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Croiset the Clairvoyant - Jack Harrison Pollack

The Child in the Culvert

Croiset the Clairvoyant was roused out of bed at his Utrecht home at midnight on September 12, 1960. A stranger was on the telephone calling from the tiny rural town -of Hedel, eighty-five miles away, of which the sensitive had never heard.

“It’s strictly my own idea to call you, Mr. Croiset," apologised M A. van Hal. "My neighbour's seven-year-old son is missing. The boy's name is Antonius Johannes van Eeuwijk.

We have been looking for him for many hours, but do not know whether he got lost, kidnapped, or drowned. Please, can you help us?"

Although still drowsy, the clairvoyant replied instantly, “I see a boy walking- along a wide road. Something frightened him. He went in the water. I see him no longer. There is a mist over the water. I am sorry, the child drowned. His fishing rod lies near him. I have an image of a tunnel . . . search where I said immediately."

Croiset went back to sleep. An hour later, the telephone again awoke him. This time another neighbour, Mr. B. Sonnevelt, who was unaware of the previous call, was phoning from the home of the missing boy’s parents. The burgomaster of Hedel, C. van Werken, was with them.

 Though still not fully awake, Croiset now had a clearer impression: "I see three dikes - they must be roads—coming together…. I see the tunnel again and near it a small storehouse with a steel door. I also see a culvert. There I have my greatest emotion. I see a slope of stone, a lot of concrete, and new cement on a bridge. Near that small tunnel you will find the child lying in the-water . . . his fishing rod is near him."

Burgomaster van Werken, in his official October 5 report, wrote, "…. at daylight we again started dragging near the small tunnel . . . only a few meters away was a culvert below the main state road. They dragged in front of the culvert during the night but not in it; unfortunately . . . the first thing we found was the fishing rod . . near it was the child, completely stiffened, so we may assume he had been dead twelve hours. Mr. Croiset gave exact details of the spot where the child was found in a culvert near a small tunnel."

Three days later, Croiset drove to Hedel with Professor Tenhaeff for a tape-recorded session with the burgomaster and chief constable of the state police, Mr. Trienen. Burgomaster van Werken now added that Croiset was also correct about these landmarks: the three roads coming together, the storehouse and the new concrete bridge, and pointed them out to his Utrecht visitors.