The Psychic Who Solved Murders The FBI Couldn’t - John Edward & Robert Hilland

0:03When did making plans get this complicated? It's time to streamline with WhatsApp. The secure messaging app that brings the whole group together. Use polls to settle dinner plans. Send event invites and pin messages so no one forgets mom's 60th. And never miss a meme or milestone. All protected with end-to-end encryption. It's time for WhatsApp. Message privately with everyone. Learn more at whatsapp.com. You're about to make a trade. Which you do you listen to? Is it get optioning those options? or let's do a little research. Learn more at finro.org slash trade smart. When it comes to what your family eats and drinks, you know your choices matter.

0:49You're the expert because you know what fits your life. And getting it right starts with good information. That's why America's beverage companies are sharing more information about our ingredients at goodtoknowfacts.org. No spin, no judgments. Just the facts straight from the experts for more than 140 beverage ingredients. Visit goodtoknowfacts.org.

1:18We're joined by psychic medium John Edward and FBI agent Bob Hilland to talk about their new book, Chasing Evil. John and Bob share the story of their unlikely partnership. how a skeptic and a medium came together to work on cold cases, including the chilling John Smith murders. We explore the skepticism, the trust that developed, and the emotional toll of their work, as well as the spiritual side, messages from beyond, and the hope that justice can transcend the physical world. So listen, lots to unpack here. I know John Edward, very long period of time, fellow Long Islander, consider him a personal friend, and I'm a believer in John Edward.

2:00And so I know there's a lot of skeptics out there. You never met a skeptic like Bob Hillen, though. My God. I mean, this guy, I don't know. You'll watch this interview, and the first thing you say to yourself, how the hell does this guy believe in John Edwards' capability to help him solve a murder? But then you listen to the story, and the story is truly fascinating. It reveals things about our personalities, trust, spirituality, the seeking of justice, which I think most of us, or almost all of us as human beings, really wants. But what I love most about this book and what I love about John Edward himself, he likes helping people, but he also likes challenging our ideas about what's possible.

2:38Let's get into it.

2:44Welcome to Open Book. I am your host, Anthony Scaramucci. Joining us now is a very dear friend of mine and a dear friend of his. This is John Edward, the internationally acclaimed psychic medium, and Robert Hiller, who's a former FBI special agent. Title of the book, which is now a New York Times bestseller, international bestseller, Chasing Evil, Shocking Crime, Supernatural Forces, and an FBI agent's search for hope and justice. So first of all, the book is absolutely amazing. It reads in so many ways like a crime thriller. There's so many interesting stories in the book, and there's so many different things that you guys do to solve these crimes.

3:28But guys, let's just start right there. Let's start about your relationship, because John Edward, who is a very close friend of mine, told me that you weren't buying it, Bob Hillen. You were not buying the John Edward that I know, which has this extra natural sense for picking up things. So can we start there, Bob? Tell us a little bit about that. Yeah, I mean, I think you nailed it. I heard him on the radio. Back then, it was a radio station in New York City. It was very popular. He came on, would do what he does and take calls from people and claim that he had the ability to connect with their past loved ones.

4:03And I thought it was silliness. I thought it was ridiculous. And I would change the radio station. This happened two or three times. And then finally, it prompted me to call his office, right? I mean, I worked at the time in the FBI New York field office on a cold case homicide squad. We had many, many cases. And so I brought a particular case to him in which all the leads, witnesses and suspects had been exhausted. And I figured he would either reveal himself as a con or he would prove himself to be of value. And the latter happened. OK, so set the scene for us, Mr. John Edward. word. You're getting a call from now the FBI, and we've got, unfortunately, murders, people doing very evil things to each other.

4:48So this is where I say I have to give credit to where credit's due, and my assistant at the time gave me a sense of urgency with this, and Bob and I only discovered while we were promoting this book what that sense of urgency actually was. I made a joke at one of our events, and I was like, this guy kept calling my office, but I had no choice but to say, you know, yes. And, um, you know, I said it just jokingly and Bob being Bob went, I called you once. So after that moment, I was like, you only called me once. And he goes, I only called you once. So this was definitely meant to be, um, my assistant got him in and I treated it like I would treat any other client that's coming to me, you know, for whatever the reasons they're coming to me.

5:27I never know why someone's coming to me. Um, I didn't know why Bob was coming. Um, he came with a police officer adjacent to a case that he, you know, was coming to me with. And, um, we, I did my thing. Uh, he brought me evidence bags that were connected to the case. There's something called psychometry that when I work with somebody, I can hold onto like an object of theirs and pick up energy from those objects. And sometimes I use that as a tool to connect with my client. In this case, I was using it as a tool to connect with the case. okay so bob i gotta ask you as i was dying to ask you this since i finished the book it's 1998 you're shutting off the radio bob right right john upwards is coming on click the radio goes off yeah what catalyzes you sir to show up with the evidence back well to be honest it bothered me right um i i my initial impression was he was taking advantage of people who who were going through the grieving process.

6:26And I had a visceral response to it. And I had to figure this out myself. So I was prompted by my own curiosity, partly. And like I said, he was either going to reveal himself or he was going to be a value. And that was the premise by which I met him. I didn't know what to expect and that they profoundly changed the trajectory of my career and potentially my life. Okay. But John said something to you that I'm going to say to you about John. He said that your relationship with him was meant to be. Did you just not say that? I did. And I believe my relationship with John was also meant to be. I believe that someone from the other side, I'm getting goosebumps now as I say this, put me in touch with John.

7:13And John and I reached out to each other through direct messaging, I think on X or Twitter, And then we ended up having dinner and I realized, wait a minute, wow, we grew up very similarly. We're way more in common spiritually than you would first think in the first glance. And do you feel that way now, sir, as well? Well, now looking back, I think that's without question. The circumstances have brought us together and then what unfolded over those next almost 30 years now, it cannot be denied. He has broadened my perspective on everything from my faith to my spirituality to my understanding of why we're here.

7:51So I think for me personally and professionally, this was destined to happen. This is why the book is so terrific. I want to go to the John Smith murders, which is basically the heart of the book. For audiences, could you remind us of those murders, sir? And then, John, take us through the chilling first meeting when you picked up, I think it was Fran's glasses. I think that was what happened. But take us, sir, to the murders. What happened, Bob, in the murders? And then, John, you tell us what happened when you grabbed the glasses. Yeah. So in October of 1991, a man by the name of John Smith came into a police department in Jersey, where I happened to be a young cop at the time.

8:30And he reported his wife, Betty Fran, missing. The circumstances surrounding her disappearance strongly indicated something nefarious happened to her, likely at his hands, but ultimately there was no body recover, lack of physical evidence. And as the investigators back then were going through that investigation, they learned that this same guy was married to another woman who disappeared the same way in 1974 in Ohio. So now all the law enforcement forces joined together to try to bring this case to fruition. There were agencies from Ohio, New Jersey, Connecticut, Florida. There were a lot of chefs in the soup.

9:05And unfortunately, it never materialized and it went cold. Cases go cold for a reason. It's not because the investigators are necessarily incompetent. They weren't. They ran everything to the ground. There was nothing there. I knew the case because I was a young cop there. And now fast forward to 97, I'm working in the FBI New York office on this homicide squad. I bump into the detective. I'd say, well, we'll take a look at it. And that was the case that I brought to John on that day. All right. So now we've got the evidence, John. You called it psychometric, I guess, right? Psychometry. Yeah.

9:43So there's two different types of psychometry. There's objective psychometry and subjective psychometry. If I'm sitting with you and I want to quickly tune into your energy, I might hold onto your watch or to your ring. And that gives me the key to unlock your energy. So in this case, I was doing objective psychometry based on the subject that once owned it. And I wasn't trying to make a connection with Betty Fran. I was trying to make a connection with the energy of the case. And I believe Bob will correct me, but I think there were like five legit evidence bags that he brought. And then he brought four like controls.

10:17He brought four bags that had articles from people in his office, right? Yeah. So his assistant told me to bring some artifacts or belongings of whoever this person was that I was looking for. In this case, it was Fran. So that day I went around my office to four different women. I asked, you know, hey, Susie, can I borrow your necklace, Sally? So I got four control items and I put them among the items that he read that day. and then when I you know started doing my thing um when I picked up whether it would be Fran's glasses whatever I started to connect with the energy of what was going on and just like if I was working with you or anybody else for a regular regular reading whatever I see here and feel I start to describe but in this case I knew he was coming to me for something that had a like a criminal you know backdrop so that was the bias that I kind of brought to it so I was giving him whatever it was that I was seeing, hearing, and feeling.

11:14Subsequently, he said, you know, I've heard you on the radio. If I put you on the phone with the victim's family, is that going to be helpful? It could be. Sure, let's try. So he put me on the phone with Fran's daughter, and I did not get anything from Fran's daughter. And in hindsight, I think it's because I already had the bias now of the information that was in front of me. So like I kind of maybe got in my own way, even if she was attempting to come through. But I wound up making a connection with Bob and I made a connection with his family, bringing information that he could validate in the room and then subsequently information that he had to validate by talking to family members when he left.

11:53I mean, it's incredible. Okay. So now he's tuning you into his frequency. Yeah. And now you have to act on it, sir. So go ahead. What are the steps that you take? Well, in that very first meaning the information was so specific and singular. He asked us whose name was Michael. Michael happened to be the younger brother of John Smith. John said, Michael holds the key to the information you're seeking. And that aligned with some of the comments that I had learned from detectives earlier that they had suspicions about Michael. But John emphatically said, hey, Michael holds the information you're seeking.

12:26But moreover, John also, he was rather perplexed and he didn't understand why we were there. He described a body on the side of a road. He described it in detail. He said there were a line of police cars. He described the box. He described the newspaper article. And I had no idea, nor did the detective at the time, what he was referring to. And then he had this realization. He said, oh, this man that you're looking at, he has killed other women. You just haven't made the connection yet. So that was new to me. But to your question, Anthony, ultimately, we focused efforts on, oh, by the way, You know, one thing we've never talked about on another podcast, John, is at the time I came to speak to you, we didn't know where John Smith was because he had run off the radar around, I think it was 96 or 97 the last time anybody had eyes on him, he evaporated.

13:16And that day you told us he's West, like he's in California. So I focused efforts. Number one, we had to identify his location, get his pattern of life down, what's going on in his life, but also try to figure out how we get Michael to do the right thing. And that's what we did. So we put together a strategy. Michael came forward, explained what happened. And as a result of what Michael told us, we focused efforts on finding the spots, which contained the remains of John Smith's first swipe by the name of Janice. And once we connected those dots, the case came together. He was charged and convicted for that case.

13:52Okay. So, I mean, so I want to talk, because you said something about energy and spirituality, and you said, Bob, that John Edward has changed your energy, spirituality, connection to your faith. Yeah. And so tell us how, because this is, I mean, when I, first of all, I knew all that about John Edward before I read the book, okay? Because he connected with me in a way that is beyond the temporal. Right. So I already got that. But you were a bigger skeptic, frankly, than me, I think. So go ahead. Tell me about the bomb that went off in your head. Well, it felt like cracks in the dam for me, right?

14:33That's the best analogy I can give you. So to your question, how does it change me? I think when we're young, you see the world rather black and white. And I was one of those guys that it was easy for me to put people in categories. And my faith, I grew up in church. And God is on mission. He sees everything. You follow the rules. You read the Bible, you do right, and you do right and you follow it, you're going to go upstairs. If not, you're going to go to a bad place. That was my worldly perspective on God and Jesus and faith. And John helped me to understand while all those things are true, there is more to understand than just that.

15:09And I think although I did have faith and strongly believed that this life is the beginning of what's to come, Um, my experience with John over those 30 years, um, galvanized that for me. I have no doubt, no question that this is the opening act for what's to come. No doubt about this. So, so John, you've, you've told me this story and I want you to regale it to my viewers and listeners, if you don't mind. Sure. So you got raised by your aunts and your mom. Yep. and some of your dead relatives you were in contact with at like the age of what 11 12 13 how old were you so in in in hindsight my journey began in this world at the age of 15 my mom and dad had divorced uh when i was 12 i moved into my grandmother's house my mom was one of 11 um so you know we had lots of people in grandma's house so i had a lot of matriarch energy i had my grandmother my mother and like i said you know a whole bunch of aunts that kind of were like in that energy for me.

16:11My dad being a New York City police officer, a career military guy, not a big fan of the whole esoteric metaphysical. Pretty black and white, didn't want me around the subject matter, which was fine up until I moved it to my grandmother's house. And in hindsight, after I started developing at 15, 16, 17, I started going over my past and thinking about certain things that I was told I had a vivid imagination and that my dreams were like movies when I recounted them. And some of the experiences in school that I had had were all now, I could reframe them from a metaphysical standpoint, where before I just thought that was a coincidence or that was funny or, you know, that teacher accused me of lying when it wasn't so.

16:58And small little things I can now go back and redefine psychically. And one of them was seeing my grandfather, who I had never met in this lifetime. He had appeared to me a number of times as a kid. And I used to jokingly refer to him when I dreamt of him as my little old man friend. So my mom and my grandmother would be like, hey, have you heard from your little old man friend? And I went, no, not in a while. So this is for you, sir. Bob, tell me the most surreal, most improbable moment. You've worked together for 25 years. You've solved, I mean, that was a huge case, but you've solved many other case is large and small, but what's the most surreal or improbable moment with John?

17:40Can I go first? Wait, can I go first? Yeah. All right. Let John go first. I don't think it has to do with me. I think the most surreal has to do with Bob directly, which to me is the coolest part of our connection. And that would be the perfume. Oh, oh, yeah. So what he's referring to is, you know, when you hang around with John for a while, you start to experience things. And sometimes you think you're losing your mind. At least I did, right? And I will forever be a skeptic, right? Even since the release of the book, things happen, and I challenge him on it. But, you know, the point of the story is while I was pursuing trying to find Fran after John Smith was convicted, I searched extensively and exhaustively for her at righteous locations.

18:30And one night in particular, this incredibly strong smell of perfume was overwhelming. I had another agent with me and it was almost like if you've ever been around an older woman who wears too much perfume, it was like that. It took your breath away. Fast forward the story. It went away. after we walked past this particular location, and we both thought that was odd. I'm trying to do the math in my head, and I call her family, and I learned that Fran wore perfume. She was a secret smoker, so to cover up the smell of cigarettes, she would wear perfume and mints and stuff like that. And I would ask, was there a kind of perfume she would wear?

19:07Only one. It was called opium. And anyway, one night I'm in this hotel room, and I was watching Monday Night Football, And I know people in the haters are going to say, Bob has lost his mind. But I'm about to tell you it's true. And I don't think we've talked about this on a podcast. It's in the book. But I just got done saying goodnight to my wife and my kids. I'm in this hotel room. And you know that moment where you're not asleep yet, but you're not awake? You're like in between? Yeah, sure. It felt like somebody just took their fingers and went through my head. And it startled me so much that I jumped up in bed and my heart was pounding.

19:41Like somebody just touched me. and the inside my hotel room was filled with this incredible smell of perfume. And I was scared, right? I thought, okay, I'm losing my mind now. And I don't have perfume. I've got aftershave and I'm looking. I go out in the hallway to the hotel. It's not there. I come back in and there it is. And then over the course of those years, that perfume smell would come up at certain points. And I didn't know what to make of it. And John would reassure me that's Fran letting you know that she's there, she's around. But the other point I would make to you, to your question, for me, one of the most surreal moments was the case that we opened the book up with, with this missing boy, this little five-year-old boy.

20:25Out of all the cases we worked, that night, John was on fire. He said, you must go out there now. And it's midnight. And I'm going to go to the parents of this boy and not get jammed up for this. But he was insistent. You walked right over him. I mean, you walked right over him. And it felt like that game when you're a kid, you're getting warmer, you're getting colder. And he gave me things to look for. And because of his direction, we found this little boy. So that was one of them. But you're right. The perfume thing was, I was kind of embarrassed to tell that story. But that happened. And to this day, I can't make sense of that.

20:58And what I love about the story, Anthony, is that Bob's Bob, right? So he's Bob with me, but he's Bob with himself. I mean, he's Bob. He's Bob, right? As soon as you guys came into this Zoom call, I was like, all right, I get Bob's aura here. Bob is a no bullshit guy, man. Bob is like, I don't believe any of this shit, which is exactly why he got stuck with you. You understand what I'm saying? To light him up. I actually like to refer him as the B.O.B. I feel like he's his own agency. He's the B.O.B. And he did his own thing to himself. He went to a department store and wanted to see if the smell he was smelling was actually opium and put himself through a test.

21:35He had the person behind the counter put three or four perfumes out and he went through the different smells without seeing which one it was to see if he could smell the perfume that he smelled a number of times before, which was indeed opium. And it was right, Bob. Yeah, I went, as he said, it was around the holidays and this young girl, she thought I was buying perfume and she put these out and I said, do you have this perfume? She said, yeah. And I said, there's other ones that are similar. She says, yeah. I said, well, pick three or four. We did. She thought I was, I don't know, playing a game or something.

22:03And the first two didn't smell like I remember. But as soon as I lifted that little paper strip to my nose, all the hairs on my arms stood up. It was the same perfume I smelled. There was no doubt about it. See, when I read the book, I don't know if other people would say this to you, but I felt emotionally drained in the book. Because you've got suspense going on. You're finding people. You're solving murders. you're resolving cold cases. But I guess the question I had, and I wrote this down in the margin of the book, were there emotionally difficult moments for the both of you going through these cases?

22:47And if so, what was that like? I'll let John take it first. So I'm going to give you two answers, Anthony. First of all, when I do the work that I do, I'm in a zone of being somewhat sterile and surgical of delivering information. And 95 % of the time, if not 99 % of the time, I'm going to stay in that moment and then be able to detach. The understanding from an esoteric metaphysical standpoint is the moon astrologically represents your emotion. My moon is in the sign of Aquarius. Aquarians have the ability to detach and be somewhat like Spock from Star Trek, like void of emotion. Like we can kind of switch that switch off and then just focus on the data, the information, the experience.

23:35Bob has his sun sign in the sign of Aquarius. So it's like the opposite luminary. Mine's moon, his sun, same ability. He could be sterile. He could be investigatory. He could be surgical. He's going to be precise and he's going to look at evidence and facts in an objective way. I could say for me, in all of the cases that we worked on, the only one that really rocked me to my core was the boy, was Noah. But it resolved favorably. That's the one that resolved favorably though, right? As favorably with a negative outcome as you can say. But yeah, he unfortunately, you know, is no longer with us.

24:13But that experience was, from a parental standpoint, the one that I think gave me the emotional urgency as a dad. Bob, what about you? Yeah, I would echo what John said, right? I think, and you probably know from your own experience, when you're doing your job, you're doing your job, right? You focus on the objective, on the goal, and you kind of compartmentalize the bad things, right? It doesn't mean that they don't hurt or they're not painful, but in writing the book, I think it felt like a former athlete that's watching their old game film, like, wow, we did a lot. So there was a lot of that that happened.

24:50And I also, you know, part of this, and I've said this repeatedly, there's a sacrifice to this. John went through with his life and his family time away. A lot of sacrifice from my kids and my wife. So this is an homage to them as well, right? So I felt emotions about that because I remember all the time it stole from my family. I mean, I was trained. And I can see how you guys were trained. You know, there's a big component of this book around trust, Bob. Yeah. When did you make the decision to completely trust John and sort of the psychic instincts that John had? That's a great question. I can tell you that it kind of happened over time, right?

25:33I think we were both skeptical of each other in the beginning. And I'm the kind of guy, if I don't understand something, I need to go back and ask more questions. And that's what kind of forged me going back to him. But I could not deny that the things that he told me had value in these investigations. But I think for me, he was genuine. He cared, honestly. He never asked for anything except anonymity. And so over time, that just came about. And I trust him with my life. He's a brother to me now. He's the brother I'd never had. Listen, I feel the same way about him. And hopefully I'll have the opportunity to build a relationship with you, Bob.

26:12But I want to ask John something not 100 % related to the book, but sort of related. You know, I lost my dad a few years ago, and I said to John, Bob, I said, is he okay? He said, yeah, he's totally okay. I'm more worried about the people here than the people that have crossed over. And so this is a very uplifting message that I would love to have you, if you don't mind, John, share with our viewers and listeners. Sure. I, in the 40 now years, this is my 40th year of doing this. The one thing I could emphatically deliver to people is that those who have crossed over are okay. I'm not really concerned about them.