Incredible true story of how a psychic led the FBI to a wanted killer... even correctly predicting precisely how he defiled his victim's corpse
Special Agent Robert Hilland had an unorthodox approach to solving crimes.
Across 25 years, the FBI agent consulted psychic John Edward on multiple cases - including the murder of Janice Hartman who went missing in 1974.
With Edward's assistance Hilland led his cold case unit to her husband, John Smith. In April 2000, skeletal remains were identified as Hartman's and Smith was charged with her murder six months later. He was convicted and sentenced to life in 2001.
Eighteen years later, in 2019, Smith was indicted for the murder of his second wife, Fran, reported missing in 1991, but the charges were ultimately dropped.
The story of the unlikely pairing of the evidence-driven agent and the psychic - along with the cases they cracked - is told in 'Chasing Evil: Shocking Crimes, Supernatural Forces, and an FBI Agent's Search for Hope and Justice', published September 2.
Below is an edited excerpt detailing Hilland's first brush with Smith - and the meeting with Edward that converted him from skeptic to believer and unlocked the case.
John Smith (pictured) was convicted for the murder of his first wife and sentenced to life in 2001
The date was October 4, 1991, and Smith had come to the department to report his second wife, Fran (left), missing - 17 years after he reported his first wife, Janice (right), missing in Ohio
Across 25 years, Hilland consulted psychic John Edward on multiple cases
I remember the first time I looked into the eyes of evil: the day I first saw killer John Smith.
It was in the fall of 1991, and I was a 23-year-old patrolman in West Windsor Township, New Jersey.
One day, I passed through the department's dispatch area and, through the lobby's bulletproof glass, a figure caught my attention - a thin, pale man sitting with another officer.
He would have disappeared into the colorless background except for his reddish hair and those eyes. Killer eyes - like a shark's the second before it rips you apart.
Smith had come to the department to report his second wife, Fran, missing - 17 years after he'd reported his first wife, Janice, missing in Ohio.
Little did I know at the time that I'd spend much of the next three decades searching for his missing wives, trying to find justice for them.
Six years after I first looked into Smith's eyes, I began a new job: FBI special agent working on New York City's Cold Case Squad.
And in the summer of 1998, I stopped by my old department to catch up with the guys, walking past that thick, bulletproof glass where I'd seen Smith years earlier.
Detective Mike Dansman pulled me into his cubicle. His desk was piled high, with the addition of an unusual item - a cheesy fortune teller's crystal ball. Dansman sometimes consulted with psychics on cases, and the guys teased him about it, giving him the novelty gift as a joke.
As we talked, a beam of light from a window hit the crystal like a laser. It threw a rainbow of colors onto a bookshelf next to us, illuminating a binder with words in black magic marker: BETTY 'FRAN' SMITH - MISSING PERSON.
As we chatted, I got up and pulled it off the shelf, opening it. The photo on the first page gave me a jolt. It was John Smith.
'What's the status on this, Mike?' I asked.
'Dead in the water,' he said. 'No bodies, no evidence, no crime we can prove. That guy got away with at least two murders that we know of.'
I remembered Smith's eyes challenging me, daring me. To catch him.
'Do you mind if I look into it?' I asked.
'Are you kidding? Be my guest!'
Had I believed in such things, I might have said destiny or cosmic forces pulled me to this case. But I was a no-nonsense, follow-the-facts guy. I did not subscribe to superstition, hocus-pocus, or the supernatural.
But whatever it was, I couldn't explain it.
I made a silent vow: no matter how long it took, I was going to find Janice and Fran and put this monster behind bars.
I made a silent vow: no matter how long it took, I was going to find Janice and Fran (pictured) and put this monster behind bars
Edward (left) and Hilland (right) first met in 1998
I got the phone number for psychic medium John Edward's office in Long Island from the radio station he appeared regularly on, and reluctantly made the call.
On the morning of our appointment, Dansman gathered a bunch of Fran's items from the evidence locker, as per John's assistant's direction - a pair of eyeglasses, a makeup case, a hairbrush, a hair roller set, and a stationary set.
'He uses them to get a feel for the person's energy,' the assistant said on the phone. 'It will help him connect with the person you're looking for.'
Before we left the office, I quickly grabbed a few extras from female colleagues: a bracelet, a compact mirror, a woman's watch, and a necklace. Control items, I thought. If this guy was legit, he should be able to tell the difference between what belonged to Fran and what didn't, right?
Part of me still thought this psychic was a fraud, and the lawman in me wanted to take him down. I even researched reasons to arrest him. Wire fraud? Mail fraud? And yet, my stubborn heart wanted to believe he was the real deal.
'Let's get started,' said John when we got to his office. 'Did you bring any belongings of the person you are looking for?'
Dansman pulled the items from a bag and placed them on John's desk.
John closed his eyes, took a deep breath, cupped his palms together, and focused on them. After a minute, he reached over and moved the 'control' items and put them in a pile to the side.
'I don't know what these things are,' said John, 'but they have nothing to do with the reason you're here.'
I was stunned. He figured it out right away.
John returned his focus to Fran's items and picked up her eyeglasses.
He looked up, almost past us, as if he was staring at someone behind us.
'I'm seeing a woman. She looks older than her actual age. She's crossed over. She has two names like Mary Anne, Barbara Anne… but people called her by her second name… there's an F sound like Fern or Fran… wait. It's Fran.'
The next chunk of information came in a rush of words.
'She was vain about her appearance. She had breast implants - they're showing me serial numbers on them - and dyed blond hair. Blue eyes. She wore a lot of makeup. Fran was a smoker. I smell cigarette smoke and strong perfume, like when a person tries to cover up the smoke scent with a lot of perfume.
'She's also showing me that she couldn't walk, like she broke her leg? She's showing me crutches. I feel a strong pain in the back of my head. Was she struck in the head? Yes… she was hit in the back of the head with something. She didn't see it coming. Weird,' John said.
'I feel like she was tricked into going somewhere by someone she trusted. A boyfriend or husband. He is still here, he hasn't crossed. He has a simple J name, like John or Jim or Joe. And a second S name, very common, like… Smith.'
Smith was convicted of killing his first wife Janice Hartman
John put down the glasses and picked up the hairbrush.
'After she was hit in the head, the J-S name - let's call him 'Smith' - strangled her to make sure she was dead.'
I sat back in my chair, stunned. I barely had time to register the horror he described when another rush of information came.
'He was much younger than her,' John continued. 'Maybe 10 years.
'She was angry... She thought there was another woman. But not in the same state where they were living.
'She's showing me stairs. They were upstairs, on a third floor if not higher. There was an argument.
'Smith was lying to her and she knew it. She called him out on it. He felt like his worlds were crashing together.'
John kept getting hit after hit, like a pinball whacking against the bells in a machine. Not only was he confirming details we already knew, he was giving information we didn't know with details that made sense.
I had to ask: 'What did he do with her body?'
John glanced at me, then gazed again beyond me, squinting.
'She's not in one piece,' he said. 'He dismembered her and put the pieces in something.
'Whatever he put her in, it's got no smell and it's somewhere no one would suspect there was a body… or pieces of a body.
'When you find her, her body parts will be remarkably intact. Well preserved.'
My heart was racing now.
'So, we will find her?'
Smith had come to the department to report his second wife, Fran, missing - 17 years after he'd reported his first wife, Janice, missing in Ohio
'Your guy is pure evil,' said Edward (pictured). 'He has killed and will kill again unless he's stopped'
John paused. He looked thoughtfully at whatever invisible presence was behind us.
'I think so. But it's not going to be easy,' he said. 'And it won't be anytime soon.'
Suddenly, John's mood shifted. He stared at me.
'This woman you're looking for is one of many,' he said. 'This guy has killed other women. Several, in fact. There are victims you don't know about yet… some of his victims have been recovered but not identified.'
'This guy is creepy,' he continued. 'He has sex with some of his victims after he kills them. And you're going to find out he has sexual interest in men and… kids. He's bad news.'
John put down Fran's hairbrush and scanned the remaining items on the desk. After a minute, he picked up the stationary set and touched the hair rollers. He looked beyond us again, eyes moving left to right, as if he was trying to find something.
'Smith. You haven't found him yet, have you?'
'No,' I said.
John's eyes searched again.
'He's west. Like all the way west. California, the southern part. He's out there reinventing himself like a chameleon. He has a new job, new friends, maybe even a new wife.'
He continued: 'Your guy is pure evil. He has killed and will kill again unless he's stopped.'
The meeting with John Edward lasted four hours. When we left his office, I was in a daze.
I'd walked in that day a cynic and walked out with my belief system rattled, turned upside-down.
I was an evidence man, a man of facts. But this stranger, this psychic, put black-and-white, hard facts right in my face. Information he couldn't have known, that couldn't be denied.
Could this Long Island psychic help me find Fran and prevent Smith from hurting other women?
