PSYCHIC’S TIP LEADS TO FUTILE SEARCH FOR MASS GRAVES AND SUBSEQUENT LAWSUIT

An East Texas sheriff’s department, relying on the word of a psychic, dug up the property of an innocent couple, thereby casting a cloud of suspicion on the pair. And to make matters worse, the sheriff department’s action set off a worldwide media frenzy.

LIBERTY COUPLE FILES SUIT OVER FALSE REPORTS OF MASS GRAVES
By Mike Tolson

Houston Chronicle
June 8, 2012

A tip from a purported psychic that led to a search for a mass grave at a Liberty County home and a subsequent media frenzy that reached all the way to Australia have prompted a lawsuit by the couple who lived on the property.

Joe Bankson and Gena Charlton have filed a lawsuit against the Liberty County Sheriff's Office, the woman who first called in with a tip, and a number of media outlets that allegedly reported that dozens of bodies, including those of children, had been discovered without confirmation.

There was no merit to the tip. By the next morning, news reports focused on how local sheriff's deputies had been led on a wild goose chase. But attorney Andrew Sommerman said the damage had already been done.

"They could not go home again," Sommerman said of the couple. "Legally, they could, of course. But if something is said about you, even if it's taken back later, people look at you with suspicion or with a cloud over your head."

Sommerman, who filed the suit Tuesday in state district court in Dallas, said the couple's long-haul trucking business was damaged by the reports linking them to a potential crime.

"The media owes a duty to the public to make sure that what they report is true," Sommerman said. "One of the things that scares me is that information is coming out so quickly. It's all about beating a deadline, being the first to get something out. It's only an excuse to say we don't have time to investigate."

Besides the sheriff's office, defendants include the "Jane Doe" tipster, Houston television station KPRC, CNN, ABC News, the New York Times, the Thompson Reuters news service, and Dallas-based Belo Corp., which owns a number of broadcast outlets.

The suit alleges negligence and defamation on the part of the woman who called with the tip and charges the media defendants with defamation. It accused the sheriff's department of negligence in alerting the news media about the report and in the way it conducted its investigation.

Liberty County Attorney Wesley Hinch was unable to be reached for comment about the lawsuit, which asks for unspecified damage.

Early broadcast and Internet reports concerning the June 7, 2011, incident included some that said bodies had been found, Sommerman said. He said he sued some media outlets and not others because only a small number were responsible for the premature reports of bodies - reports that echoed across the globe.

As for the New York Times, the only print outlet sued, Sommerman said it was named because of the wording of its Twitter messages.