'I haven't killed anybody': Home owner shocked after FBI, sniffer dogs and a helicopter scour his property in pointless hunt for 30 dead children...all on a tip from one VERY deluded psychic







Police followed tip because 'woman could describe interior of home'

Bemused property owner: 'I haven't helped anybody bury any bodies'

Blood on a door and foul odour led to search warrant

Detectives 'searched wrong house' on Monday, returned on Tuesday

Authorities, armed with tipsters name and number, are hunting her down



The man whose property was at the centre of a massive - but utterly pointless - FBI and police hunt for 30 dead children has told reporters he is 'no killer'.

The home of Joe and Gena Bankson was raided by FBI agents, 15 car loads of local police, sniffer dogs and a helicopter last night - all acting on the tip of a local psychic the couple later referred to as 'mentally unstable'.



Earlier in the day, investigators had found blood and a 'foul odour' at the Hardin house where the 'psychic' woman claimed the dismembered remains of dozens of children were buried.



But while news teams gathered to report the shocking discovery, it emerged the 'odour' was rotting garbage, the blood belonged to a family friend's failed suicide attempt and the 'psychic' tipster was - unsurprisingly - wrong.

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Fruitless: Quiet Liberty County became the scene of a huge search before officers abandoned their investigation

Hunt: Police began searching the Texas property for a mass grave after a psychic tipped them off

Speaking to the New York Times Gena Bankson, a long-haul truck driver who has lived in the house with her husband for about four years, said that she believed the caller was a woman she knows who is 'mentally unstable.'



TIME LINE OF BUNGLED SEARCH

Monday afternoon - Tipster calls local police to say a number of bodies buried at the home.

Monday evening - Police investigate, but find nothing.

Tuesday morning - Tipster calls back telling police they searched the wrong house.

Police re-search new house and find blood and foul smell.

Tuesday afternoon - Search warrant issued, police call FBI and launch full investigation.

Mr Bankson, who left the home on Sunday and is currently in Dallas, en route to Georgia with his wife, had insisted he had no idea why police were searching his house.

'I haven't killed anybody,' he said. 'And I have a lot of friends, but I haven't helped anybody bury any bodies.

Bankson told the KHOU-TV that his daughter's ex-boyfriend got drunk and cut his wrists a couple weeks ago and is now in a psychiatric hospital.

'It took me all day to clean the inside of the house. I'm not sure I got it (the blood) all.'

T rucker Joe Bankson told the Houston Chronicle that his son Joe is a convicted sex offender, but said he hadn't lived in their home for more than a year.

Speaking of his estranged son, Joe said: 'He lived with us for a little while, but had to go to Michigan about a year ago for a court appearance and never came back,' Bankson said.



'Last I heard, he was in Ohio.'

The female psychic had claimed that up to 30 dismembered bodies were buried at the Hardin home, with the majority of the corpses those of children.

After wasting hundreds of man hours and spending up to $1 million on the hunt, Liberty County Judge Craig McNair was then forced to admit last night: 'There's no crime scene.'

McNair and Captain Rex Evans, spokesman for the Liberty County Sheriff's Office, said the woman who twice called in the tip would be investigated for making a false report.

Asked if authorities thought the tip was a hoax, Evans said only that they had found no bodies or anything to indicate a homicide had occurred there.

Search: Police launched a search after finding blood and a foul odour coming from the home yesterday

Panic: To the bewilderment of the owner, police descended on the property to look for 30 buried bodies

Sweep: After a huge search police could find no evidence of a mass grave and blood that had been discovered at the home was attributed to a previous suicide attempt

Responding to a tip on Monday night, police investigated the house but turned up nothing.

The tipster then called back Tuesday morning to say deputies had the wrong house.

McNair said deputies found blood on a back door and detected a foul odour coming from the house, leading to the search warrant.

'We have to take tips like this very seriously,' McNair said.

Throughout yesterday evening there was much confusion about what officers had discovered at the scene.

Authorities said they took the tip seriously in part because the caller had details about the interior of the house that only someone who had seen it could have known.

Evans added: 'We are going to continue our investigation and find out how this individual had this information in the first place.

'At this time no bodies have been recovered. We have investigated this part of the scene as much as we can.'

Police are now working to determine how the woman had such detailed information on the house.

Evans said police are now hunting the woman to find out why she made the hoax call.

Investigators added they would wait to talk to the woman before deciding on whether to bring charges.

DO PSYCHICS REALLY WORK? WHY POLICE USE THEM AND WHO ARE THEY

Psychic detectives claim to be able to use the power of their mind to help police in their investigations.

Their purported powers include ability to see events that happened in the past (post-cognition), to 'read' information from inanimate objects (psychometry), and to be able to read minds (telepathy).

A 1993 survey found that out of 50 police forces in the United States, one third had accepted predictions from psychic detectives in the past.

Despite the apparently high number, only seven departments treated information gained from psychics differently to information from an ordinary source.

Several police departments, the FBI and other investigative organisations say that psychics have never demonstrably solved or prevented a crime.

Often psychics come forward offering their help to victim's families and their evidence is taken into consideration along with other elements of the case.

Recently the parents of missing Holly Bobo turned down an offer from renowned psychic Carla Baron for help in finding their missing daughter.



Homicide hoax: A cadaver dog leaves after the tip off was discredited



Nothing to see here: The authorities say they will contact the tipster about the graves claim

A Texas county sheriff's office said on there was no evidence that bodies had been found - after initially saying up to 30 corpses were discovered.

Reports suggested police were taking the matter seriously after human blood was found on the property.

But rather than being linked to a mass murder, it is thought the blood came from a suicide attempt at the property a few weeks ago.