San Francisco Chronicle  

          Sunday, June 10, 2001   

 Exorcising ghosts of past

New owner hopes to reopen resort haunted by 20-year-old slayings

Back then, a mother, her two children and a teenage friend were butchered here in a one-night frenzy so off-the-charts savage that to this day cops don't like to step inside the house. 

The murders ruined this northern Sierra mountain resort, a 3,205-foot- elevation enclave so popular people used to drive hundreds of miles just to eat at its log-walled lodge. In short order, appalled tourists began staying away in droves. And even now -- spirits or not -- the specter of the killings continues to keep this pretty resort empty. 

"It's spooky, a real ghost town," said Scott Lawson, director of the Plumas County Museum in nearby Quincy. "Nobody goes there, really. And I doubt anyone will until they find out who killed all those people. 

"But that," he said, eyes going wide, "is the whodunnit of the century around here." 

Twenty years ago, Keddie Resort was in the latest of many heydays dating from its founding in 1910, a placid getaway where you could rent one of 33 rustic cabins or a room in the hand-crafted, two-story lodge. The streams had great trout fishing, and pine-studded trails beckoned all around. 

The Keddie Lodge restaurant was packed most every night with customers who came from as far as San Francisco to dine on barbecued bear ribs, sherry- basted racoon steaks -- all shot locally -- and fine wines. 

"It was always a special, pretty place to go, a real draw," said Lawson. 

Then came April 11, 1981. 

Sometime between 9 p.m. and 10 p.m. that day, 15-year-old John Sharp and his buddy, 17-year-old Dana Wingate, were seen hitchhiking from Quincy to Keddie Cabin #28. John had been living there for months with his 36-year-old mother, Glenna Sharp -- and once the two boys walked through the door, police say, the horror began. 

A pair of killers either went in with the boys or were waiting with Glenna Sharp, and they tied up all three with duct tape and electrical wire. Soon after, John's 13-year-old sister, Tina, showed up and was bound, too. 

What followed was a night of torture. 

By the time the killers left 10 hours later, they had used steak knives and a claw hammer to such effect that the victims were barely recognizable. 

"Whoever did this stabbed the victims so violently they bent one knife totally double from the force," said Sheriff's Patrol Commander Rod DeCrona. "They stabbed and pounded on everything in sight -- the walls, the people, the furniture. Everything." 

He shuddered at the memory of first walking into the murder scene. "There was blood sprayed absolutely everywhere," DeCrona said. "You knew right away we were involved with a psychopath." 

The carnage was only discovered the next morning by John's 14-year-old sister, Sheila, who had been at a sleepover next door. To the enduring surprise of police, nobody outside the charnel house had heard a thing. 

And the mystery only deepened: Not only was the body of Tina, most likely killed at the scene, missing -- but three near-toddlers sleeping in one bedroom had been amazingly left untouched. 

Tina's severed head was found three years later by a bottle-digger, 50 miles downhill at a waterfall. One of the children in the bedroom -- two were Sharp brothers, the other a play-pal -- remembered enough so police could make a sketch of two killers, but the boy was so young the picture's accuracy is considered questionable. 

Thousands of leads and suspects have been picked over since then by deputies, the FBI and state investigators -- but nothing panned out, DeCrona said. A timeline of the case dominates three walls of the sheriff's office, tips still come in, and DNA samples were sent to the state crime lab just two months ago, but nobody's holding his breath. 

"Usually in a crime like this, the killers get sloppy and leave more behind, " said DeCrona, sighing. "I wish it were that simple. We have no motive, no suspects." 

Dana's father, Gary Wingate, thinks there were so many police agencies involved that they "stumbled over each other and fouled up the case." But he tries not to stew about it. He never even calls the Sharp family -- who declined requests through intermediaries to be interviewed. 

"Nobody has the faintest idea who killed my son, so I long ago had to let this thing go or it would eat me alive," said Wingate, who lives near Quincy. "I don't think about it, I don't go to that ghost town and I have no idea if ghosts exist there. 

"But I do know this. There is evil in this world, and evil was in that house that night." 

Ashley Conte and her neighbors think the evil is still there. 

People began to shun the resort after the killings, and within a year it was empty. The owners put Keddie up for sale in 1984 for $1.8 million -- and nobody bit. 

Over the next decade or so, it rotted into a refuge for squatters and hobos, and the county condemned most of the buildings. But in the past few years longtime owner Gary Mollath has gone on a furious restoration campaign that has the old resort looking pretty much as it did in 1981 -- sans people. 

He's rented out a couple of the best cabins, and says he hopes to rehab the rest enough to reopen in a year. 

But first there is Cabin #28 -- dubbed "The Murder House" by locals -- to contend with. 

The condemned building's yellow-and-white paint is flaking, doors are nailed shut and most windows are covered with plywood. Bums and kids -- including Ashley, Mollath's stepdaughter -- have often broken in for kicks, but by several accounts they all flee in a hurry. 

Ashley said that aside from seeing murky forms and rocking chairs in the house, she once saw a pitchfork and the word "no" carved in the kitchen door. "When we went back a half-hour later, the words and the pitchfork were gone," she said. 

Others don't buy all the spooky stuff. 

"I hate it when people call this a ghost town," said Lynn Seavy, 46, who lives next to The Murder House. "Keddie is a nice, peaceful place where you can hear the wind in the trees. I wish people would get over what happened." 

E-mail Kevin Fagan at kfagan@sfchronicle.com

Fate Magazine

December 1996

PSYCHIC FRONTIERS

BY LOYD AUERBACH

PSYCHIC UPDATE

Fate Magazine

August 1996

PSYCHIC FRONTIERS

BY LOYD AUERBACH

SEEING PAST AND PRESENT  THROUGH CLOSED EYES

PSI WORKBOOK

Her book in available from better book stores and from her publisher (Artistic Visions, Inc. 2075 Winchester Blvd. #107, Campbell, CA 95008, (408) 378-1435.

January 23, 1995

March 23, 1994

By Salley Howe

A former opera singer is helping people develop their psychic powers, has written a children's book and is making predictions about earthquakes.

Annette Martin, daughter of Charles and Viola De La Roche, proprietors of the Winchester Hardware Store, has established a training program complete with video meditiation tapes, which she hopes will allow others to develop the psychic powers that she feels were always with them, but may have been lost in modern society.

I first met Annette when she was working with her parents, (her son, Craig, now manages the hardware store). I knew she was a musician but had no clue that not only was she a well-known psychic but that she came from a long line of psychics.

As a child, Annette felt compelled to point out undiagnosed health problems to others. Her parents accepted her visions and did nothing to discourage her abilities. In 1970, as a married mother of two, she and her husband went to live in Hong Kong where the demand for her abilities caused her finally to take a more "commercial" view of her talents. To her amazement, charging for her readings only made them more popular, so she succombed to making them her main focus, although she had a successful singing career in place.

During the intervening years she has consulted with law enforcement, doctors and psychiatrists. She had appeared on the Montel Williams show in connection with a Cosmopolitan Magazine article in which she worked with a Montana sheriff's department on a thirty-five-year-old lover's lane murder of a teenage couple.

She has become known as the "Radio Psychic" for her talk show in Hawaii, and currently appears weekly on Radio KEST.

Her current predictions include her feelings that great changes are needed in the way we do things and that change takes a great deal of energy.

She feels strongly that there is a great nead to "let off the old" and "get on with it" and that her role is to help these changes take place. Up until a few years ago she continued her singing career but now concentrates on giving readings, especially to individuals who are running their own companies and consult with her to make decisions as to who among their employees can best accept responsible jobs.

Silicon Valley CEO's bring photographs of their employees to her, and by holding them in her hands, she determines their personalities and characteristics. Although, she says, often what CEOs label "gut" feelings is just a manifestation of their own accurate intuition.

Her training programs and guided meditations, made in cooperation with noted musician Steven Halpern, allow students to "Discover Your Psychic World," and in fact, a book of that name is due for publication.

Currently, a children's book entitled "Annie Sunshine and the White Owl of the Cedars" is due out on audio tape, as she feels that children are particularly sensitive to their own psychic abilities.

When asked her feelings about the possibility of more earthquakes, she admitted that she feels more are due, but expressed a particular concern for southern California (The following Sunday, a strong tremor was recorded in the southland.)
She also expressed concern for Baja California. Long-range, Japan is a big worry. (She had made a number of accurate predictions, pin pointing the day, regarding the volcanic eruptions at Mr. St. Helens on her radio program.)

Annette feels strongly about using her abilities for good and that they come from a "superior source." There's lots more to tell, but space being a factor, I'll save that for another time.

1989

By France Owen

When Jean S. visited San Francisco psychic Annette Martin for a "psychic reading," she was shocked to learn that she needed surgery.

"Annette said I was going to take a trip, but first I must have surgery," recalled Jean, of San Francisco. "She drew a picture of my gallbladder, with little round black things inside."

The same afternoon, Jean went to see her doctor- and he immediately ordered her into the hospital for a gallbladder operation two days later.

"The psychic was correct in her diagnosis," confirmed Dr. Richard Gardner, a San Francisco surgeon. "I took the gallbladder out and it was full of gallstones. They're dark green, but they look black."

This was just one of the many incredibly accurate diagnoses made by Annette, who claims she is aided by the spirit of Edgar Cayce, a famed psychic diagnostician who died in 1945.

Annette says Cayce first appeared to her in a vision in 1970, while she was in Hong Kong. Since then, he has reappeared many times, she said.

Dr. John H. Borghi, director of the counseling center at San Jose State University, said he has collaborated with Annette in diagnosing "a large number of patients" in his private practice. "She seems amazingly accurate," he said. Sometimes "I'll have Annette come down and do a reading in the office with the patient and myself. Sometimes it provides a real breakthrough."

Ezra L. of Los Altos, Calif., had a painful skin problem that afflicted him for 15 years, despite two operations, X-ray treatments and injections.

"Then I went to Annette Martin," he said. "During the reading, she said Edgar Cayce was there, and that he had given her a diet for me to follow.

"Annette told me to stay away from milk, milk products, meat, fats, proteins, grains, even white rice. It cured my skin condition - and I lost 50 pounds as well." Dr. Benjamin H. Moore, a Palo Alto physician who treated Ezra, said:

"This diet seems to have had a positive effect on what was a serious skin condition. I'd say within a month he'll be completely healed."

Los Altos TOWN CRIER
September 16, 1981

Annette Martin, who has had the gift of psychic ability since she was a child, is determined to gain respect and recognition for psychics.

"I feel like a pioneer," she said during a recent interview in her Los Altos office, where she practices as a psychic consultant. "I want to validate psychics so they are not thought of as gypsies or charlatans."

Annette an animated, outgoing woman of 42, is now doing graduate work in psychology. Her goal is to earn a doctorate degree and become a licensed psychologist.

In her career as a professional psychic, she has worked with the medical profession and law enforcement agencies, lectured, taught for eight years in local colleges, done radio and television programs and provided counseling.

She is obviously pleased by being asked to join the Quota Club of Los Altos, service club composed of local business and professional women- a group not given to selecting gypsies or charlatans for its membership.

In her State Street office, invitingly furnished with dramatic peacock rattan chairs and framed antique Oriental silk embroideries - acquired during her five years residence in Hong Kong - Annette discussed her experiences as a psychic.

She discovered her psychic abilities when she was seven years old. "It runs in the family," she said. "I do believe everyone is psychic, but in some families it's more pronounced. I have it from both sides of the family."

Her mother's mother, "extremely psychic," read cards in restaurants and her paternal grandmother's sister was a clairvoyant nun in France who predicted the assassination of Pope Pius X.

My father is very, very psychic and uses it in his business- a large hardware store in Campbell," she continued, adding that her two sons, 21 and 18, both now in college, are also very psychic.

Annette's psychic ability was enhanced by a career as a professional actress and singer. "I was a singing actress," she said, "with the capability to jump into other personalities and become that person for a short period od time."

She credits her drama teacher, "a total genius in her 80s" with whom she trained for eight years, with teaching her to focus her attitude and take on another personality "without fear of losing myself."

This skill has been invaluable in her psychic work. "I become you for that short period of time," she explained. "I can feel your aches and pains."

Through trial and error and "lots of experience," she has learned how to counsel people - "to reflect to the person what I'm picking up in a loving and caring way."

"Rapport with the client makes the changes," she continued. "I've seen tremendous changes in people. I've had lots and lots of feedback."

Annette noted that one danger with making predictions in readings is that "we have free will and we can change the future." As an example, she cited a person who, told that he is going to get a certain job, relaxes and sits back on his laurels, confident that the job is in the bag.

"He thinks, well, I'm going to get the job so I'm going to just sit here. You have to convey to the client that if he doesn't continue with the momentum, that's his choice. But don't sit back and wait for it to happen."

She added, "What I, or any psychic, says to you is not God's word. There's no way we can be 100 percent accurate. We're just a tool to help you see that you can help yourself."

Annette is deriving great satisfaction - and fun - from a weekly radio program she does 10 to 11:30 a.m. Wednesdays for station KFBK in Sacramento. As many as 49 listeners call in during the one and a half hours.

"Once I get moving with the energy, it's so much fun to talk to that many people with such varied questions," she said. The callers range from senators to housewives to young kids, according to Annette.

Among recent callers was a woman who wanted to know if she was going to move. "Immediately I got goose bumps - I call it my double whammy - which means it's going to be true," Annette recalled. "I said, "Oh, my gosh, I see you in a covered wagon with horses pulling it and going very far north."

The startled woman exclaimed, "A friend is building a covered wagon. I have four horses and we're going to Alaska! Annette you are incredible!"

In finding lost persons or animals, Annette relies on psychometry, using photos, maps, pieces of clothing or jewelry. "When I use a map, I'm following the energies of what I'm looking for," she explained.

She was recently asked for help in finding two lost horses. One had run away and the other, "his friend," had accompanied him.

Describing how she found the animals, Annette said, "I held a photo of the horses over a map. The one horse was telling me through the photo of his woman owner's idiosyncrasies - what he liked and didn't." The woman's husband agreed with the message which was coming through to the psychic

By way of explanation, Annette said, "We're electrical beings. We have electromagnetic waves that go around us. I've trained myself to plug into your electro magnetic wave system. I'm reading that and getting information from it.

"It's not complicated. It's not scary. It's not mystical. It's very much a part of us. It's all involved with our sixth sense - on the right side of the brain, the creative side. We've been trained to just use the left."

She added, "The trick is to teach children and adults to use the right side of the brain."

"Children are very open to psychics," she continued. "They're easy to read and very receptive, but getting them to want to make any kind of changes is another story."

Annette works frequently with members of the medical profession. She has a list of doctors who send her their patients whose maladies remain undiagnosed after all traditional tests have been administered.

One day a week she shares an office with a chiropractor, Dr. Jerry Spencer, at 450 Sutter St. San Francisco.

Annette has made guest appearances on a number of radio and television programs and had another program of her own on a San Jose radio station, KXRX, before it changed to an all music format.

One of her most enjoyable TV appearances was on the show, "Sound Off," when she was pitted against a magician who was a psychic debunker. "I won!!" she reported jubilantly. "The pendulum totally swung over to the other side."

Summing up her philosophy, she said, "All I want to do is make people happy. In the theater, I thought I was fulfilling that but when I decided to become a professional psychic, then total fulfillment began to come in sight.

"When you're helping people remold their lives, that's exciting."

San Francisco Examiner
Tuesday July 22, 1980

By Lauri Itow

Advice- from tips for the lovelorn to clues to finding lost items - is being dispensed each Sunday by a radio talk show host whose expertise is clairvoyance.

Psychic Annette Martin, 42, has taken her one-hour program beyond the usual confines of radio. And Martin reaches into the lives of some telephone callers in a way they might not have imagined possible.

Callers to San Jose station KXRX are allowed one question on any subject except medical matters.

Although medical counseling is one of her specialties, she doesn't practice it on the air because she isn't a physician, and she'd not licensed to do so.

From 7 to 8 p.m. each Sunday, about 30 Bay Area listeners consult with Martin without paying the $60 fee she charges for a 45-minute session in her Los Altos office.

Martin asks callers their first names only, and says her "tremendous power of concentration" allows her to probe quickly and respond to questions.

In the small brightly lit studio, Martin entertains and converses with her audience. There are no Tarot cards, crystal balls or other paraphernalia often associated with mystic practices.

Instead, Martin claims to receive and "read" electrical energy transmitted by the caller's voice.

Her predictions usually are made by interpreting images she visualizes. But she adds that if she feels goosebumps after being asked a question, that's a signal for a "yes" answer.

To her knowledge, her Sunday talk show is the only one in the state hosted by a psychic although there are several nationwide.

The program, which began March 30, was proposed after Martin appeared as a guest on a KXRX talk show, and the station was swamped with calls, according to Diane Raymond, station director of talk programs.

Raymond attributes the interest in Martin to the public's quest for answers in today's complex world. The station has noted a large audience interest in astrologers as well as in psychics who offer an alternative in their search for information.

Although only about 30 calls get through to Martin in each program, the phone company has recorded more than 500 attempts to reach her while it monitored one of the seven telephone lines used for the show.

Raymond points out that before the show, the station airs a disclaimer, warning listeners that accepting Martin's advice is their own decision. "It's gret entertainment," Raymond says.

Martin describes her psychic ability as a "finely tuned sixth sense," one she believes everyone possesses, but that not everyone uses.

She says she first recognized her extrasensory perception when she was 7. But it wasn't until 1970 that she decided to make psychic counseling a profession.

Martin, divorced and the mother of two teen-age sons, had worked as a professional actress and musical comedy and opera singer, so she felt comfortable tackling a radio talk show.

In fact, she hopes the show might lead to nightclub appearances at Las Vegas casinos.

In a typical Sunday program, callers might ask about a missing gold ring, a broken love affair or a troubled business.

Psychic of the Airwaves Delves Into Hearts of Callers

For example, a caller named Dennis for Palo Alto told Martin that he had a good job with a large firm, but he was wondering if he should quit to spend more time with his own small company.

Martin told him that the large company he works for seems to be in "financial straits," a fact he confirmed. The company probably would lay off a lot of people in the future, she continued, but he wouldn't lose his job.

Martin accurately described his private company as one which deals with "tiny" products, and she assured him that his business would improve. Her advice was to keep his job and continue nurturing his company. Dennis ended the conversation sounding relatively surprised and impressed.

But not all her callers are left with that sense of satisfaction.

When a woman asked Martin if her son would pass a real estate exam, she replied no. Martin had visualized a line with the son's name below it, signifying that he hadn't passed the exam, she told the caller.

But the woman complained, "Last week, he (the son) called and you said he would make it."

Martin says she can't explain why that happened. She told the caller that she'd be interested in knowing the test results, and the woman agreed to send her a postcard to let her know.

The postcard arrived a week later and the son did not pass the exam.

Martin estimates that she's 75 to 85 percent correct. "I know I'm not perfect"

The cross Martin wears around her neck symbolizes "positive and negative energy" and also fits her Catholic upbringing. Although she believes in reincarnation, she still maintains a strong belief in God and the Bible, she says.

Martin believes that psychics are more widely accepted today by the public as well as by part of the scientific community, and she hope the state someday will institute a licensing and testing procedure for those in her field.

But she says to skeptics, "I'm not out prove anything."

June 4, 1980

By Aleta Watson

The elegantly decorated second-floor offices with their exotic rattan furniture and ancient Chinese silks on the walls could belong to any manner of counselor.

Annette Martin, however, is not your run - of- the- mill marriage counselor or psychologist. The shingle on Ms. Martin's door proclaims her a psychic counselor.

For the last seven years, she has made a business out of the extraordinary powers she has claimed since childhood. From her offices on State Street in Los Altos, she works with business executives seeking financial help, searching for runaway children, sick people looking for the root of their illnesses, students attempting to develop their own sixth senses and even police detectives trying to solve a crime.

Some have been referred by psychiatrists or doctors willing to accept a spiritualist's opinions. Others have heard about her from a friend or read about her in sources as varied as Peninsula magazine and the National Enquirer.

Last year a Los Altos woman sought out Ms. Martin for reading on her missing daughter.

The psychic, told the mother and police that Laura Anne Beyerly could be found, face down, under a bridge in the Santa Cruz Mountains near Felton.

"I had seen a brushy area that looks like the Santa Cruz Mountains," she explained this summer when a portion of Laura's skull was found on a remote logging road in the area of Big Basin State Park.

She also said she only heard the word "Felton" while she held Laura's picture and a piece of her clothing.

That work made the newspapers but most f the counselor's police work is hush-hush. "I do that very quietly," she says.

Her medical work is better known. It has even been written up in the Enquirer.

"I do a lot of medical people who have been to 10 doctors and the doctors don't know what's going on," she said. "Sometimes the problem looks so complex and when I look at it, it's so simple."

Ms. Martin settles into one of the throne-like chairs in her inner office. She's wearing a simple knit dress and a large gold cross hangs on a chain around her neck.

"I don't even really like the word psychic," she confessed with a theatrical air born of years on stage as an actress and singer.

"I'm trying to erase that," she said. "It gives a connotation of different, out of the ordinary and it isn't. Everyone has six senses.

So-called psychics, she explains, have fine-tuned their sixth sense so they can tune into the electrical impulses projected by their subject.

Ms. Martin said she has been able to feel those signals ever since she was 7 years old and sensed that a group of playmates in San Francisco was going to kill her just minutes before they began to stone her.

Over the years, her unusual sensitivity has grown to the point that she says she now can "read" a stranger, although she does not give many free reading of emotional and physical health.

"If people get a free reading," she said, "what I find is they don't listen."

Ms. Martin does not want to stop at readings, though. She said she has a larger goal. "I want to educate the pubic," she said. "I don't want to give readings the rest of my life. I want to educate the public to a broader understanding and realization of what this is, that everyone has this capability and they can use this for everyda

San Francisco Sunday Examiner & Chronicle
July 30, 1978

By Antoinette May

For the internist it could be, "Let's run another series of test."

In either case, for the patient it will mean more time and money spent before a cure is effected.

Now, for a few, there is an alternative: the psychic.

A small number of local doctors are forming associations with mediums.

In an effort to demonstrate psychic diagnosis, Dr. Gerald Jampolsky, a Tiburon psychiatrist, set up an experiment. On the evening of December 10, 1975, Annette Martin, a San Francisco medium, was taken to San Rafael High School where she was confronted by a research team of doctors. The patient, who was introduced to her as "Barbara," was seated at a desk. As Martin confronted her she became very agitated. "Something's severed!" she gasped. "It's between the waist and the top of the spine." Tears began to pour down Martin's face. "I don't see any movement. You're paralyzed."

"That's right," Barbara nodded. "I see an automobile hit a wall and I hear a terrible crash. It's a car accident and you're pinned inside. That accident has left you paralyzed."

After verifying that Barbara had been paralyzed as a result of a car accident (she had been lifted from her wheelchair and seated behind the dest for Martin's reading), Dr. Jampolsky suggested that the psychic describe Barbara's personality traits.

"She has a lot of tension, a tremendous amount of stress," Martin said. "Barbar's personality is introverted and she's inclined to hold anger within herself."

A personality profile that Barbara had filled out prior to the experiment matched this description.

Martin then went on to point out a hearing problem.

Barbara nodded, explaining to the doctors that she had once had a mastoid infection.

"It affected your balance, didn't it?" Martin asked, and then continued without waiting for an answer. "I see you listing to the left."

"Yes, that happened when I was a child., Barbara answered. "I couldn't walk without holding on to something because I'd fall to the left side. The infection was in my left ear. I still have some hearing difficulty."

Annette Martin has no medical background whatsoever. The information comes to her, she says, by way of Edgar Cayce, a world famous medium who died in 1945. "Mr. Cayce first appeared to me in 1970," Martin explains. "He introduced himself and said he'd help me to help other people. Two friends who were with me and my husband at the time heard nothing but saw the indentation of a hand pressing down on the fabric of my blouse at the shoulder where he touched me.

Since this time, "Mr. Cayce" (Martin says he's very formal and always wears a dark suit) has appeared many times, she claims.

Dr. Jampolsky became professionally involved with Annette Martin after she successfully demonstrated her psychic abilities for him. "She was surprisingly accurate," he says. "I became intrigued by the possibilities of a psychic supplement to medicine. Imagine the new hope this could bring to situations where the conventional approaches have been exhausted."

Rocky Mountain News Denver Colorado

July 15, 1978

By Antoinette May
PALO ALTO, CALIF.

When Annette Martin was seven years old, she had an experience that determined the course of her life.

While playing with a group of other youngsters in her native San Francisco, she discovered that she had psychic powers. Annette had a vision in which she saw her "friends" suddenly turn on her with intent to hurt her.

"Pick up that stick and be ready to defend yourself," a voice inside her warned.

The stick and the advance warning became an ugly reality.

FOR NO APPARENT reason, Annette's playmates turned on her, forcing her into a doorway where they began stoning her.

Annette's grandmother glanced out the window and was able to rescue the bruised and bleeding child who was just managing to hold off her attackers with the stick.

That youthful experience was only the beginning. Soon afterward, Annette became aware of a new ability to tell when friends and relatives were not telling the truth.

"I thin it was all a kind of psychic set up intended to jolt me into a conscious awareness of my paranormal abilities, says Martin today.

These have been developed to such an extent over the years that she is now involved in a pilot program which represents a new concept in counseling - a psychotherapist and a psychic working as a team.

After an initial session with the psychotherapist, a patient receives a reading from Mrs. Martin in the presence of the therapist. This added insight is a great time saver for the doctor and subsequent money saver for the patient, they believe.

Mrs. Martin's experimental work is being done with Dr. Gerald Jampolsky of Tiburon and Dr. Jerome Littell of San Rafael both in the San Francisco area.

The work grew out of an effort nearly three years ago by Jampolsky, a psychiatrist, to set up an experiment to demonstrate psychic diagnosis. On the evening of December 10, 1975, Annette Martin, was taken to San Rafael High School where she was confronted by a research team of doctors.

THE PATIENT who was introduced to her as "Barbara," was seated at a desk. As Martin confronted her she became very agitated. "Something's severed!" she gasped. "It's between the waist and the top of the spine." Tears began to pour down Martin's face. "I don't see any movement. You're paralyzed."

"That's right," Barbara nodded. "I see an automobile hit a wall and I hear a terrible crash. It's a car accident and you're pinned inside. That accident has left you paralyzed."

After verifying that Barbara had been paralyzed as a result of a car accident (she had been lifted from her wheelchair and seated behind the desk for Martin's reading), Dr. Jampolsky suggested that the psychic describe Barbara's personality traits.

"She has a lot of tension, a tremendous amount of stress," Martin said. "Barbara's personality is introverted and she's inclined to hold anger within herself."

A personality profile that Barbara had filled out prior to the experiment matched this description.

Martin then went on to point out a hearing problem.

Barbara nodded, explaining to the doctors that she had once had a mastoid infection.

"It affected your balance, didn't it?" Martin asked, and then continued without waiting for an answer. "I see you listing to the left."

"Yes, that happened when I was a child., Barbara answered. "I couldn't walk without holding on to something because I'd fall to the left side. The infection was in my left ear. I still have some hearing difficulty."

ANNETTE MARTIN has no medical background whatsoever. The information comes to her, she says, by way of Edgar Cayce, a world famous medium who died in 1945. "Mr. Cayce first appeared to me in 1970," Martin explains. "He introduced himself and said he'd help me to help other people. Two friends who were with me and my husband at the time heard nothing but saw the indentation of a hand pressing down on the fabric of my blouse at the shoulder where he touched me.

Since this time, "Mr. Cayce" (Martin says he's very formal and always wears a dark suit) has appeared many times, enabling the medium to assist scores of people with their medical problems.

THIS MAY OCCUR at the request of a patient or doctor or spontaneously. Once while attending a luncheon, Mrs. Martin caught a passing stranger by the hand. "You are in deep trouble," she informed the astonished woman who later introduced herself as Irene Rutger.

"I see a white spot like a big seed. Go to the doctor right away," Mrs. Martin told Mrs. Rutger.

Later Mrs. Rutger informed the medium that a cyst as large as a walnut had been removed from her diaphragm. The cyst showed up in the X-rays as a large white spot.

Not everyone is this fortunate. "Some can't be helped," Mrs. Martin admits. "I can tell by the aura of cancer patients whether they are going to make it or not. A brown aura indicates that the cancer is remissible, gray does not."

Mrs. Martin has no reluctance to tell what she sees. "That's why they come to me," she says. "If they know they are not going to recover, they can begin to prepare themselves, get their act together, mend fences, etc."

The medium's abilities have affected her own life as well.

AN OPERA SINGER, she once noticed a newspaper ad announcing auditions for a musical. Although she and a date had arrived a short time earlier at a part, she left the date and party and took a cab to the theater.

As she walked into the theater, Annette noticed a man standing in the foyer. "That's the man you are going to marry," a voice within her announced. Mrs. Martin says she wasn't pleased with the message. "In fact, when the words were repeated, I said aloud, "like hell."

"Somebody apparently knew better. It took two years, but we were finally married," she says.

Mrs. Martin believes that abilities such as hers can be taught. She now teaches classes at the San Andreas Health Council in Palo Alto, CA and the Center for Attitudinal Healing in Tiburon, CA.

Some day, she says, such classes will be part of the school system. "We will be teaching children how to become more aware of themselves," she says.

"Think how helpful this will be. So many people don't know what they want or who they are - many never find out. How much better it would be if they developed intuitional abilities during childhood."

Peninsula Profiles

By Karen Caesar

She seems normal enough. Attractive, fortyish, the mother of two teenage boys: a casual acquaintance would never believer that she has talked psychically to a dog, believes unquestioningly in reincarnation and communicated with the dead. Yet this is all in a day's work for Annette Martin. She is a professional psychic counselor.

Annette doesn't go in for any of the shtick that plagues the psychic profession. Her Palo Alto office could belong to an accountant; it has no crystal balls, no incense, no candles. And while she will do psychic reading for anyone who will pay (they are $50 an hour) she has also worked with the police in helping to find lost children.

"It's a natural thing," she says with a smile. "It's in the genes I inherited from my mother's mother, who was card reader. My father's mother's sister was a cloistered nun in France who was an extremely strong clairvoyant." Even her sons, 15 and 17, show psychic ability.

"Everybody is psychic, everybody has six sense, every child that comes into the world is aware, but through the exposure he gets, that awareness is closed down."

Annette herself was clearly a very different child. At the age of seven she had a premonition that the friends she was playing with would suddenly turn on her and try to kill her. Ten minutes later, it came true. Bruised and bleeding, Annette was rescued by her grandmother. Her friends had stoned her.

Annette offers special workshops through the San Andreas Health Council to help children develop their psychic powers.

About half of her work is medical diagnosing. She had worked with several Bay Area psychiatrist and psychologists. "They send me their patients. Some of these people have spent thousands and thousand of dollars at doctors and the doctors don't know what's wrong with them. As a last resort, people will come to a psychic or a healer. I see things that perhaps a doctor doesn't see."

During a reading, she sits facing the client with her eyes closed, a pencil and a pad of paper in her lap in case she receives information that must be written down. She concentrates very hard.

"Has she ever given an inaccurate reading? "No," she says without hesitation. "I never worry about whether the reading is accurate…" Because she wants the public to believe in the legitimacy of her business. Annette is compiling the questionnaires she requires from her clients into a book.

"I'm doing research on my own clients and getting feedback from them on my own accuracy, seeing if it (the reading) has helped them, how they feel right now, if they feel changed.

"The documents will all be published for the average person or housewife to show them this is a very valid type of counseling that is not spooky or spiritual…"