By Tim Binnall
In an unsettling story out of Florida, authorities arrested a self-proclaimed psychic who allegedly robbed a family at gunpoint after she showed up at their home to offer her services. According to a local media report, the frightening case occurred last month in community of Ruskin when Carola Mitchell unexpectedly appeared at the Judith Ramirez's front door. After being allowed inside the residence under the guise of needing a glass of water, the mysterious visitor told the homeowner and her mother-in-law that she was a psychic and subsequently tried to sell them on having a reading with her.
Although Ramirez rebuffed the opportunity to have her fortune told, her mother-in-law was apparently keen to see the future and took the psychic up on her offer. Alas, the reading was quickly revealed to be a ruse as, once left alone with her newfound 'client,' the homeowner says, Mitchell put a gun to the woman's back and revealed that the surprise visit was really a robbery. Revisiting the truly terrifying experience, Ramirez recalled that the psychic threatened to hurt both her and her newborn baby, which understandably prompted her mother-in-law to comply with the woman's devious demand for money. Fearing for their lives, Ramirez said,they handed a staggering $12,000 over to Mitchell, who subsequently fled the scene.
Fortunately, police eventually caught up to the crooked clairvoyant and charged her with kidnapping as well as armed robbery. Authorities suspect that Ramirez and her mother-in-law were not the first to fall victim to the door-to-door psychic as her arrest affidavit indicated that Mitchell told the cops that she regularly makes unannounced visits to residences "to offer her fortune-telling and spirit services." Based on how things unfolded at Ramirez's home, police posited that these 'cold calls' are really "a ruse to gain entry into victim’s homes to commit robberies or thefts of cash and jewelry." With that in mind, the local sheriff's department has asked any other possible victims of the brazen scheme to contact them.