Murdered man's family turns to psychic
Thu Jul 5 2012
By Sarah Harris
Nine News
"I know it sounds horrible, but I need to know if he suffered. I don't know if he's in pieces. Or if he's whole. I don't know."
Whenever Faye Leveson talks about her missing son Matthew, it's with heart-wrenching resignation. She knows he's dead.
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Faye walks close to her husband Mark, who's carrying a shovel in one hand and a pick axe in the other. They hope today is the day they finally find their son's body.
Debbie Malone — a psychic — is up ahead, pushing through the undergrowth towards the putrid stink of mangrove mudflats.
"Matthew showed me he had trees, above him... lantana," she says.
Debbie believes Matthew's body is buried somewhere here. And although she has never met Matthew, she says she speaks to him often.
"When I tune into people, I see things through their eyes. Sometimes I'm the victim and I'll see what happened to them. It's like watching television; I can watch it through the perpetrators' eyes as well."
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Matthew disappeared on September 23, 2007, after a night out in the inner-Sydney suburb of Surry Hills.
Security cameras captured the call centre worker leaving nightclub ARQ with his then boyfriend Michael Peter Atkins around 2am. It was the last time the 20-year-old was seen alive.
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Police charged Michael Peter Atkins with murder, shortly after Matthew disappeared but he was acquitted at trial.
The Levesons are sensible, hard-working folk who run their own accounting business in picturesque Bonnet Bay.
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"I wouldn't say I was a skeptic, but I wasn't a believer," Mark confesses.
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Critics have been less kind to Debbie Malone, accusing her of preying on the weak and vulnerable to make a quick buck.
I put it to her that perhaps she is giving grieving families false hope.
"I understand how people would think that," Debbie sighs, "but the way I look at it, I've been given this gift.
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Back at Kurnell, our search for Matthew's body has proven unsuccessful.
Yet Debbie is convinced the police should focus their investigation here.
I ask Faye whether she feels this has been a waste of time and whether she's placed too much hope in Debbie Malone.
"Yeah Debbie hasn't found Matt.... yet. But it doesn't mean she's not going to find him."
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