By late May 2006, Reggie had been missing for almost six months. During those months, members of our family looked for answers in many different places.

Earlier that year, Reggie’s first cousin Tim, who had been a close friend of Reggie’s and had experienced some of the same problems, died suddenly in Alberta. A woman who had been living with Tim later consulted a psychic and was told that Tim was with his cousins Mike and Reggie and that they were happy. Mike, another cousin, had been killed in Montreal in 1993 in circumstances connected with the drug trade.

Around the same period, our cousin Debbie, who was working in Bermuda, contacted The Guardian about Reggie’s disappearance. The resulting newspaper coverage in late May brought renewed public attention to the search.

A few days after Reggie’s car was discovered, my parents consulted Rev. Barry King. They made notes of what he told them during the May 28, 2006 reading.

What follows first is their record of the reading, followed by my father’s own account of the experience.

Reading by Rev. Barry King

Reg is happy—in the spirit world. … He has things to do to help us get closure. … He never knew there was such a place (where he is now). … Reg has a great sense of humor—very mischievous. … He did not leave here (PEI), because everything he loves is here. … was running into walls (obstacles). … he was not happy with the way he was … but didn’t seem able to change … didn’t like the way people thought of him … is happy now and at peace.

… Police are looking in the right area, but haven’t gone far enough. … He is in the woods. He sat down under a tree and went to sleep. … Sees a hollow area around a tree (evergreen)—lots of underbrush. … he will be found soon.

… Family—has a daughter, son, and another child (possibly a miscarriage). There is a separation/divorce?? … a lot of unresolved issues around that.

My Father’s Account

We had taken a picture of Reggie with us. He squeezed it, and all the time he held it against his side and kept rubbing it.

He said he did not know much about the case, only what he had heard on the radio. He started by telling us about himself and where his psychic powers came from. He had been at it for about 30 years and said he worked quite a bit with the police.

He asked if we remembered the case of a young man who had drowned the previous winter. He said that he could see him in the water.

He had just convinced me to take notice. He then started to talk about Reggie.

He said Reggie was up above and was very happy. He could not imagine that the things he had so many problems with on Earth were now so easy to accomplish. He was trying to help us find him.

He said it was going to be by nature—birds. The searchers were looking in the right area, but the wrong place. They should be on the other side of the road.

They were not going to find him right away, but soon.

He said Reggie had started to walk out the road. He figured he had walked about 20 to 25 minutes, was mixed up, tired and cold, and sat down by a tree. There was an overhang on the tree.

I asked him if it was hardwood or softwood.

He said, “Softwood.”

And, as we now know, he was right.

We continued to talk about various things. Helen, still skeptical, asked him about Reggie’s family. He said there were a boy and a girl, and he could have another child, probably a miscarriage.

That was true, and both of us had totally forgotten about it.

That totally sealed our convictions about the psychic.

Our visit to him was worth its weight in gold. I saw Helen leave there smiling, and it was the first time she had smiled in many months.

The searchers found another piece of bone and decided to take a few days off. It was hard going

Looking Back

I was skeptical about psychics and discouraged my parents from consulting them. At the same time, they were going through an extraordinarily difficult period, and I respected and supported their decision to look for answers wherever they felt they might find them.

Some of what Barry King said struck my parents as remarkably close to information that was known or later discovered during the search. Other statements were more general, and we cannot now establish exactly what information he may have encountered before meeting them.

I don’t present this reading as evidence of what happened to Reggie, nor did the experience change my own skepticism. I have included it because it became part of our family’s experience of the search and because it clearly meant a great deal to my parents.

For my father, the reading strengthened his belief that they were searching in the right general area. For my mother, its immediate importance may have been much simpler. After months of not knowing what had happened to her son, she left the meeting smiling.