months, and in each instance the bath rug was sopping wet. The wall to wall carpeting underneath the bath rug was always dry. They had no pets, there were no leaks, and it was just my two parents living there. The room was completely dry except for the bath rug.

CHARLOTTE’S CALLING CARD
In 1991, we celebrated my mother’s 88th birthday at my eldest sister’s house, and the owners of our old house, Mr. and Mrs. G, were at the gathering. The landlady said to me “Donna, your father mentioned Charlotte many times over the years whenever something unusual happened in the house, and we also have had our share of strange events, one of which happened recently”. Mrs. G went on to tell us that she had purchased a new Electrolux vacuum cleaner that spring, and one day she was vacuuming the hall in her first floor apartment. As the vacuum went over the area of the hall entering the master bedroom, she noticed something being pulled from under the threshold. She gently pulled it out and picked it up. It was an old Christmas card with a drawing of a child dressed in a snowsuit pulling a Christmas tree. On the card was written “To Papa Colgan, from Charlotte 12-25-21”. The card had been hidden for seventy years. The landlady went home, across the street, to retrieve the card, so she could show it to me. She also brought over a 1907 newspaper article from the ‘Somerville Journal’. The article was about the house being a surgical and convalescent hospital from 1899, and run by a nurse/superintendent named Hattie C. Wheet. It mentions the large sunny rooms and operating room. Now I know why there were built-in cabinets with glass doors in some of the bedrooms, as they were probably used to store medicines. Many times over the years, when I was outside, and no one was home, I would look up at the house and see someone dressed in white looking out the third floor hall window. I wondered if it was my imagination, but now I’m not so sure.

NOT THE END – ANOTHER BEGINNING
If this were the end of the story, it would be considered another unusual tale passed down over the years. But this isn’t the end of the story, it is another beginning. In May 2008, I began working at a RE/MAX Landmark real estate office in Acton, Massachusetts. Our company has eleven locations and one of them is in Lexington, Massachusetts. One of the employees who works there is a nice lady named Rhonda. Rhonda and I speak to each other a couple of times each week.  One day in September 2008,  Rhonda asked me where I was from originally and I said “Somerville”.  She said she was also. Then she asked me what part of Somerville. I told her near Porter Square.  She said she was from that part also. Then she asked me what street and I told her. She screamed and asked me if I was Donna Grover and I asked her if she was Rhonda G. It turned out that she and I grew up in the house at the same time, she on the first floor, and me on the third floor. We hadn’t seen each other or had contact with each other for almost forty years. We now used married last names so didn’t realize our true identities for the four months we had been speaking with each other. Her father still owned the house and her mother had passed away. We started talking about Charlotte. Rhonda said her father sometimes worked the night shift as a fireman and her mother would be home alone and would often hear footsteps going down the hall past her bedroom door. My family, on the third floor, would only hear the footsteps during the daytime. Rhonda said that she was with her mother when she was vacuuming the hall and Rhonda was the one who picked up Charlotte’s card as it was pulled from under the threshold. I asked her where the card is. She said it was framed and hanging in her father’s apartment, along with the 1907 newspaper clipping from the Somerville Journal.

HOUSE OF DAMON
I did research on the house and found out that a man named Daniel Demmon (sometimes spelled ‘Damon’) lived in the house in the 1880s. He became very wealthy in copper mining and real estate. He eventually moved to Beacon Street in Boston (his home, still standing, is the original location of Emerson College). One of his daughters married into the Gardner family and I wonder if this was the same Gardner as Isabella Stewart Gardner, since she lived nearby on Beacon Street at the same time. I know that the daughter travelled to Egypt around the same time as Mrs. Gardner. I e-mailed Rhonda the research papers I had accumulated. Rhonda said there was also another Damon who lived in the Somerville house - Matt Damon, the actor. Matt Damon was from nearby Cambridge. His brother and sister-in-law rented my family’s old third floor apartment for about five years in the 1990s, and Matt stayed there between movies when he hit the big time. I wonder if Matt ever heard the sounds of footsteps, a key turning a lock, a door opening and closing.

TOO MANY COINCIDENCES
Charlotte’s name comes up on a Ouija Board in the 1960s, and then a card from Charlotte, dated December 25, 1921 is pulled from under a floor board in 1991. Rhonda and I make contact years later,  and I find out that she is the one who picked up Charlotte’s card from under the threshold.

A man named Daniel Damon lives in the house in the 1880s and becomes very successful. Over one hundred years later, another man named Damon moves in and also becomes very successful. Both Daniel and Matt were originally from Cambridge.

Daniel Damon’s daughter married a man with the last name ‘Gardner’ and moved to Beacon Street, Boston in the late 1800s, at the same time that Mrs. Jack Gardner (Isabella Stewart Gardner) lived in a nearby house on Beacon Street.

Over one hundred years later, in 2008, I started my psychic investigation of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum relating to the biggest art and personal property heist in the world (one half billion dollars). You can read the exciting details of my investigation on this blog under April 2010. I posted it on April 14th – Mrs. Gardner’s birthday.

After Daniel Damon left Beacon Street, Boston, he moved to a large estate in Weston, Massachusetts. This estate is now the home of Regis College. I drive by Regis College often since it is nearby to the town that I've lived in for the last thirty-five years.  What was once Daniel Damon's house is now the home of the President of Regis College.

A connection through the centuries – waiting for someone to communicate with – it certainly is a possibility. My logical mind discovers that some things may not seem logical, but that is because we are still in a primitive state of discovery and some day, many years from now, these things will make sense – if humans are given enough time to evolve. In the meantime, we take each step as a step closer in learning the mysteries of life and the ways of the universe.

CHURCH OF SPIRITS

CHURCH OF SPIRITS
            - Donna DiPietro

This is one of the strangest cases that I have ever been asked to help with. The setting is a Catholic Church property that includes three separate buildings – the church, the rectory and the school. The property was sold by the Boston Archdiocese to a developer who turned the buildings into well appointed condominiums. The renovations kept intact the elegance of the original high ceilings, large windows and doors, mahogany woodwork and staircases.

I arrived home from work one evening in October 2009 and noticed my kitchen phone light blinking, signaling that someone had left a message. It was a cryptic message from Linda, a real estate agent, who said she needed my help and to call her as soon as possible. I tossed my coat and purse on the kitchen table and dialed her number. She answered right away and was speaking so fast to try to tell me everything that she didn’t seem to be able to catch her breath. The bits and pieces of what she was saying came together like a jig saw puzzle and I could see the dilemma that had been unfolding for many months. She said she recently called the Archdiocese asking for their help and was put through to an answering machine where she did leave a message but no one called her back. I asked her if she mentioned in the message what the problem was, and she said she didn’t. She really needed to speak to a person not an answering machine.

Linda related that Nancy, an owner of one of the condominiums, was experiencing unusual activity in the rectory building where she lives. Nancy said she heard walking in the reception hall many times at night since she moved in, and that it happened between eight o’clock in the evening and four o’clock in the morning. She was one of the first residents to live there and she knew that the few other people who had moved in would not be walking around throughout the night in the reception hall. One night, about three months earlier, she was in bed, just dozing off, when she heard walking, and then the sound of an old fashioned buzzer. She woke up and heard a woman’s voice say “Do you know that it’s ten o’clock in the evening?” Nancy wondered who could be speaking through the intercom. She got out of bed, put on her robe, and opened the door to her second floor condo. This led to the reception area and she walked down the stairs, went to the front glass double doors and looked outside. There was no one there, so she turned around to go back upstairs. When she turned around, she was startled by the appearance of a woman with long dark hair, wearing an old fashioned dress, standing at the bottom of the stairs. The apparition disappeared and Nancy rushed upstairs, ran inside her condo, shut and locked the door. Three weeks later, in the early hours of Sunday morning, Nancy was again awakened by the sound of the old fashioned buzzer. This time the woman’s voice said “What are you doing at 2:30 in the morning?” The next day, Nancy was having a dinner party and was sitting in the living room with some of her guests. While she was talking about what had happened early that morning, she and one of the guests saw a woman dressed in a nun’s habit, walk through a closed closet door into the kitchen then disappear.

Later that week, Linda was told of an earlier incident that happened in the church building. A workman was alone in the steeple standing on a ladder. A piece of molding dropped from the ceiling and he went down the ladder to pick it up. After picking up the molding, he stood up to go back up the ladder, and there was a bearded man with a golden aura standing in front of him. The workman was so frightened, he dropped the molding and ran out of the church. He told the developer what he saw and the developer didn’t believe him. The workman is a quiet young man who would be one of the last people you would suspect to make up such a story.

Around the same time, Linda received an e-mail, with attached photos, from another real estate agent, describing what happened when she was showing a prospective buyer the property. The buyer took pictures of some of the rooms in the rectory and inside the church. When he loaded the pictures onto his computer, he was surprised to see a bearded man looking through a window in three of the photos. One photo was in the church building, on the floor below the steeple. The second photo was the man looking into Nancy’s bedroom window, and the third photo was the man looking into a window in a different condominium. The prospective buyer didn’t notice the man until he loaded the pictures from his camera onto his computer. He then noticed that he could see the man when he looked at the pictures on the camera. It is impossible for anyone to stand outside any of the three windows since they are all on a high level with no porch, balcony nor anything to stand on outside the windows. The prospective buyer e-mailed the photos to his agent, and the agent forwarded them to Linda, and Linda forwarded them to me. The man looking through the windows has a kind face, chin length dark wavy hair and a dark beard. His features are very detailed.

Linda asked me if I would meet her and the condo owner Nancy at the property some evening at ten o’clock, since the sound of walking happens at night. The following Sunday, my husband and I drove to the church, parked in the rectory parking lot and waited for Linda and her husband to arrive. About ten minutes later, we saw the headlights of a car pulling in and I called Linda from my cell phone to confirm it was her. The weather was unusual for October, with large snowflakes falling most of the day and melting as they hit the ground. The four of us got out of our cars, went to the rectory and Nancy buzzed us inside. As we walked into the building past the double glass doors, I felt that I had walked back in time. Hanging on the walls of the lobby were black and white photos of long dead priests, nuns and students. There was a silence and stillness in the air, and I felt that we were being watched.

We arrived at the second floor, walked down the corridor to Nancy’s door and knocked gently. Nancy was anxiously awaiting our arrival and welcomed us inside. The new and upscale were contained within the walls of long ago. I brought a steno pad to take notes and a tape recorder. As we followed Nancy through the rooms, she told us what she had been experiencing for many months and it was determined that the paranormal activity began when renovations on the church building itself started. Nancy told us that recently the footsteps were heard inside her condo at night. She would be in bed and hear someone walking down the hall outside her bedroom and the sound would always stop at her bedroom door that she kept closed at night. Her cat, Napoleon, slept on Nancy’s bed and he would sit up and be alert to the sounds of the footsteps and he would look at something that you could not see.

Nancy has psychic abilities and wasn’t frightened by what was going on, but she felt uneasy. I went to the closet door that the nun was seen walking through and I envisioned what it looked like many years before – and I asked if it was a hall before it was a closet. Linda told me that originally it was a hall that you walked through to go to a bathroom. That bathroom area was now part of the kitchen. I opened the closet door and looked inside and there was a large temperature control unit that filled up most of the space. The unit was off. I closed the closet door, placed my hand on it and concentrated. The rest of the group was quietly standing nearby watching me, and after a few moments the room became ice cold. It was so cold that you could see your breath. I spoke to the spirits who were earthbound and told them they should go to the light and pass through. I felt two souls pass over and the coldness went away and the room’s temperature was back to normal. One soul passed over quickly but the other was hesitant and felt she had to stay.  I told her that her loved ones were waiting for her on the other side and I guided her over. I felt her emotions to hold on to her past. I told her that the building was no longer part of a church and explained what condominiums are, that they are similar to apartments, and that people buy them. I felt that the first spirit who had passed over was now waiting to help this reluctant spirit through the light. Finally they were both on the other side and everything was calm again.

Linda started telling Nancy about the bearded man with the golden aura that the workman saw in the steeple. Nancy hadn’t heard about it and related something unusual she had seen on a few occasions early in the morning. She gets up around five o’clock each morning, makes her coffee and brings a cup to the living room window and looks out onto the quiet darkened street. Her living room faces the steeple and she has seen a glowing figure of a man walking past the windows on the floor directly below the steeple. We found out that other neighbors have also seen the glowing man early in the morning walking past the church windows.

Things were quiet for many months after that night. No more walking, no more buzzers, no more voices. Even the cat slept in comfort and was not awakened by something you could not see. But then more stories started to filter in about other tenants having paranormal activity. There are other earthbound souls there and they are hesitant to leave because they feel a connection to the property. It was a comforting place for many, and perhaps not for others. It was their school, their church, a place for family gatherings, for special occasions – a connection that is difficult to take from them. They need to be comforted on this side so they can be guided to pass over and find peace. There are many places like this all over the world and some have fallen to ruin and others, like this church property, have found a new life.

KODAK GOLD MEDALLION

KODAK GOLD MEDALLION
             -Donna DiPietro

My family and I were in Rochester, New York for a wedding in the 1990s and that’s where we met Bill. Bill and his wife are friends of my husband’s sister Iris. We were all seated at the same table during the wedding reception. Bill had worked at Kodak in Rochester and received a gold medallion upon his retirement. He had not seen the medallion for many years and had no idea where it may be. Iris told him that I was psychic so Bill asked me if I knew where his medallion was. I told him it was wrapped up in a red cloth in the left hand side of his top bureau drawer. I told him to look in the back of the drawer and he would find his medallion.

 Later that evening, my husband, three children and I were at our hotel and it was around 11:00 o’clock. The phone rang and it was Iris. She wanted me to know that Bill had just arrived home, opened up his top bureau drawer, looked in back on the left side and found the red cloth and wrapped inside was the Kodak gold medallion. He called Iris and asked her to thank me for finding his lost and found retirement treasure.

DIAMOND AND SAPPHIRE - LOST AND FOUND

DIAMOND AND SAPPHIRE - LOST AND FOUND
                                                 - Donna DiPietro

In October 1994, I began working at a real estate office in Wellesley, Massachusetts. It was a pleasant office and everyone was kind in welcoming the new employee. As the weeks went by, the employees and real estate agents realized that I was a psychic. Ms. B, the office manager, noticed that the other associates took up some of my time when they asked me questions or needed assistance of a unique nature. She politely told me that if anyone in the office should ask me questions regarding the paranormal, I was to tell them that I could only talk about it on my lunch hour and that I had work to do. 

About two weeks later, Ms. B came to work and asked me to step into her office. She said “Donna, remember a few weeks ago when I asked you not to talk about the paranormal on company time, well forget about what I said, I need your help.” She had tears in her eyes as she asked me to help her find two valuable rings that her mother had given her. She had spent the last two days frantically searching for the diamond and sapphire rings and she was emotionally exhausted about the prospect of never finding them.

 I stood in her office and visualized her bedroom, the jewelry boxes and items on top of her bureau, and described opening a jewelry box drawer and correctly telling her the color of the lining and what was inside the drawer. I told her to look in back of a certain bureau drawer and that her rings were near a cloth that had a red Oriental rug design. I also saw a jewelry pouch with pearls. She said that she was emotionally tired and she thought she would look the next day. On her way home, she thought about what I said regarding the red Oriental rug design cloth, and she remembered that a friend had given her a scarf with that design a year or two before. She arrived home and looked in the back of the bureau drawer and found the scarf with the red Oriental design. She unfolded the scarf, and wrapped inside was a box, and inside the box were the two rings.

 A few hours later, Ms. B came back to the office, stood outside and knocked on the large front window as she held up her hand wearing the two rings. She said the pouch that I saw with the pearls were in her safety deposit box at the bank where she had been before she asked me to help find the rings. She was so happy to find the rings that she must have worn out her fingers punching in the phone numbers of her many friends that evening when she returned home. After that experience, it was okay for me to use my psychic gift in the office any time at all.

MAPS OF THE BRAIN

MAPS OF THE BRAIN
            - Donna DiPietro

On October 7, 1992 I was in Rochester, New York with my husband and children, attending my mother-in-law’s funeral. My sister-in-law had a gathering of family and friends to her condominium after the funeral, and it was the first time I met her friends. I walked into the kitchen and was met by five of her friends who were standing around talking. They had heard that I was psychic and proceeded to ask me to tell them about themselves. I went to the first person and said that I envisioned a ring with a blue stone that she was receiving as a gift, and I told her about her daughter’s ballet recital and some other non earth shattering things. She said that her boyfriend was giving her a ring with a blue stone and they had just picked it out the day before and she was waiting for it to be resized. She also said that her twelve year old daughter was getting ready for her ballet recital. I went to the next person and told him some things about where he works and the names of his associates. I then went to the next person and told her a few things. The fourth person was a professional looking man with a beard, and I sensed that he didn’t believe in psychics and he had a shield around him blocking me. I continued to the next person and told her some things about her family and the recent vacation they were on. I went around again and looked at each person and I was still blocked by the man with the beard. I went around for a third time, stopping at each person, and when I arrived at the man, everything opened up and I could read him. I described in detail the exterior of the building he works in, including the street address. I said that I didn’t know what he did for a living, but I saw maps in blue and brown that looked like geography maps. I saw the maps as though I were floating high above them. I mentioned a man named Eugene from California. I then envisioned the bearded man doing something astonishing and I said to the group that I was hesitant to tell them what I saw. They all asked me to continue, including the man himself and his wife who was standing next to him. I told them that I saw the man putting a sharp object into a skull. The man stood there with a shocked look on his face. He told me that he is a neurologist and he does experiments on monkeys' brains using sharp objects. He said that the maps I saw were maps of the brain that were in blue and brown. He said he receives the maps from a colleague named Eugene who lives in California.  It was all very interesting, especially for a neurologist who didn’t believe in psychic abilities until the gathering in the kitchen.

GUIDING A SPIRIT TO THE LIGHT

GUIDING A SPIRIT TO THE LIGHT
                          - Donna DiPietro

This particular case involves the first house that I was asked to go to for use of my psychic abilities to help solve a paranormal disturbance. August 7, 2001 was a very hot day with temperatures over 100 degrees. I was at work and a colleague, Alice, received a telephone call from a frightened young lady that had moved into a house, in a suburb of Boston, the previous autumn. The first question she asked Alice was “Is my house haunted?” Alice is a refined, attractive, no nonsense type with a logical mind, and she was not prepared for such an unusual question. Not every real estate office has a resident psychic and, though unusual, my abilities have been called upon and used to great extent many times over the years. The caller, Sandra, lived in the house with her husband and their infant daughter. Alice put down the receiver and walked over to my office and asked if I would talk to Sandra. At that moment, I saw the vision of a man of ethnic appearance that was no more than five feet, six inches tall. Alice picked up the receiver and told Sandra of my vision and Sandra said that she was seeing a vision of a man. Sandra asked if I would go to her house and I told her I could go there that afternoon, and I asked Alice to go with me.

Alice and I arrived at the house and were greeted by Sandra and her baby waiting outside. I walked around the exterior of the house to sense anything unusual. It was a lovely older Colonial in a nice area with a church across the street. A priest from the church had recently been called to the house for his assistance, and he blessed the house, but the paranormal activity continued.  Sandra invited us inside and we went into the living room and I sat on the love seat and Alice and Sandra sat on the couch. Sandra was apprehensive about her experiences because she thought she had no one to turn to. I asked Sandra to sit next to me and I held her hand and asked her exactly what she had been seeing and how many times she saw this figure. She said it was a mist that took on the shape of a man, and she had seen it about ten times, but that the last time it looked frightening. I asked her why it looked frightening and she said it looked distorted. I told her that it looked that way because it hadn’t finished materializing into a human form. I also told her that she was psychically gifted and that the spirit she was seeing was someone that wanted to communicate with her and not to be afraid. This gave her comfort and assurance that what she was experiencing was not to be feared.

I asked Sandra if I could walk through each room for a sense of paranormal activity and she was most obliged. She picked up the baby and she and Alice followed me from room to room on the first and second floors. As I walked through each room, I told Sandra where I felt the man’s presence. I said he was often in the kitchen, and spends time in the baby’s room and in the computer room. Sandra said that those were the three rooms she saw him in. He was mostly seen in the kitchen, and a few times she saw him in the baby’s room. She also saw his misty form in the computer room where her husband had his office. Her husband would sometimes feel the presence of someone standing behind him as he sat working at the computer, but when he turned around there was never anyone there.

We went back to the living room and I sat on the love-seat by myself, Alice sat on the couch, while Sandra sat on the floor with the baby. Immediately, I felt the presence of the man, his energy and his emotions. I said he died at the age of fifty-seven of a heart attack in his kitchen five years before. I said he smoked and owned a small brown boat. I saw him dressed in new clothes – black pants and a glowing white dress shirt – and he was carrying a stack of men’s folded new glowing white shirts and was walking towards a shelf as though to place the shirts there. He was crying and said he loved his son and Sandra and the baby and he wanted to be near them. With a great sense of relief, Sandra realized who I was talking about. It was her father-in-law. He died of a heart attack in his kitchen in his home in South America at the age of fifty-seven, five years before. He was no more than five feet, six inches tall, he smoked, owned a small brown boat and owned a men’s clothing store. Sandra got up from the floor and walked over to a table that was against a wall. She opened a drawer, took out a photo album and showed Alice and me her father-in-law’s picture – he was standing next to his small brown boat. I told Sandra that he was now happy to finally communicate with her. I asked her if she wanted him to leave and she said that he could stay. I told her that I had to speak with him in private and I got up from the couch and walked into the hall and stood next to the stairs that went to the second floor. I said that Sandra wanted him to stay and that she and his son and grandchild loved him. I told him what year it was and that he was no longer living and should pass through the light where many of his loved ones were. I felt his strong emotions of love for his family and sadness in his acceptance that he was no longer living and he was crying through me and he went over to where he should be. I knew he was gone when these strong emotions suddenly stopped and there was silence and a great sense of calm.

I walked into the nearby room where Sandra, the baby, and Alice were waiting. They had heard what I said to Sandra’s father-in-law while I stood in the hall next to the stairs. A great burden was lifted from Sandra’s shoulders and she was overjoyed that I was able to solve a most unusual case of paranormal activity. I was at my office the next day and received a call from Sandra. She thanked me and said she was in such a state when we said good-bye the previous day that she forgot to ask me how much I charge for my services. I told her that I don’t charge anything and that I was happy that I was able to help her. She insisted that she pay me and I insisted that I would not accept payment. Sandra showed up at my office a short time later to thank me in person and gave me a gift of imported candies in a lovely decorative tin. I still have the tin as a keepsake. She said she would never forget what I did and how much she appreciated my help. I was happy to help a young family in need, and in doing so, I was able to make direct contact with the spirit of a kind man that died before he was able to enjoy his extended family that he watched over and loved.

THE ATTIC ROOM

THE ATTIC ROOM
        - Donna DiPietro

This unusual event happened in the mid 1990s while I was working at a real estate office in Wellesley, Massachusetts. Ms. M, a long-time sales associate, was in the office and asked for my help in finding her summer clothes. She said people often ask me to find valuables but her summer clothes were valuable to her. I immediately was transported to the walkway that runs in front of her house. As I walked along, I described to Mrs. M in detail what I was seeing. I arrived at her house and stood facing the front of the house and walked up her front steps. The door was open, I walked inside the entry hall and the stairs leading to the top floors were in front of me. I described the décor, furniture and flowers that I saw in the areas of the house that I could see from the entry hall and stairs. I walked up the stairs until I reached her attic and stood at the threshold and looked inside. Near the middle of the attic room I saw a child’s old small red wagon with a grey stripe that was once white. I saw a highchair near the right wall and I saw some yellow curtains on the floor near the left wall. I walked over to the curtains and told Mrs. M that her summer clothes were under the curtains. Mrs. M said she had looked there but had not seen them. I told her the clothes were in a bag under the curtains and they blended in with the curtains so she would miss seeing the bag. She went home right away and looked where I said she would find her summer clothes and she did, under the yellow curtains on the floor near the left wall of her attic. She said there is a child’s old small red wagon with a grey stripe sitting in the middle of the attic room. It was hers when she was a child and the stripe was white years before. She also affirmed there is a highchair on the right side of the room. Since I have never seen her house and I don’t know where she lives, I shouldn’t know what it looks like, but I do. My visions were precise and accurate as I walked to her house, went inside and found what was missing. Mrs. M still keeps in touch and has never forgotten the lost and found summer clothes.

GOLD HEART SHAPED PENDANT

GOLD HEART SHAPED PENDANT
                              -Donna DiPietro

On the same day, and at the same moment that *Loretta called excitedly telling me that she found her gold bracelet using the clues I gave her, I had to answer another incoming call. It was the mid 1990s and I was working at a real estate office in Wellesley, Massachusetts. I was sitting at the front desk answering the phone while the receptionist was at lunch. The call on the second line was 'D', a real estate agent in our office. She said she had searched her house for two days but could not find her large gold heart-shaped pendant necklace that hung from a heavy gold chain. It was a special piece of jewelry that she enjoyed wearing in the winter months and she thought she had stored it away in a safe place. As we spoke on the phone, I went to her house in spirit form and saw a mahogany chest on the first floor. I told her to open the drawer of the chest that held her white lace tablecloths. I had never been to her house and didn’t know what the interior or exterior of her house looked like, but suddenly I was standing in the entry room of her house and I could see the décor and furnishings. As we continued speaking on the phone, I saw her running down the stairs with the phone to her ear and saw her walking over to the mahogany chest. She said her white lace tablecloths were inside a mahogany chest downstairs and I told her to open the drawer that held the tablecloths and she did. She said she saw the white lace tablecloths and I told her to lift them up and she would find her gold heart-shaped pendant underneath. She did as I asked and found her pendant and she had no idea how it got there. Interestingly, many years later I read a newspaper article about people who steal valuable items from homes. They may work there as outside help and will take something of value and hide it in a drawer under something such as linens, many times in a room close to an outside door on the first floor. When no one is around, they will take the article and either walk off with it or hand it to an accomplice who happens to stop by when no one else is home. I could never imagine how D's valuable gold necklace ended up in her white lace tablecloth drawer, but after reading that newspaper article it made sense of what may have happened. 'D' and her family keep in touch and she still enjoys wearing her large gold heart-shaped pendant in the winter months.

*The events relating to finding Loretta’s gold bracelet, mentioned at the beginning of this story, are explained in a previous story in this blog ‘Loretta’s Gold Bracelet’.

LORETTA'S GOLD BRACELET

Loretta’s Gold Bracelet
              - Donna DiPietro

In the mid 1990s, I was working at a real estate office in Wellesley, Massachusetts. One day I received a call from a woman named Loretta asking for my help in finding her gold bracelet. She got my name from one of my co-workers, who incidentally had asked for, and successfully received, my help in finding her own lost bracelet. Loretta said she never took her bracelet off but somehow it fell off and she was afraid it was gone forever. She told me that she had put an ad in the newspaper with a reward for anyone who found it. I told her that I would not accept a reward and would be happy to help find her bracelet. After speaking with her and hanging up the phone, I sat at my desk and received visions in my mind. I wasn’t sure if they meant anything but they came to me one by one. I first saw a GOLD CUP; then a LARGE FLAT RED OBJECT THAT LOOKED LIKE A BOOK; YELLOW FLOWERS; a SMALL BROWNISH HOUSE; and AX7. I called Loretta and left her a voicemail with this information. I said I didn’t know if these things meant anything and that I would call her if I received any more information. The next day it was my turn to fill in for the receptionist while she was at lunch and I was sitting at the front desk when Loretta called. I answered the phone and she screamed with excitement that she found the bracelet. She said that all the things I mentioned led to the bracelet. Part of her kitchen was her office and she said there was a big red book that she kept appointments in, and there were yellow flowers nearby. There was also a miniature brownish house near the book, next to the book was an American Express bill with AX7 on it, and the gold cup I saw was the gold pencil cup that sat amongst the other items that I mentioned. She looked inside the gold pencil cup and found her bracelet. She said perhaps one of her children had found it and put it there. Since I insisted I would not accept a reward, she came over to the office with a huge bouquet of flowers. To top it off, at the exact same time I was talking with her on the phone and she was telling me all this, I got a call on the other line. It was another lady asking for my help to find her gold heart-shaped pendant, which I found in a matter of minutes, also over the phone.

BELFAST, MAINE - HAUNTED HOUSE

BELFAST, MAINE - HAUNTED HOUSE
                                  - Donna DiPietro

I met my friend Tina in the mid 1960s when we were working for Kemper Insurance. The company had an office on an upper floor in the Music Hall building on Tremont Street in Boston, in the heart of the theatre district. The Music Hall is now the Wang Center where Broadway shows and the famous still take center stage in the beautiful grand theatre. We were right out of high school, before we decided what we wanted to do with the rest of our lives. Tina eventually graduated from nursing school and was a nurse for many years. She had a wonderful family and we all got together for special occasions. Her sister Joanne was a few years older than Tina, and married with three young children. Each summer Joanne, her husband Jim and their children went to a coastal town in Maine for two weeks to house sit their in-laws’ beautiful estate that sat on eighty-eight acres. Joanne’s sister-in-law was an artisan who made lovely ceramics and fine jewelry and needed someone to tend her store while she was away. There were also some hens, roosters and a few sheep on the property that needed daily attention. The estate consisted of a large 1790s white colonial with black shutters, a smaller building that was used as the store, and a barn. In the summer of 1969 Joanne invited Tina and me to accompany her family on their two week excursion and we all looked forward to having a fun time. When we arrived at the house, Joanne’s sister-in-law, brother-in-law and their two teenage children greeted us warmly and had a delicious dinner waiting. We had a wonderful time that evening singing songs of long ago as I played the old upright piano that sat in the living room. The in-laws were leaving the next morning to their vacation spot on an island off the coast of Maine, and they filled us in on what was needed to make sure everything ran smoothly while they were away.

As the days went by, nothing seemed out of the ordinary until about the third night. Tina and I shared a bedroom and a noise woke both of us up at the same time, and the strong floral scent of a woman’s perfume filled the room. We silently listened and heard soft footsteps and saw the shadowy figure of a woman in a long dress glide between our beds. The form dissipated within a few seconds and I reached over to the night table and turned on the light. We were both frightened and stayed up the rest of the night with all the lights on in the room. The next morning we told Joanne and Jim what had happened. Joanne was very interested but her husband would have nothing to do with such foolishness. Joanne admitted that she had a similar experience two summers before and had since felt uneasy being there. She was now convinced there was a ghostly presence and she wouldn’t go anywhere in the house alone.

One evening, with the three children safely in their beds asleep, Joanne, Jim, Tina and I sat on the living room floor playing cards. Joanne asked me to use my psychic abilities and tell her things that came to mind. I started saying names and nicknames of people and private things about these people that only she and her husband knew. They were amazed that I was getting this information from somewhere because I certainly would never know otherwise. I then said that something was going to happen at ten o’clock that evening. I had no idea what was going to happen at ten o’clock but I knew that it had to do with the house. We were intrigued, but making light of the fact that something would actually happen. At the time, it was around eight o’clock and we said we would all meet in the living room well before ten o’clock to see what awaited us. At around 9:45 p.m. we were once again all sitting on the living room floor, and now looking at our watches and at the antique clock that hung on the wall. The clock’s pendulum swung back and forth and counted down each second as the minute hand got closer to ten o’clock. Only five more minutes, only one more minute, seconds to go…get ready.  As the hour hand was on the ten and the minute hand struck the twelve, a huge bang reverberated throughout the house. It sounded like something large and heavy had slammed against the outside of the house. At exactly the same time as the huge bang sound, all the lights went out in the house. We couldn’t believe what had just happened, even Jim was apprehensive. He got a flashlight and went outside to see if something had fallen against the house. He walked around the house’s exterior and came back in and said he didn’t see anything that may have fallen against the house. A short time later, we learned that the water was no longer working. None of us slept well that night and were shaken by what we had experienced. The next morning at exactly ten o’clock the electricity and water came back on. Tina and I took a short walk to the general store and mentioned what had happened at the house. We asked if anyone else had experienced electrical or water problems the previous evening, and we were told that none had. If it was a ghost that caused this to happen, it certainly had a great sense of humor. I can imagine the entity watching and waiting for us to jump at its practical joke. It was a good joke, I must admit, and apparently the ghost gave me the info to pass on to the others that something would happen at ten o’clock that evening. The rest of our stay was uneventful but we were on alert for anything unusual until we were safely on our way home.