Tina Resch

Tina Resch (pronounced "Resh"), born October 23, 1969, achieved some fame during what the media called the Columbus Poltergeist case. In 1984 a series of alleged spontaneous telekinesis events at her home were covered extensively by news media. The coverage included a series of color photographs that were taken by newspaper photojournalist Fred Shannon of The Columbus Dispatch of Columbus, Ohio, USA, which showed her sitting in an armchair with a telephone handset and flexible cable in flight in front of her from left to right. Tina's story, including the now-famous photograph, was featured on a 1993 episode of Unsolved Mysteries.^[1]

The story lost some of its credibility when a video camera that had accidentally been left on by a visiting television station crew revealed Tina knocking over a lamp, an event that had been ascribed to the poltergeist. Tina claimed she had done that to get the reporters to leave. James Randi accused the Resches and parapsychologist William Roll of denying him a look at the phenomena. Randi later obtained a contact sheet of Shannon's photographs which contained evidence of Resch faking the phenomena.^[2]

In 1992, as an adult with the divorced name of Christina Boyer, she was jailed, along with a boyfriend of only a few months, for allegedly being responsible for the death of her three-year-old daughter, who was in the sole custody of the boyfriend at the time. She did not have a trial, but in October 1994 accepted a plea bargain to avoid the possibility of a death penalty. She passed a polygraph examination indicating her innocence less than 24 hours before her plea hearing, and questions have since been raised concerning her convictions on the two counts in her indictment, for which she was sentenced to life plus 20 years in prison.^[3] The type of plea she entered is called an Alford plea, one in which the defendant maintains their innocence but accepts a lesser sentence imposed to avoid the possibility of a harsher one, which in Ms. Boyer's case would have been death. The prosecutor in the case representing the State of Georgia was District Attorney Peter J. Skandalakis of the Coweta Judicial District.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution newspaper gave her the title "Telekinetic Mom" in some of its reporting on the legal issues in 1994.^[4] In 2004, a book about the case Unleashed - Of Poltergeists and Murder: The Curious Story of Tina Resch by Roll and writer Valerie Storey was published which shed some light on the family's and paranormal investigators' side of events.

References

1. ^ "Unsolved Mysteries: Episode #238". http://www.tv.com/unsolved-mysteries/episode-238/episode/174698/summary.html. Retrieved March 27, 2009.  Original U.S. airdate: May 19, 1993.
2. ^ http://www.discord.org/~lippard/wilson-review.html
3. ^ Susan Horn, editor/publisher (January 20, 2008). Carroll Star News. Carrollton, Georgia USA: Georgia Rail and Press Company. "The real story of Christina Resch Boyer: Did a 'perfect storm' of events lead to life imprisonment?" A lengthy front page story with color photo in which the publisher calls for a reexamination of the legal case by the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles.
4. ^ "Atlanta Journal Constitution "Telekinetic Mom" newspaper stories". The Atlanta Journal and The Atlanta Constitution Page Number: A/1 Word Count: 375

   External links

   • Tina Resch - Columbus Poltergeist A research article with photos from the 1984 paranormal case.
   • Tina Resch / Christina Boyer legal case
   • Skeptic's Dictionary on poltergeists and Tina Resch

   Tina Boyer, who 10 years ago was at the center of a media circus over her alleged telekinetic abilities to make objects fly, sat sobbing in the Carroll County courthouse Monday and pleaded guilty in the beating death of her 3-year-old daughter, Amber. Set to go to trial Oct. 31, and possibly facing the death penalty, Boyer chose not to put her faith in the hands of 12 strangers. She pleaded guilty to murder and was sentenced to life in prison. The brutal April 1992, death of the blond-haired, . October 25, 1994. http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Archives?s_hidethis=no&p_product=AT&p_theme=at&p_action=search&p_maxdocs=200&p_field_label-0=Author&p_field_label-1=title&p_bool_label-1=AND&s_dispstring=%22Tina%20Boyer%22%20AND%20date(all)&p_field_advanced-0=&p_text_advanced-0=(%22Tina%20Boyer%22)&xcal_numdocs=20&p_perpage=10&p_sort=YMD_date:D&xcal_useweights=no. Retrieved 2008-02-24. Articles on Tina Resch Boyer in the archives of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution published October 24, 1994.
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   Name	Resch, Tina
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   Date of birth	1969
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