NandoTimes

Politics: Georgia lawmaker claims psychic contact with Chandra Levy

The Associated Press

ATLANTA (September 5, 2001 2:03 p.m. EDT) - During a morning devotional message, a Georgia state legislator told her House colleagues that she has psychic abilities and has been "visited" by missing intern Chandra Levy.

Rep. Dorothy B. Pelote told fellow lawmakers that she can communicate with the dead.

"The last person who visited me was - I don't know if I need to call her name," the Savannah Democrat said from the speaker's rostrum. "Maybe I should not, because it's a controversial death now. She's missing. You know who I'm talking about. She has visited me. She has."

Pelote did not mention Levy's name on the House floor but confirmed later to The Macon Telegraph that she was referring to the 24-year-old California woman who has been missing since April 30.

Pelote, a former teacher elected in 1992, told lawmakers her psychic experiences began after she nearly drowned as a child. She had a vision of a bright fireball in the sky and later began having visions of dead people, she said.

"And the older I get, the stronger it becomes," Pelote said.

-- Anonymous, September 05, 2001

Answers

Macon Telegraph

Georgia lawmaker has vision of Chandra Levy

By Don Schanche Jr. Telegraph Staff Writer

ATLANTA - The spirit of Chandra Levy ventured into the Georgia legislature's special redistricting session Tuesday when a lawmaker hinted to her colleagues that she had had a psychic vision of the missing woman.

"I want you to know that I can prophesy. I can communicate with the dead," state Rep. Dorothy Pelote, D-Savannah, said while standing at the podium of the House, delivering the House's daily devotional message.

"The last person who visited me was - I don't know if I need to call her name. Maybe I should not, because it's a controversial death now. She's missing. You know who I'm talking about. She has visited me. She has."

After leaving the podium, Pelote confirmed she was talking about Levy, the 24-year-old Washington, D.C., intern whose disappearance last April has sparked a national scandal because of her links to U.S. Rep. Gary Condit of California.

"She really didn't say anything. I saw her. She came," Pelote said in an interview. "When I saw her, she was lying in a ditch and her eyes was closed. She was in a wooded area in a ditch."

Pelote offered no other details of her vision.

She told her House colleagues that her psychic experiences began in her childhood after she was brought back from near death in an accidental drowning. She had a vision of a bright fireball turning in the sky.

Later, she said, she had visions of the dead.

"And the older I get, the stronger it becomes," she said.

Pelote described a recent visitation from a woman who died by violence.

"I have never seen her in life on this earth, but she visited me," Pelote said. "And I was so upset I called around to find her family. ... Well, this person, deceased, wanted me to know what had happened to her, and the family wanted me to come and communicate with detectives."

Pelote said the experience was so disturbing to her and her family that she declined.

The Savannah lawmaker, a retired teacher in the Savannah-Chatham County school system, has served in the House since 1992. She is a former Chatham County commissioner and belongs to the African Methodist Episcopal Church. She said her spiritual gift may or may not be part of church tradition, but she believes it is real.

"I don't know if it's part of the Methodists, but God just gave it to me," she said.

Pelote is one of numerous House members who have been called by Speaker Tom Murphy to bring the daily devotional during the current special session.

Murphy said didn't hear Pelote's remarks very clearly and didn't have an opinion about them.

He said the House members have enjoyed hearing a variety of spiritual viewpoints from their colleagues. Ordinarily , the daily devotional is delivered by church ministers from the legislators' home districts. But Murphy chose to let the House members do it themselves during the special session because of the difficulty in coordinating with ministers on short notice.

"I think everybody's enjoyed the variety. I have not had a single complaint, not the first. I got a list that long of folks wanting to do it," Murphy said.

But he has declined one request.

"I've had a bunch of 'em ask me to do it," Murphy admitted. "I said I ain't no preacher."

- To contact Don Schanche Jr., call (912) 453-8308 or e-mail schanche@alltel.net.

-- Anonymous, September 05, 2001