Sylvia Browne told Amanda Berry ‘s mother that the missing Cleveland girl was dead, and it appears a grieving Louwana Miller went to her grave, never learning that her daughter was indeed living and being held captive all the years she was gone.
After Amanda Berry was found alive and years after the death of her mother — attributed in part to Miller’s distress over Berry’s abduction — Sylvia Browne came under fire for her smug insistence back in 2004 that Amanda was murdered.
That year, Sylvia Browne met Louwana Miller when both women appeared on The Montel Williams Show, where the “psychic” was a frequent guest.
Browne informed Miller that she’d had a vision of Amanda Berry’s murder, telling the frightened and distraught mother who asked if Brown was “ever wrong” in her predictions:
“She’s not alive, honey. Your daughter’s not the kind who wouldn’t call … Only God is right all the time but of course I’m wrong. But after 50 years of doing this work, I’d better be more right than wrong. I always say I hope I’m wrong. When it comes to this, I hope I’m wrong.”
While Browne has long been decried by skeptics as the worst kind of huckster, preying on the grieving in their darkest hours, Miller appears to have taken the prediction to heart — even disposing of Berry’s belongings after the Montel appearance.
Miller later said:
“Please don’t misunderstand me … I still don’t want to believe it. I want to have hope but, after a year and a half, what else is there? It seems like the God-honest truth. My daughter would always call home.”
Two years later, Miller died of pancreatitis at the age of 43.
Last night on Facebook, Sylvia Browne again defended her frightening and untrue prediction to Amanda Berry’s mother back in 2004, saying in a status update:
“As I stated earlier, I am so relieved that Amanda Berry and the other women have been found and are safe with their families. Of course I do feel very bad telling Amanda’s mother on the show that I believed her daughter was not alive, and I’m so so glad that I was wrong. I had a vision of her being held underwater, but I had interpreted it to have a different meaning. She was not being held under water but was being held down.”
In a separate statement, Sylvia Browne wished the victims and families “a peaceful recovery.”
